Established in 2005, the SITE Program (Study, Intercultural Training and Experience) is a a paid internship program for English Teaching Assistants in the schools of Lombardy, Italy. It is an excellent opportunity for recent graduates who wish to get a better understanding of the Italian language and culture while promoting linguistic and intercultural exchange within Europe and across the globe.
The program is the result of the cooperation between Dickinson College, which acts as the liaison for a network of more than 50 US universities, and the Istituto Luca Pacioli, in Crema, the school that coordinates the SITE network of about 60 schools in Lombardy. This cooperation is strongly supported by the Italian Embassy in Washington DC, the Consulates of Italy in the US, and is made possible thanks to the active role of the authorities of the Region of Lombardy and the Education Office of Lombardy for Foreign Language and Culture.
The program is open to Bachelor students who are currently completing or have recently completed (within the last 12 months) college-level Italian language and culture. M.A. or Ph.D. students of Italian language and culture in American universities are also encouraged to apply.
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The program has a duration of 8 months and is an ideal position for flexible and adventurous candidates, as their assistance is based on their native linguistic capacity and tasks can range from direct teaching hours to preparing teaching materials relevant for academic purposes. An ideal candidate has pursued Italian language and culture as a major or minor field of study and has some language proficiency . Previous teaching experience is highly recommended..
On a weekly basis, selected candidates will be required to teach 12 hours in English, and are expected to pursue an additional 13 hours of related activities. TAs may be asked either to assist the English teacher (converstion, culture, etc) or teachers of other subiects. In this case, TAs will be asked to prepare simple lessons in English on the topics given.
Since the assistant is expected to carry on his or her duties independently, it is of vital importance that the selected candidate has excellent communication skills, flexibility, independence, self-training and self-study skills, as well as willingness and ability to step out of her/his comfort zone.
