Frequently Asked Questions – Babysitting jobs in France
How To Find / Get Babysitting Jobs in France
Find the answers to the most frequently asked questions about our English speaking jobs in Paris and 18 other French cities.
1. I’m Interested – How Can I Apply?
It’s really easy – all you have to do is go to our apply page and then fill out the form. You’ll be asked about when you’ll be in France, what your schedule looks like, and a little bit about yourself – plus, you can even apply if you’re not in France yet. And thanks for your interest – we love to see it.
Apply online here!
2. Do I Need To Speak French?
No. We accept all levels of French skills from complete beginners to fluent speakers; “bonjour” and a lot more, if you will. If your French is perfect, all the better.
3. How Can I Survive in France If I Don’t Speak Any French?
Don’t panic! We’ve got a supportive HR team who can help you at with all of the administrative things that come your way when you move to France, and you can learn French with us along the way. Plus, you’ll be joining a community of English speakers from all over the world so you won’t be on you own from the minute you get here!
4. How Can I Learn French Or Improve My French?
You will hear so much French from the children that you’ll be surprised about how much it will improve your vocabulary and language skills.
Picture the scene: you’re looking through a book about birds with your 5-year-old French child, and she points at an owl on the page and says “Regarde! C’est un hibou” (Look! It’s an owl). And then you say back to her “Yes that’s right! It’s an owl. Can you say owl?” And just like that, you now know the French word “hibou”, and she knows the English word “owl”. Amazing.
But the French learning fun doesn’t stop there. We also offer free French lessons to all of our working instructors so you can learn French while you’re here with us to help you through your journey through French language and culture – considering we’re a company who offer jobs in France for English speakers, it makes sense that we help you out with that. We really have thought of everything.
5. Do I Need To Have Teaching Experience?
No. We provide you with full training, teaching materials and fun lesson plans, so absolutely no formal teaching experience is required. It really is that easy.
You won’t have to worry about how to teach English to a French child, because everything you need will already be right at your fingertips, because we will give it to you.
6. Do I Need To Have Childcare Experience?
Yes. But nobody thinks children are aliens, right? All things like doing tutoring, babysitting, working at a summer camp, being a scout leader, or coaching a young sports team are all fantastic experience, and as long as you can give us a few references, you’re good to go!
7. How Good Does My English Need To Be?
You need to be a native English speaker, or to be completely bilingual with English as one of your languages, or to have very, very advanced fluency.
Basically, in order for the language learning of the child to work with our unique method, they need to be hearing English regularly from a native speaker, so they can get used to hearing the sounds, pronunciation, and sentence structure that a native English speaker uses.
Think about how you learnt your native language as a child: was it by sitting in front of a desk with a book open? Or was it from your parents and your friends speaking it to you all the time and you just picked it up along the way? Spoiler: it was the latter, unless you’re Tarzan. We endeavour to make the language learning as natural as possible.
8. Do I Need To Work Every Day?
No. Remember, this is a part-time job, and we make it as flexible as possible to fit you and your needs. You can work from 5 to 25 hours, and all you need is to be available at least 2 days a week in the after-school period, but generally your work schedule will be built around you!
Are you only free on Monday afternoons and Wednesdays? That’s cool, we’ll match you with a family who’ll want you at those times. It’s that simple!
9. Can This Be A Full-time Job?
No. It’s a part-time job, so you can work from 5 hours a week to 25, and you are the one who decides how much you want to work. As a part-time job, it’s a fantastic way to earn extra money! An extra 100€ a week, for example, goes a long way for a student.
10. Can This Be Just A Summer Job?
No. You need to work for us for at least 4 months or a whole semester, and the longer you can stay, the better! Children get attached to you quickly, so that’s why we need you to commit for a little bit.
11. When Do I Have To Be Available?
You need to be available at least2 days a week in the after-school period starting from about 4pm, and/or throughout the day on Wednesdays and/or Saturdays. Other than this requirement, our schedules are mainly flexible and will be built around you! This requirement is simply in place so that we can match you with a family and you’re available when the kids are too.
12. Do You Have Any Other Positions Available?
Yes! We hire full-time interns in our Paris office (which, by the way, is in the gorgeous area Le Marais) every year. There are four different types of position available and we give them to hard-working and quick-thinking students on their year abroad or placement year. Read all about them here.
13. Do I Need To Have A Driving License & How Do I Get To My Sessions?
No, you don’t need a driving licence. You can always get to your sessions by using public transport – trains, busses, metros, trams, or even by bike. And the good news is that we will help you out with the cost of this! We partially reimburse your travel pass and / or a bike subscription, so in Paris, for example, these would be the Navigo pass for the busses and metros and the Velib’ bike service if you fancy being on wheels.
So, for example, if you get matched with a family that’s a little bit further away than is convenient for you, you can get a transport bonus for your time riding out of town.
14. Is This Job Only For English Speakers?
No. Even though we’ve been rambling on about English this whole time, we also offer the same job in several languages: Arabic, English, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian, spreading the language love to French families in 9 languages.
The same idea applies to all of them, though: you need to be a native speaker in one of these languages in order to be an instructor for it (or bilingual or have a very advanced fluency) for the teaching process to work for the child.
15. Do I Have To Be Good At Singing & Dancing?
No. Look, we’re not asking you to be Beyoncé. But you remember being a child, right? Singing nursery rhymes and doing head-shoulders-knees-and-toes is a fun time, so it’s a great way to both teach the child and have fun with them if you sing and dance together, however out of tune and badly co-ordinated you may be. It’s the enthusiasm that counts.
