Teaching in Austria
UD's Prima wins teaching assistantship from Austrian Ministry of Education
9:32 a.m., May 15, 2012--Kelsey Prima, a graduating senior in German language and literature at the University of Delaware, has received a teaching assistantship from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture to teach English for the 2012-13 academic year in the picturesque town of Gmunden, Austria.
Prima, who applied for the competitive, paid opportunity at the suggestion of Ester Riehl, assistant professor of German in the UD Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, will teach English, beginning in fall 2012, at Bundesrealgymnasium und wirtschaftskundliches Bundesrealgymnasium Schloß Traunsee -- a type of high school that prepares students for university -- in Gmunden, a summer resort town of some 13,000 located on Traunsee lake in the province of Oberösterreich, Upper Austria.
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“I was ecstatic to have received the assistantship and to know I would be going back to a country I fell in love with when I studied German in Salzburg,” Prima said. “This is an amazing opportunity, and I'm incredibly excited to once again be immersed in Austrian culture and to try my hand at teaching English in a classroom setting.”
Since 1963, the U.S. Teaching Assistantships at Austrian Secondary Schools program, which is administered by the Austrian-American Educational Commission (Fulbright Commission), has provided college and university graduates the chance to work as teaching assistants in secondary schools across Austria.
As noted on the program website, not only do these students enhance the instruction of English from a linguistic perspective, but they are also valuable resources for firsthand information about the “American way of life.”
Article by Fariba Amini