Teaching internship: from classroom observation to supervised practice

Why spend time in a classroom before choosing

Many people who think about teaching still carry an image from their own school days: a teacher explaining, a board, tests. Moving to the other side of the desk changes the perspective. You have to manage a group of twenty-five people with uneven levels, keep to a timetable, make an idea understandable and respond to difficulties you had never imagined.

An internship first lets you check whether this daily life appeals to you: preparing lessons in the evening, marking, talking with families, working with an education team. It also lets you compare levels (nursery school, primary, lower secondary, general, technological or vocational upper secondary) and sense at which age your energy is most useful.

Finally, it gives you concrete material for a master’s application, a competitive-exam interview or an application for a contract teaching post.

Teacher training in the middle of a transformation

In France, initial teacher training is changing. According to the ministry in charge of higher education, the reform aims to recruit and train primary and secondary teachers and school life advisers (conseillers principaux d’éducation) better. The recruitment competitions are open at bachelor level (bac+3), a multidisciplinary bachelor’s degree preparing for primary teaching is announced for the start of the 2026 academic year, and two master’s years are devoted to initial training.

Within this framework, successful candidates at the bac+3 competition who hold a first-year MEEF master’s join the second-year master in teaching and education professions, known as M2E, as trainee civil servants working half-time. Those who pass a competition at bac+5 become full-time trainee civil servants.

In practice, do not apply stories from former students of the MEEF master to your own situation. Ask your university or your national institute for teacher and education training (INSPÉ) which curriculum, status and placement periods apply to your year.

The kinds of internship on a teaching path

The word “internship” covers several situations that are best kept apart.

• The observation internship: you sit in on lessons without leading them, to understand how a class, a school or a college is organised.
• The supervised practice internship: you take charge of specific moments, with a mentor teacher present in the room or nearby.
• The internship with responsibility: reserved for advanced stages of training or for trainee civil servants, with a class placed in your charge under supervision.
• The taster internship: shorter, intended for upper secondary pupils, undergraduates or adults changing careers.

For each situation, the placement agreement should state the dates, the class, the level, the tutor’s name and what the intern is allowed to do. Do not settle for a verbal agreement with one teacher: the host school must be informed.

Observe learning rather than the teacher’s performance

A beginner intern is tempted to judge a lesson by how comfortable the teacher looks. It is more instructive to ask what the pupils are actually learning. What is the stated aim? What task is set? Which mistakes appear? When does attention drop? Who speaks, for how long, on what subject?

A simple observation grid helps structure your notes: the minute-by-minute outline, the instructions given, the questions asked, pupils’ contributions and the teacher’s adjustments. Add a column for your own hypotheses, then discuss them afterwards with your tutor.

Analysis improves when you compare several classes: the same content, two teachers, two atmospheres. You then see more clearly what belongs to the subject taught, to group management, to personality and to preparation.

Preparing and delivering a lesson with a tutor

When the time comes to teach, preparation counts for more than improvisation. With your tutor, start from the curriculum for the level, the teacher’s own progression and what pupils are assumed to know. Set one single aim, worded as a pupil activity (“identify the conjugated verbs in a short text”), then plan the lesson opening, the main task, the written record and a closing review.

Anticipate likely difficulties, prepare help for pupils who struggle and an extension for those who move fast. Ask the tutor to read through your outline, to say where they will be during the lesson and to give you spoken feedback the same day.

After the lesson, write down what happened without trying to justify yourself: the gap between what was planned and what took place is the best learning material.

A worked example, for illustration only

Imagine an undergraduate doing a three-week internship in a class of twenty-four pupils aged nine to ten (CM1 in the French system). In the first week, she watches four French lessons and two maths lessons, noting instructions and recurring errors. In the second week, she leads the morning welcome and a reading workshop with six pupils while the teacher moves around the room.

In the third week, she prepares with the teacher a forty-five-minute lesson on fractions, from the aim to the written record. At the end, she writes a one-page analysis: what she planned, what happened, two hypotheses about pupils’ errors and one change for the next lesson.

This scenario is fictional and its durations are rounded; depending on the course, the education authority and the school, the real arrangements differ.

School setting, confidentiality and image rights

A classroom is a protected space. Pupils’ names, difficulties, family situations and results do not leave the school. In your notes, replace first names with initials or numbers, keep no pupil exercise book or paper without permission and use no photo or video.

Also respect how the school works: timetables, internal rules, safety instructions, movement around the building and relations with parents. An intern does not contact a family on his or her own initiative and does not comment on a pupil’s situation in front of other adults outside the planned meeting.

Finally, keep the neutrality expected of an adult in a classroom: no personal stance on sensitive subjects and no promises made to pupils in the school’s name.

Training outside the state school system

Teaching is not limited to state education. Private schools under contract with the state, notably in Catholic education, have their own recruitment and training routes. There are also independent schools without state contract, French schools abroad, tutoring organisations, adult-training centres and community education associations.

For these routes, internships and work-study follow other rules: qualification requirements, trial periods, type of contract and support from a tutor. Ask the organisation which status is offered to you, especially if you are paid to lead teaching hours.

The continuing-training resources of the networks (for example, the bodies that train teachers) are also useful for going deeper into a theme: assessment, teaching pupils who do not speak French at home, digital learning tools, pupils with special needs.

Common mistakes of future teachers

The most widespread mistake is talking too much. A beginner explains at length to feel reassured, at the expense of the time when pupils actually work. Next come too many objectives, forgetting the written record, too few variations for pupils in difficulty and approximate time management.

Other mistakes concern attitude: arriving at the last minute, not greeting the team, contradicting the tutor in front of the class, treating lower secondary pupils as friends, or using your phone. In your review notebooks, avoid final judgements about a pupil and prefer the facts you observed.

To make progress, ask for a weekly meeting with your tutor and keep a logbook. It will help you prepare for a competition interview, support a master’s application and choose the situations you want to explore further.