Building a New Life in France and Pivoting Careers

This month´s MumAbroad newsletter was written by Rebecca Gulka, academic coach and founder of Teaching With Class. 

When Rebecca’s international teaching career brought her to France to build a new life with her husband and stepson, she knew that her diverse classroom experience would shape whatever came next. Noticing a big gap in the market, she founded Teaching With Class, offering a personalised, fully online English Literacy education tailored to students’ unique needs.

Today, the Teaching With Class community has evolved into something extraordinary. Rebecca has supported hundreds of families across France and beyond, helping them not just with English literacy learning, but the entire journey of raising confident, bilingual children in an international world. This is her story.

Why Move to France for a Career Change?

If you had asked me, 10 years ago, if being an entrepreneur was something I wanted to do, I would have laughed. I loved my job working in International Schools. I had spent a decade on the International School circuit, working in Russia, Thailand, China, Haiti, Korea, teaching classes full of bilingual students from all over the world. It was a good life.

Then I met my husband in Shanghai, and my stepson, and life changed. They took me home to France, and suddenly, I wasn’t an expat on an adventure anymore. I was an immigrant, setting up a permanent life with a French family.

At first, I was happy to continue to work in the French International Schools. I was adjusting to life in France, learning about the education system here, and making friends.

Slowly, though, I started to notice the gaps. Almost all of the families I worked with were worried about their kids’ education. They wanted them to be able to speak French, of course, but they didn’t want to let go of the English. Language is so cultural, and so personal – what if their kids lost the language that would let them go home?

The Importance of Bilingualism and Noticing a Gap in The Education System

It used to be that being bilingual could be considered a privilege – but that’s not true anymore, especially amongst families that are travelling through Europe as expats or immigrants. In the world we live in today, being bilingual is becoming more and more necessary. People who are monolingual can find themselves not only cut off from either their roots or their new community, they can also find that a world of opportunities are closed to them as they move ahead in education or their careers.

Our education systems are slow to keep up with this evolving need. Public schools offer language classes, but they are rarely enough to become or stay fluent, let alone develop the complex literacy skills necessary to enter a university program. Private schools offer more programs, but not all them are truly bilingual, and of course, not everyone lives in a big enough city to have them or can afford the tuition fees.

I also began to notice that a lot of families with children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) were lost looking for support that would help their children thrive. Navigating the system to access resources in hard enough when you know the culture and language; I was speaking to parents who felt like they’d been thrown into the jungle to find the help they needed.

What they needed was an educational community – in their language, with people navigating the  same barriers and looking for the same services. It wasn’t just about helping students with English; it was about supporting entire families through the complex journey of multilingual education and cross-cultural adaptation.

Starting a New Business in France

Starting my online English school and academic coaching practice became personal on multiple levels. I wanted to be able to reach all those families I’d spoken to as I built my new home. My own stepson is bilingual, so I’d lived through the questions about academic success, and the delicate balance of maintaining cultural identity while adapting to a new environment.

I knew I needed to do more than teach the 20 students who were in my international school class. I needed to be able to reach out to families who weren’t already in those schools, or who lived in towns that didn’t have access to them. Being online means students can get this English education from wherever they are. I’ve had students zoom in from small towns, from holidays at their grandparents’ house, or from a hotel room. Once, someone even attended class from a quiet corner of the Louvre.

From my home office in France, I built a practice that bridged my years of international teaching experience with the specific needs of families navigating the French system. My first client family included a teenager struggling with an English literature exam and parents worried about her academic future. Those early conversations and friendships with families in France shaped my holistic approach today, where we support not just the student, but provide resources and guidance for the whole family.

Today, I run classes for students zooming in from all over the place to meet with other English speakers to write stories, read novels, and publish their opinions on our student blog. I work one on one with students who are struggling at school because they have ADHD or are on the spectrum or who have really challenging exams to pass.

This time of year, I’m beginning to hear from some of my 17 year olds who are getting their university acceptance letters – and I couldn’t be prouder.

So, if you’d asked me ten years ago if I wanted to start a business – that was the last thing on my mind. But starting this business has allowed me to create and serve a community of anglophone expats and immigrants in Europe, and to give students a space they might have left behind when they moved here.

To find out more , visit www.teachingwithclass.com or contact Rebecca by email rebecca.gulka@teachingwithclass.com. You can also read more about the vision behind Teaching With Class in a recent interview with Rebecca on the MumAbroad blog.

This article was written for our January 2025 Newsletter. Sign up here to receive our monthly updates, stories and resources from relocation specialists, education experts, entrepreneurs and international families who have built a life abroad, straight to your inbox.

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