How I got my job: Sophie Kerman

Age: 22

Home: Paris, originally from New York City area
Job: English teaching assistant in a French high school outside Paris

Salary: 780 euros a month (about $1,050) after taxes

Education: Bachelor's degree in sociology and anthropology, minor in French from Carleton College (Northfield, Minn.)

Living arrangements? I'm on my own in a "chambre de bonne" [small studio] rented out by an Irish family who lives downstairs for whom I baby-sit.

Dream job? That's why I'm here; I don't know!

How'd you get the job? I was looking for things to do after graduation and I didn't really have a plan, so I thought it would be fun to spend a year in Paris.

What do you do every day at work? I have 12 hours per week of classes, condensed into three days a week. My job is to get them to talk, so I come up with games or quizzes or debates -- things to get the conversation going.

Favorite part? I have one class of four who study economics and social sciences ... they just want to converse in English... and learn some American songs.

Hardest part? Getting the lower-level English-speakers to talk. Some of them think they're too cool for it; others are kind of shy.

What surprises you about living in France? How incredibly frustrating all the bureaucracy is. Looking for an apartment, waiting in line to see a tiny little closet ... going to three different social security agencies to figure out what to do, then realizing I can't do anything.

Does anything surprise you about your students? It's a lot more racially integrated than American high school. You don't see the ethnically segregated cliques that you do in American high school.

What motivates your students? Some of them are motivated on their own -- a couple wanted to be able to read books in English. There's a sense that English is really necessary, and in some ways it's not a good thing ... especially with the French being so proud of their language, I get the feeling some of them feel like they're being oppressed by the English language.

What are your students' impressions of the United States? They are really pro-Obama. They also think it's cool that I'm from New York ... maybe because it's one place they've heard of. We had a question-and-answer session and a lot of them asked me if I had a gun. ... I don't think they were serious ... I'm pretty sure....

HILARY BRUECK

Hilary Brueck is a 2008 journalism graduate of the University of Minnesota who's teaching English in France.