You Travel & Teach

I cannot explain how truly amazing this program was! To experience a country as a tourist is one thing, but YTT provides the opportunity to experience Italy as a true local, which gave me a new appreciation and love for Italy and Italian culture. Staying with a host family, and the opportunity to join the community that the family has in their town is amazing, and everyone was so welcoming and excited to share their culture and language. Working and volunteering at camp was one of the most rewarding experiences that I have ever had, and again I felt nothing but positivity and excitement from other staff and campers that we were there and teaching. Camp was also amazing for the true cultural immersion that it provided, and I know that my Italian speaking skills were improved dramatically from the consistent immersion, combined with everyone's willingness to teach and explain different nuances to the language, or even simple vocabulary terms that I was not familiar with. The camp and host family experiences alone would be enough to create a life-changing trip, but YTT adds time in to be a tourist in a new country, and being able to go to Cinque Terre and Florence put this trip over the top, as I was able to check new travel bucket list items off as well, and experience the tourism side of Italy. The different elements of this program combine for an unforgettable experience with amazing likeminded people, and I absolutely cannot recommend this program enough to anyone who is even slightly curious about teaching and traveling.

Being able to do this program was nothing short of amazing. Going to Italy and being with a host family for several weeks gave me a really good sense of what Italian culture and food were like, and I got the chance to practice my Italian while also teaching the family a bit of English at the same time. This alone is the sort of thing I would dream about, and now I got to make it a reality. Touring Milan, Florence, Varese, and Liguria showed me some of the amazing places Italy has to offer, some of which I never even knew about. There's a lot of walking involved, but make no mistake, it is worth every step. Perhaps the greatest part of the trip was spending two weeks in two different summer camps, teaching English to kids who ranged from 7 years old, all the way up to 17. I got to create my own lessons, which gave me the chance to not just teach about how to speak and write in English, but even give a lesson all about the USA, complete with showing American money to kids, and even teaching them the Star Spangled Banner. (Some kids who are old enough might start even singing with you!) Even the staff, many of whom are learning English, really enjoyed the chance to both practice their English with a native speaker and converse with us in Italian. I've made friends who I still keep in contact with after all this time, and I hope to see them again some day. All in all, this program is a fantastic opportunity to see all sorts of sights in Italy, meet a host family, teach all about where you come from, and meet people from across the Atlantic Ocean. I fully recommend that anyone who is considering this program apply ASAP, it will be entirely worth it.