Au Pairing in Paris

As an Applied Languages Student I had to do a Year Abroad (part in a Francophone country, part in a Hispanic country), so I set my mind on spending the entire year not at uni, but working. With this in mind, one of the best opportunities offered to me for my Francophone placement was to work as an Au Pair (Language Ambassador), in Paris. I accepted this offer and shortly became a new member of the company (I'm not going to name any names). Now, au pairing on the whole has evolved to be an ever growing industry, accumulating popularity by the second (I believe on a global scale but I'm not too sure!), so if you're stuck on finding employment in a foreign country (especially if you're in the EU or the UK) you're best bet is to seek employment as an au pair / language ambassador through an orgnasation. Here's why....

Word of warning I'm going to speak from my own experience, obviously not every au pairing / language ambassador organisation will be the same so please be sure to do your reseach on the field if you're seriously intrested in it.

1) Company Benefits

Your au pairing / language ambassador orgnisation will most likely offer a variety of benefits including: covering you travel expenses, mobile phone bill, supplying you with a phone, offering you language lessons (for example French lessons if you were to au pair in France), insurance (for example if you were to accidently knock a vase over in the family's home dont worry! You're covered), help you with finding accomodation, or setting up a bank account. Benefits, which if you were to au pair solo would probably not be avaliable to you. Another obvious plus is that they will have an infinate amount of possible families for you to work with (which believe me would be hard to gain if you were to go solo) as these orgnisations are not only familiar, but also have a respectful upstanding reputation, and growing popularity amongst the population of the country you choose to work in (something which you unfortunately are unlikely to have).

2) Hours and Pay

As an au pair / language ambassador you can expect your contract hours to be pretty flexiable. For example your work days will most likely start around 3pm-4pm and end at around 7pm, so it's not too demanding. Speaking as a student, the pay is really good, and because of the flexible hours you could even do this job as part time work alongside your studies (that's if you really wanted to go uni aboard). The pay that I was offered for example was at £10.45 per hour, which in my eyes was great!

3) Perks of the job

The benefits of being an au pair / language ambassador are endless. You get free food! When it comes to meal and snack time your included too, snacks are always in abundance (at least in the houses that I worked in they were) and when I had to cook for meal time I always made a plate for myself too - saving you a bit on your food shop!! What I never did though was eat or drink the last of something, for example if there were 3 bananas in the fruit bowl I'd always leave 1. Speaking on an emotional level, you get to learn so much about yourself, and the kids teach you so much too, in 2 senses. The first being that during your with them they reveal a side to you that you never knew before; for example, for me one of the many things I learnt was how to be sensitive yet authoritive at the same time. The second is that whilst you're teaching another human being what's right and wrong you start to question your own behaviour, actions, attitudes, and if your morals and reasoning aline with what you preach; so in a way they retune your harmony (that might be more of a romance language based saying), they realine your soul? (you get what I mean).

4) The real deal

Speaking from my experience, the kids that you'll be working with each have their own unique personality, some might be more difficult than others but each come with their own 'problems' for example: not wanting to hold hands when outside (in the real world), or not wanting to share with their siblings, or having a 2 hour temper tantrum for no reason. Either way these are completely normal and to be expected, after all we were all children once (some of us still are).

In conclusion au pairing or being a language ambassador aboard is a pretty good experience, and you earn good money in the mean time so it's worth considering, especially if you're looking to work on your Year Aboard.

I HOPE THIS HELPS!