Location

During my year abroad I will be working as a Teaching Assistant in Annecy. When applying for the British Council I had to chose 3 different académies to be placed in. I chose Besançon (middle marker), Grenoble (bottom marker) and Reims (top marker).

I chose these places because I've never been to eastern France before, except for a skiing holiday or two when I was younger, but I don't remember all that much about it. I think the culture will be different to the north-west, where I lived during my gap year, but also different to the south, where life is more Mediterranean. I assume things will be much more influenced by the nearby countries, Germany, Italy and Switzerland.

A few months after submitting my application, I received an email telling me that I'd been accepted by the French authorities and that I'd been allocated to the académie of Grenoble. This means I could be in one of 5 département (kind of like counties in England). The departments are Ardèche, Drome, Isère, Savoie and Haute-Savoie. Annecy is in the region of Haute-Savoie, quite close to the border with Switzerland, in the French Alps.