NationStates Jolt Archive

I came across this interview of an American woman who attempted to pass the agrégation d'anglais, the most prestigious competitive recruitment exam to become an English teacher over here. Since I passed the agrégation for English two years, I was particularly interested to hear her views on why the exam doesn't make sense in some ways, but it's interesting for anyone who wants a glimpse of how the French system works.

I had my own gripes with it, which she doesn't mention - namely, that there are strict expectations in terms of form, not only content, when writing a dissertation or doing an oral presentation. I was heavily penalised for daring not to conform precisely to the required form, and I was quite pissed off about it for a long while. (They're obsessed with the idea that any dissertation, presentation, etc... should be in three parts. I prefer to do stuff in two parts, so I thought 'What the heck' and did it my way. I know that the content of what I did was excellent (sorry if that sounds immodest) because I'd practised over and over with several different highly qualifiied university lecturers assessing my work and telling me I'd get top marks in terms of content. I was very heavily penalised because of form, and that was confirmed to me later.)

Anyway... This is just for those who are interested in France and our local quirks and weirdness. ;)

I'm also interested to know how teacher recruitment (at university level) happens in other countries.

I have a friend who is thinking of becoming a teacher, and was trying to decide whether to teach French in England or English in France. It looks like he'll be staying here, because the French exam is just so tough and expensive; he also says that most of the French people are coached to pass it, and there is no way he'll be able to get that coaching.