All you Americans on these boards;
Is there a market for Italian language teachers in USA?
Here in Sweden there aren't too many jobs for one such teacher, but since there are so many Americans who hail from Italy, the demand for Italian language teachers might be higher? What do you think?

I don't know if you Americans even study languages in schools to the extent that we in Sweden do, considering that your first language is a bit bigger than ours.

But what do you say, is Italian a big language in America?

P.S. As allways, excuse my english. D.S

Hello, Don Larzono.

I'm planning on taking Italian next year in college, at West Virginia University. My friend, Jocelyn, and I really want to learn the language (even though we heard its really hard).

I don't know if I'd call it a "big language" though. I think Spanish is more popular, but I'm not sure.

Hi Bogey
Good for you! Italian isn't that hard once you get started. Though it does have more grammar then both french and spanish, but it's not too hard.

I'm wondering, could you in America study Italian in high school? Or is Italian something that you are only able to study in collage?

Hi Don L.

Here in my area, Italian is not offered in High School unfortunately. Spanish is for sure, and maybe French, but that's about it. Both my daughters went to Cal State colleges, and I don't believe it was offered there either.


TIS

Hi,

I don't think there is a demand for Italian language skills in high school. Maybe in New York? But not in most areas, although there may be exceptions? At my large high school - 20 years ago - they offered us Russian and Japanese.....as well as the usual American favorites: Spanish, French & German. Your best bet would be somewhere out East, I think.

I took 1/2 semester of Italian in college - Indiana University. I had to drop it half-way through though. They offered everything under the sun at that university..... extremely liberal college. I also took one semester of Portuguese there..... I was really into the foreign languages.

Umm not around here. My high school offers Spanish, French, Japanese, and Sign Language. (Japanese?? I don't really understand that one, but they do offer it.. I'd much rather have Italian or German.. or Russian. but Japanese??)

Bogz, my high school had Japanese, too-- although I hadn't heard of anyone else having it until you mentioned it too... In addition to that, and the usual French and Spanish, we also had Chinese and Latin. But like you said, no Italian.

DL, I think there might be demand for Italian teachers in colleges and universities... many of them have good language programs, and offer Italian as a course. There are more than enough Spanish teachers, but Italian is not quite so common. You should give it a try. I learned only spoken Italian with my family, so my spelling could use some help-- so I know if I ever have time, I'm hoping to take some classes in it, personally.

Even if not in a university or something, there are a lot of private language institutes which have better quality of teaching, too. My cousin's friend moved here from Messina two years ago, and she makes pretty good money teaching Italian part-time at a university, and part-time at a language institute. So there's that option of doing both, too.

Thank you all for your replies!

It seems that the safest thing is to teach at the university and collage level, or at a language institute.
I would really like to live and work in America, at least for a couple of years. And New York has allways been my favorite city in USA (even though I've never been there).

Letizia B.: Just as you say, there are more than enough spanish teachers, here in Sweden too. Allthough there might be fewer jobs for an italian teacher, there aren't as many competing for those jobs.

Insomma; I'll get my exams and degrees and all that, and then I might be going to Gli Stati Uniti(That's USA )!

So, maybe we'll se eachother in the streets of Nueva York!

Grazie tante per l'aiuto!

Cordiali Saluti
Don L