The students are a young, married couple. They have a baby son. They are part of the domestic staff for a family who own a large estate currently undergoing major renovation. They are intelligent and kind people who appreciate the value of hard work and loyalty. They will be a pleasure to work for.

The couple are buying a property in France and need to become fluent in conversational French as soon as possible — they have no facility with the language at present but are highly motivated. They also need help understanding the content of the correspondence relating to the purchase, repairs, and maintenance of their French property.

It is also possible that the 4-year-old son of the estate owner may start to learn French while the Tutor is there.

Although the students work for the same family and are based in the same location, they have very different responsibilities and are therefore available for tutoring at different times. They also have different learning styles that the Tutor will need to accommodate. In addition, the nature of the tutoring role will need to be adjusted when the estate owner and her family are present and this will obviously affect the work patterns, and therefore the teaching opportunities, for both students.

For the wife, the Tutor will need to accompany her on her day-to-day activities and teach her through general conversation. It may be that this needs to be interwoven with a slightly more formal approach from time to time especially regarding vocabulary and grammar, but this formality should be minimised as much as possible. When the estate owner is on site, her time is obviously much less her own, and whatever patterns have developed will need to be adjusted accordingly. The Tutor must be flexible in this respect.

The husband prefers a much more formal, intensive, and highly structured learning environment. The Tutor will need to prepare thoroughly in advance in order that he gets maximum utility from the limited but concentrated tutoring time he will make available.

As well as the language instruction, the Tutor will need to become familiar with the correspondence that has taken place to date and which continues regarding the purchase of the home in Dieppe. Although the most important documents are being translated in France, the couple would like the Tutor to make sure that the information they are being told is accurate and that they are neither missing anything important nor being taken advantage of because of the language barrier.

It is possible that the 4-year-old son of the estate owner will wish to have some beginner French lessons from the Tutor. If this is the case, the Tutor must remember that he or she is contracted to the couple and not to the estate owner.

Finally, although the renovation of the estate is well under way, there is a great deal to do. The building and landscaping work will likely be in progress for a year or two more. While not strictly part of the tutoring remit, it would be advantageous to all concerned if the Tutor were willing to help around the site as a whole when not teaching or doing preparation for teaching.

The ideal Tutor must be fluent in French, conversational and written. He or she will need to have had experience teaching complete beginners, and will need to be both patient and rigorous to fit the academic needs of two very diverse learning styles. They will also need to be highly organised and extremely flexible. Plans can be subject to change at short notice, and this may involve transitions to the several locations mentioned in the overview. A can-do attitude is essential.

When it is finished, the house and the grounds will be lovely. In the meantime it is still, in large parts, a building site. The weather can have a major impact on the family’s plans and work, and on the physical environment, and the Tutor will need to be easygoing and resourceful, willing to muck-in as needed.

The estate is near the small town of Dunn, about 40 minutes drive from Berwick. It is a beautiful but quite isolated location. It is essential that the Tutor can drive and better still if they have their own car. When not tutoring or helping with the site, it could be quite lonely, and so it would be an advantage if the Tutor had his or her own interests that benefit from solitude.

There are many animals on site, including dogs, pigs, and chickens, so the Tutor will need to be comfortable with animals.

The Tutor will typically be working around 7 hours per day, five days per week. Preparation will be in addition to these hours.

Although the Tutor will be entitled to two consecutive days off per week, it is not known at this stage which days these will be. The couple appreciate that as far as possible they will try to keep to a fixed pattern, but because of the unexpected changes of plan created by the plans of their employer these days will not always be the same each week.

If the Tutor is asked to accompany the family when they travel, he or she will have their full expenses covered.

Furnished accommodation with Internet will be provided for the Tutor.

Initially this will be within the couple’s accommodation on site, but later the Tutor may be able to choose from alternative space on site or even somewhere in the local village off-site. The Client will provide all meals.

The atmosphere is familial and it is hoped that the Tutor will soon feel part of this extended family. There is a relaxed manner among the site staff, which the Tutor, while remaining professional, should embrace. However, when the estate owner is on site, the Tutor needs to behave in accordance with appropriate levels of private service professionalism regarding dress code, presence around the grounds, and general conduct.