Welcome to the 2019-2020 list of English lecteur / lectrice and maître de langue positions at French universities!
Update: The 2020-2021 job listings are now available!
If you have finished at least one year of a Master’s degree, you may be eligible to apply to teach English at the university level in France. Please read through the English lecteur / lectrice information and check out last year’s job listings to get an idea of when most deadlines are and which universities were hiring. I’ll continue to add new job listings to this post as I receive them, so be sure to check back often. If your university has a job listing to advertise, feel free to e-mail me at ielanguages@gmail.com.
IMPORTANT REMINDER: Lecteurs/lectrices work up to 300 hours of travaux pratiques (TP) per year, or possibly up to 100 hours of travaux dirigés (TD). TP is generally labs/workshops/testing or other classes that require very little preparation, while TD refers to actual lectures, which obviously require more preparation. For lecteur/lectrice positions, you should not be asked to work more than 100 TD hours per year. Maîtres de langue work 288 hours of TP or 192 hours of TD. Some universities have been hiring lecteurs and forcing them to work 200 TD hours so they only have to pay the lecteur salary instead of the maître de langue salary. In January 2014, Heike Romoth published an article in SNESUP (bottom of page 17 in the PDF) criticizing this illegal practice. The official décret states that “Les lecteurs de langue étrangère assurent un service annuel en présence des étudiants de 300 heures de travaux pratiques. Leur service peut comporter des travaux dirigés sans que leur nombre d’heures annuelles de travaux dirigés puisse être supérieur à 100.” If you are hired as a lecteur/lectrice, please make sure the university is not exploiting you by making you do more work for less pay. This has been a problem mostly at universities in and around Paris. Read this comment from a former lecteur on how they handled this particular problem.
Positions already filled / deadlines have passed
Updated July 4:
If anyone’s still looking for a lecteur post at the Faculté des Sciences et Technologies (FST) in Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy in Lorraine, send me your cv+cover letter EN FRANCAIS as quickly as possible – our returning lectrice has got a post as a doctoral candidate and can’t do her second year.
Please send to me julie.saubion@univ-lorraine.fr as soon as you can!
There’s also a post for a contractuel for 1 year up for grabs. If you have working papers already you can apply for the contractuel post or the lecteur post. If you don’t then only the lecteur post is open to you.
The University of Lorraine in Nancy is hiring one lecteur/lectrice d’anglais to begin September 1, 2019. Send lettre de motivation and CV in French, copies of diplomas, and a letter of recommendation (in French or English) to nicolas.molle@univ-lorraine.fr by May 10, 2019.
The University of Toulon is hiring one lecteur/lectrice and one maître de langue to begin September 1, 2019 within UFR Lettres, Langues et Sciences Humaines. Deadline to apply is May 14, 2019.
The University of Angers is looking for a Maître de Langue in English, for its Law department. Start date: September 1st 2019. You need to be either a native speaker of English or have a near-native command of the language, speak decent French, and preferably have a Master’s Degree (or some other form of training) in Law, or at least have a keen interest in judicial issues, to apply for this position. You will be required to teach across the range from L1 to M2 and be in charge of developing all or part of the course material. Past experience of course development is therefore greatly appreciated.
To apply send your CV and cover letter to lynda.lecaudey@univ-angers.fr and / or sonia.bruzac@univ-angers.fr before May 26th 2019. Please feel free to pass the word if you know of anyone who might be interested.
Nantes University is recruiting lecteurs/lectrices for both the Languages department in Nantes (students specialising in Business or general English studies) and for the La Roche sur Yon campus (students specialising in Business, Law or Hospitality). To apply for either or both positions, please send a CV and cover letter in English, plus the contact details of a referee, to Jackie.baker@univ-nantes.fr by March 22nd 2019.
La Faculté de Médecine Montpellier-Nîmes recrute actuellement des anglophones ayant un niveau Master 1 (validation d’une année post-licence) pour un poste de lecteur pour l’année universitaire 2019-20 avec un contrat de 12 mois à partir du 1/10/19. 300 heures d’enseignement (TP) par année universitaire. Le profil de ce poste nécessite un bon niveau de français.
Envoyer un CV et une lettre de motivation (les deux documents en français et en anglais) par email à :
The Université de Picardie Jules Verne at Beauvais is hiring one maître de langue to begin in September 2019. Deadline to apply is March 15, 2019.
The Université d’Angers was hiring one lecteur/lectrice d’anglais to teach students at both Bachelor and Master levels, mostly in Tourism studies. Deadline to apply was January 31 (but position was filled before this date.)
Other Options to Teach English Abroad
If you are not qualified to teach at the university level, consider the Teaching Assistant Program in France to teach in the French public school system. The contract is shorter and the pay is less, but it is good experience if you plan to move up to teaching at the university level later on. Deadlines are from December to March, depending on your nationality. There are also other opportunities to teach English in Europe or Latin America if you would like to teach in other countries.
If you are an American citizen with a Master’s degree in TESOL/linguistics, you can also apply to the English Language Fellow Program to teach English overseas for 10 months. The locations change every year, but there are many options available and the stipend is $30,000.
