Ways to spend a career-break in France
Monday, 11th January 2010
A career-break is an opportunity to spend time doing something different, to travel and explore different places, to acquire new skills, and meet new people. It might also be an opportunity to try out an new career.
Career-breaks tend to be popular with young professionals in their twenties and thirties, though are certainly not restricted to this age group.
France is quite a popular destination for career-breaks and there are plenty of things you might consider trying there.
If you’re planning to spend a year or so in France it will really help if you can speak French, so one the things you could do is a French language course. There are plenty of schools to choose from all over France, and many run courses combining French lessons and other activities such as sports, cooking, wine tasting, painting and so on – a good opportunity to acquire new skills.
If you already speak French at least fairly well, one way to improve your French and to learn new skills would be to do a course designed for French people. This might be in cooking, dance, music, painting, photography or anything else that really interests you.
You could learn a sport such as skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, scuba diving, kitesurfing, paragliding, surfing or skydiving, and maybe even become an instructor. Courses for winter sports instructors are run by the Base Camp Group in Val d’Isere, for example.
Voluntary work is another possibility. The Service Civil International, for example, runs volunteer programmes in many countries, including France, where volunteers work with people with disabilities and elderly people, and on a variety of environmental and other projects all over France.
Teaching English in France might be a good way to try a different career and to finance your career-break. You could also learn or brush up your French, explore the country, and get to know some of the locals.
There is plenty of seasonal work you could try, including fruit picking and other work on farms, and work in hotels, resaurants and other businesses connected to tourism. Such work tends to by physically demanding and tends to be fairly poorly paid, but can be an interesting experience.
There are plenty of beautiful and interesting places to visit in France and you could spend some or indeed all of your time exploring the country.
Tags: esl, tesol, surfing, celta, language course, course, language, france, tefl, french, english
Posted by Simon Ager 2010-01 under Experience Cultures,
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