[KappaKittyCat]

I had my first TA experience last summer when I took Italian over the summer at UW Madison. Just having a TA was shocking to me at first. At my school the average class size is 12-15 and it's all full professors (we don't have a grad program, so it has to be). It was actually a really good experience. Both teachers were very fluent in English, though it was Italian at the level where they explained everything in Italian anyway. One of my TAs was from Toscana, which was very helpful to me because I moved there right after class ended and I could understand the natives' accents.

But... I do have this to say about the language school that I attended in Firenze. The fact that you're a native speaker of any language does not mean that you're qualified to teach it as a second language. My teacher there did not speak any other language, and this was a class with 5 Americans, 2 Koreans, 2 Swedes, 1 Japanese, 1 Mexican, and 1 Rumanian. It made for some communication difficulties, let me tell you.

The situation came to a head on September 11th. The program director for the American students (which included the Rumanian girl in my class) burst into the room to tell us that two hijacked airplanes had just crashed into the Twin Towers, the first tower had collapsed, and the second one was about to. She said it very quickly and then ran off to tell the rest of the American students, who were scattered throughout 6 other classrooms. We American students sat there gaping at each other, some of us crying, and the teacher just kept teaching. She didn't get it. I had to explain to her what had happened, and she thought I'd mixed up my vocabulary. She refused to believe me and she wouldn't let us go down to watch CNN with the rest of our group. Some of us left anyway.

The next morning she said she was very sorry.