16. Do I Have To Be Good At Drawing Or Painting?
No. Once again, we’re not asking you to be the next Monet. But doing arts and crafts with the children is a super fun way to learn – it’s actually been proven that even cutting and sticking is a fantastic learning method for building connections in the brain. And if it just so happens that you can draw a cat and teach your child “Look! This is a cat, can you draw a cat too?”, then that’s a marvellous bonus as well.
17. Where Can I Work?
Babylangues operates in 18 different cities throughout France: can we have a drum roll please? …. Here they are:
Aix-en-Provence, Angers, Bordeaux, Dijon, Grenoble, La Rochelle, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Nantes, Nice, Paris, Poitiers, Rennes, Strasbourg, Toulouse, and last but not least, Tours.
So, you can work in any of these French towns and cities, and more specifically, our Match team will match you with a family that you can get to easily within your city.
18. How Much Is The Pay?
In 17 of our French cities, the pay is 10.45€ net per hour for a regular session – “net” means after tax, so it’s the actual sum you get (it’s 13.25€ brut, i.e. before tax).
Then you can get up to 16.50€ net (20.85€ brut) per hour for an “atelier” workshop, which is a more formal, structured, learning experience.
In Paris where everything is a little pricy, the pay is 10.45-11.00€ per hour net (13.98€ brut) for a regular session to 16.50€ net (20.85€ brut) per hour for an “atelier” workshop.
19. What Kind Of Contract Will I Get?
You will get a CDI contract. CDI stands for “Contrat à Durée Indeterminée”, which is the simplest and safest form of work contract in France. It’s a good one to have.
20. Is Pay Weekly Or Monthly?
Pay is distributed monthly – it’s always monthly in France!
21. Do I Have To Be A Student To Do This Job?
No! We hire students, expats, and everyone else. You’re all welcome.
22. How Does The Process Work?
So, it’s pretty straightforward, here’s how it goes:
1. You apply (online here)
2. You get invited for an interview (in our Paris office or over Skype)
3. You are put into the hands of our lovely Match team who find you a family
4. You agree to meet a family for a first meeting
If everyone’s happy, you start working with the family right away! And you’ll get your training, materials, lesson plans and everything you need.
23. How Can I Meet People My Age If I’m Working With Children?
This is where the magic happens: working with Babylangues means being part of the Babylangues community. And it’s a very cool community, too!
Our instructors are a beautiful, brilliant, diverse bunch who come from all over the world, and you can meet them all by joining our Instructors Community group on Facebook, or by coming to one or several of our many parties and socials.
24. Do I Have To Have A Visa?
Yes! We can only accept your application if you have a valid visa, and we cannot sponsor any visas.
If you’re a citizen of the EU, then your citizenship gives you the right to work.
If you’re an American student with a student visa, you are eligible to work too! We have been in partnerships with two American study abroad programs, MICEFA and CEA, for a number of years now.
For all other visa enquiries, we have a dedicated HR team who can help you out with questions you might have about your visa.
25. Do I Have To Be in France Right Now?
No! If you’re already in France and are ready to get going, then after a successful application and being matched, you can start immediately.
But guess what? If you’re not in France yet, that’s ok too! Say, if you’re coming on your year abroad in September but you’re already thinking about joining us and you apply in March, we can still recruit you and you can start when you get here!
26. Do I Have To Live With The Family?
No! You commute to their house to help the children learn in their own familiar environment, but you definitely won’t be living there.
That doesn’t mean you won’t get to know them and their family life though! You’ll be forming a great relationship with the family, so it’s not uncommon for them to invite you for dinner now and again, and after you leave France it’s very common for our instructors and families to stay in touch for years. It’s a fantastic way to get involved with real French culture and daily life!
27. How Will I Be Able To Find Somewhere To Live?
Ah yes, the age-old classic of finding your way through l’administration française and finding yourself a place to live. It’s not always an easy task, especially for a foreigner in France, but we do our very best to make the process less daunting. For all of our instructors, we can offer you an extensive accommodation guide which has everything you need to know about what options you have when it comes to finding a place to live.
Trust us, reading that document is a lot quicker than learning the hard way how and where to find a room!
28. Do I Have To Have A French Bank Account?
We can help you open a bank account! You do need to have a European bank account which has an IBAN, but we make it as easy as possible for you with our whole banking guide to help you out, as well as our dedicated HR team who can give you a hand whenever you need.
29. How Can I Get A Free Trip Away?
With our referral program! When you share the love and refer your friends to come and start working for us, you have the chance to get your hands on some great travel experiences, including the chance to get a trip for two people to a European capital city at a value of 600€! Read more about our fabulous referral program here.
30. Can I Work For More Than One Family?
Yes! If you want to and you have the time, you can work with more than one family and get to know and teach quite a few children. The more the merrier, right?
31. How Many Children Can I Work With At One Time?
Most of our instructors work with one or two children at a time, but every now and again we work with families who have more than two children – but remember, our Match team will find a family that suits you!
32. What Age Children Do You Work With?
We work with children between the ages of 3 and 12 for our regular sessions, but we also run workshops for babies and toddlers with the parents. Don’t panic! You’ll never be in charge of a child under the age of 3.
33. Do I Have To Find My Own Family To Work With?
No! Our amazing Match team will find you a family. If you’re in Paris, they can do it with you right here in our office, or if not they’re happy to do it all using the wonders of the telephone. Plus, if you want to see which families we have available then you can have a look yourself on our browse jobs page.
34. Do I Have To Have A French Phone Number?
No. We offer all our instructors a free mobile phone with a French number! Having a French phone number can be extremely useful for getting around some administrative rules in France.
35. When Can I Apply?
Today! We recruit all year round so you can apply whenever you want! Like we said, it’s as simple as filling in that application online to start your experience with Babylangues.
