I will be updating the website over the next few days, so please be patient! There may be some weirdness, but we'll get through it! I am starting the maintenance today (June 22) and will update you when everything is all done and ready -- or when all hell breaks loose and the site is totally broken. Either/Or...
If you registered on the forums, you should have received an e-mail with your username and password. Please remember to forward this e-mail to Lee Ann or Jennie (by hitting reply) in order for your account to be activated. We receive dozens of registrations everyday and the majority are spam, so we have to activate legitimate accounts individually.
If your e-mail does not go through, you can also ask for help at the Assistants in France 2011-12 Facebook group, as Jennie (the administrator Nadjezhda on the forums) is also a member.
The Cultural Services of the French Embassy in Washington, D.C., is having a cocktail reception for alumni of the Teaching Assistant Program in France on Thursday, March 10, 2011, from 6pm to 8pm. This event is an opportunity to meet and mingle with other former teaching assistants living in the Washington, D.C. area. Organized with the support of the Embassy's Regional Department of Economic Affairs, the reception will also be a chance to network with representatives from a number of French and French-oriented businesses and organizations operating in the U.S. and overseas.
For more information, please see the Alumni of the Teaching Assistant Program in France - USA Facebook group.
If you are currently an assistant in France and you would like to renew for a second year, the form is available online. You cannot change académies, but you can request to change school(s) and/or the city. You will need to get it signed by the chef d'établissement before sending it to the rectorat or CIEP. The deadline is March 14, 2011.
Even though the form says that you will receive an e-mail in June, do not count on this. Many times assistants do not hear anything concrete until September or even October because new assistants have priority over renewing assistants, and so the rectorat must wait until a new assistant resigns before offering the position to a renewing assistant.
The application for the American program is due tomorrow, January 1, 2011!
If you're having trouble with the online application, call or e-mail Carolyn Collins at the French Embassy in DC. Also check out the TAPIF page on Facebook - a lot of questions have been answered there.
Good luck!
Applications for the assistant program for all the Anglophone countries become available in October.
The American program made their application available as of October 11 and it is completely online: www.tapif.org The deadline is January 1, 2011.
For other countries, a list of links to the various French embassy sites as well as the number of positions available for each country can be found here:
English Language Teaching Assistantship in France for 2011-2012 School Year
The majority of assistants will not have to pay a fee in order to get their visa validated by the OFII after arrival in France. However, assistants who are also students, and who obtained student visas in their home countries, will have to pay a fee of 55€. Don't forget to get your passport stamped at the airport when you arrive in France! You will also need a copy of this stamp when you do the validation, to prove your date of entry into France.
Summary of visa validation fees for different statuses:
340€ for visiteur and conjoint de français
70€ for salarié
55€ for étudiant
free for travailleur temporaire (this includes assistants de langue)
If you are able to renew your visa/change your visa into a Carte de Séjour for the second year, then the renewal fee is 110€.
