Italian Language Assistant

Hello! Ciao! My name is Martina Mandela. I come from Milan in Italy and I am 26 years old. I will be working at Greensborough College for the next 7 months, until the end of the school year, as the Italian Language Assistant. At university in Italy, I studied foreign languages and literature and since I started my academic studies, I have always wanted to become a teacher. So after successfully passing a competitive selection set by Co.As.It. for the Italian Language Assistant Program, I was given the opportunity to come to Australia and work at Greensborough College. Now I am working with the Italian teachers of the school in the Italian classes from Year 7 to Year 12, in order to provide my language and personal experience to students as an Italian native-speaker.

This is an extraordinary opportunity for me, not just for my future career, but also because it allows me to discover such an amazing and wonderful country, which is so different from Italy but at the same time very welcoming. In fact, when I arrived in Melbourne a month ago, I immediately felt as if I was at home; all the people I met they all did their best to put me at my ease. However, there are also some aspects that are very different from Italy that made me feel a little bit disorientated: from the left-hand traffic to the weather and “the four seasons in one day”, to the school system.

But if the unknown can be frightening, it can also have many surprises in store for you. So every day I take on this new challenge and I keep going into this amazing experience. I am very excited and now I look forward to teaching the students at Greensborough College more about Italy and being Italian as I am sure that they will teach me more about becoming Australian!    

Martina Mandelli