I might do, Catharine - but the Charente is a poor place. Were I in Paris, I guess I would have a wider client base. I charge more for groups which has always struck me as weird because I’m still doing the same work… what gets me is when people want to pay less. What with driving and prep, sometimes they’re offering minimum wage… my cousin is a hairdresser, charges 38€ a cut, can do 3 an hour and has her basic hairdressing qualifications (and a whole lot else!) and it outrages me that people will pay more for a hair cut than for education. C’est la vie!
Sab,
I just had a look at your blog. It’s hysterical! You should revive it, but writing like that must take alot of time.
@ Emma - you SHOULD charge 30 - especially with your experience. I do and offer a bulk discount.
Sab, I hold you responsible for my sudden blood pressure spike and the thumping I’m now doing on my keyboard!
Plus - Jesus wept! 30€ an hour??! I charge 20€ max and I’ve got a BA Hons in English, a PGCE, a Masters and 15 years English teaching experience, including being English advisor for a local authority… I write English textbooks and I’m a senior GCSE examiner… O, mon dieu!! Maybe I should put my price up?!
Hi Sab - oh, how silly of me!! French Admin - piece of p*ss - n’est-ce pas?? 
Best get on with it then!!! Thanks!
Hi Rosemary - got my fingers burnt being self-employed before Auto-entrepreneur regime started - cos was only doing a little self employed work and ended up owing half my meagre S/E earnings in cotisations. When I started working for this company, didn’t know how much work I would get from them, so Société de Portage was a sensible option. With the introduction of the Auto-entrepreneur system, the increase in my hours and (a major point) the lack of clarity/ concern from société de portage, was only a matter of time…
Hi Hilary. I’m curious as to why you’ve switched from working through a ‘société de portage’ to being an auto-entrepreneur? Is it so that you can stop sharing your hard won earnings, or was there a reason why you couldn’t immediately set up on your own from the beginning? Thanks, R
Oh come come Hilary - French administration - onerous, don’t be silly… 
Yes, you have to do this, and I’ve actually got my secr… I mean my partner to do this, as she’s sh*t hot on admin, but yes, it’s a form and you’ve gotta do it, or they’ll get you one day.
Once you’ve got all the doc together, and have some impressive sounding diplomas, plus the all important first contract to show them you should be fine. Good luck!
THanks for the replies, this is about a number (Numero d’agrement) and nothing to do with TEFL certificate, which I have or Cert Ed, which I have, just for the record. As Sab says, it’s for working with large companies who need to prove their training budget is being spent on training. I’ve been working for this company via a ‘société de portage’ but now I’m registered as an auto-entrepreneur I can work directly for the company once I have this number. Just got a copy of the first contract in my own name, so think I just need to fill in the form and send it back. having had a quick scan of the document and adjoining ‘help’ notes, I understand I have to make an annual declaration of my teaching activity - is this something you do Sab and how onerous is it?
Thanks again - Hilary
It’s probably just me Helen who smiled at the probably unintentional insinuation that those who have the TEFL Certificate are not actually qualified to teach. I could comment further on that but I think I’d better keep my mouth shut for the moment
I’ve also worked for the Chambre de Commerce, and the one I was in didn’t differ much from any private language school…
In fact this famous number isn’t necessary if you’re not going to try and get contracts from fairly big companies as an independent entity.
One of the main reasons big companies need their language lesson suppliers to have it is so that they can spend their training budget on it and get some advantages for doing so, but they can only do this if the organisation they are spending their training budget on is official, and not a Chinese massage parlour in disguise. So you’ll probably have to prove in some way or other that you are what you say you are. I showed them my Cambridge Diploma in teaching English to adults, which they accepted.
You also need to have your first contract, which can be a bit of a catch-22 situation, if you think about it, but luckily some companies understand this and will give you some sort of statement of ‘intention to employ’ if you don’t have the number yet. In the end they don’t really care if you don’t have the number before you start teaching their employees, because you can teach all you like, but you won’t get paid by them until you get the number. Taste that bitter-sweet irony, and someone chuckling away to themselves in some office somewhere…
In any case, if you’re employed by any proper language company they’ll have the number already, so you don’t have to.
About the TEFL certificate, that’s a whole other discussion. As a TEFL Certificate trainer, our general feeling in the profession is would you want to work for a company who would employ you without it? That doesn’t take into account extenuating circumstances like tons of experience or equivalent qualifications of course. Any reputable language company these days should demand at least a minumum of the certificate or its equivalent if they are going to send you into other professional companies. They’d be silly not to. Or cowboys. Or girls.
I work for the Chambre de Commerce - some of my colleagues have the TEFL qualification, while others like me are qualified to teach.
Either is acceptable in this organisation.
I’d been teaching for years without the TEFL. Pretty much snake oil. Most employers aren’t asking for it that I know of. If you have a degree and a little nepotism doesn’t hurt, you can work without it. I never bothered getting mine.
I’ve never heard of this, but I’d be interested as well. I know many English teachers here in France and none have ever spoken about such a certificate or recognition.
Can we have some more info please? A link? I’ve just applied for a ‘number’ but I think it is a different one…Thanks guys!
Hi Hilary - I think I have the number you’re talking about. I needed it in order to basically work for myself as an English teacher / trainer / whatever. In fact, you can set up as an English teacher as an autoentrepreneur without it I think, but what I really needed it for was to be ‘employable’ by a big company who required all their outsourcers to be officially recognised and bona fide, and having this number is supposed to guarantee this. It’s a bit of a pain though, to be honest. How’s it going?
Hi there! Has anyone any experience of applying for a “numero d’agremont de formateur.” Have all the forms here, but could do with some moral support!!
Thanks - Hilary
Hi Wendy and Sab (or are you Will?!)
I got the RSA DipTEFLA (precursor to the DELTA) in 1998 and I’ve taught in continental Europe, Japan, Ireland and the UK. I’d love to do the course again - I’ve done such different types of teaching since doing it that I’m sure I’d learn alot second time around. I could be tempted to do a bit of research, particularly in teaching pronunciation, but I’d like to get into the classroom again first!
Thanks for the pointer to TEFL Toulouse - I was already aware of Jonathan Davies from some research I did before coming to France and his links to the Cambridge Centre. I got the impression that it is a language school that likes to do things properly, and I’ll be following up the ateliers pedagogiques which I’ve just found on the CC home page. I’m really missing teaching. . . !
You can learn to teach TEFL via distance learning or in the UK with TEFL Earth http://www.teflearth.com/
Have you got the TEFL Cert Rosemary? Sorry if you’ve already said so. There’s a good guy in Toulouse running a TEFL Cert course. I took over from him as course director at a TEFL Cert course near Paris for a couple of years. His school is called TEFL Toulouse.