ABSTRACT
The exchange I quoted earlier is taken from an interview I conducted in December 2000 with AL, a French national in her mid-20s, who at the time was about to Finish her first term as a newly qualified teacher (NQT) of French in a secondary school in greater London. AL is responding to a question I posed about what she likes and dislikes about her job. She p ro duces a healthy list of negative aspects of her job, such as the educational system in general, the fact that children pass from one year to the next auto matically, the lack of motivation which this system engenders and, finally, the “horrible” National Curriculum .1 Just a few months prior to this conver sation, AL, like a growing num ber of French nationals, had just completed her PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate of Education) course.2 Interested in living in London and improving her English language skills, AL had begun the PGCE in 1999 thinking that she m ight work as a secondary school French teacher for “two or three years,” making it clear to me that she would leave London and go back to France sooner rather than later.
