Language Assistants

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Your role

Contacting your school

Travel, Insurance and Visas

Finding Accommodation

Education and lesson planning

Looking after yourself   

Looking After Yourself

How to solve problems and stay in touch

Personal Safety
You should take the necessary precautions whilst living abroad and find out what local advice is regarding no-go areas during day or night. You will be sent a copy of our Personal Safety leaflet. Please read this carefully and take it with you.

Solving problems
The British Council sends around 2,000 assistants abroad and hosts around 2,700 foreign language assistants in the UK, therefore we rely on you to let us know if you have major problems.
Conditions in schools will differ from those in the UK and you should discuss cultural and school differences with your mentor so as to pre-empt problems or cultural misunderstandings.

You should contact the following (in this order!) when problems occur:

1. your mentor
2. head of department or senior member of staff
3. representative at local education authority, if relevant
4. our partner organisation in the country where you are working
5. the British Council in the UK

You should attempt to solve problems locally before calling your UK university or the British Council in the UK.

Staying in touch
In addition to the teaching discussion list which is part of the LanguageAssistant site, we set up a Discussion List which is an e-group for all English Language Assistants abroad. The purpose of the list is to discuss teaching matters, share teaching experiences, tips, and suggestions for materials. Two online mentors send out useful advice on a regular basis.

All assistants will automatically be subscribed to the e-group with the e-mail address supplied with their application. You may unsubscribe if you do not wish to use this facility, but we recommend you give it a try initially as it is a good support network and an excellent medium for sharing ideas.

We will send you a list of the other assistants appointed to your country and their e-mail addresses so you can stay in touch.

Looking after yourself
The initial settling-in period can be extremely tough. You cannot guarantee to be placed in the same place as other assistants (except in China), and you cannot always depend on teaching staff in your school for a social life, so you need to be resourceful. Whatever your situation, you will not be the only one! We suggest you try the following: -
E-mail other assistants directly or through the e-group   
Contact your predecessor to ask for more advice   
Attend local language classes or evening classes   
Try to get involved with school drama, sport, music clubs   
Ask around for people who want ‘language exchanges’   
Take up all invitations from staff even if they do not sound interesting - you may get to meet someone with similar interests.   

Whatever your situation and however desperate, do not advertise your telephone number in public places! Assistants in rural areas may feel the most isolated. Get in touch with assistants in nearby towns and cities and invite them to visit as they may welcome a break from urban life.

If you have tried all of the above and are still unhappy, talk to your mentor or another teacher in the school. They are not automatically going to realise you are unhappy and may have some useful advice or contacts.