Teaching is an incredibly multifaceted and inspiring profession. The rapport between teachers and students is one of exchange, which is beneficial to both parties and allows each to experience personal and professional growth. In foreign language classes, students do not only learn grammar and factual knowledge about the language itself, but they also gain insight into cultural alterity. Teachers of foreign languages are required to act as cultural mediators and translators, in order to ease students into a different, unfamiliar mindset.
In all my classes, I provide students with the cultural context to understand and interpret Italian social behaviors and create a classroom environment that easily allows students to compare practices and perspectives in Italy and their native countries. My teaching philosophy enforces the communicative method; drawing from authentic and current materials, I design engaging activities that enable students to learn, exchange ideas, and express themselves in Italian. I cultivate students’ critical thinking by means of examining and evaluating cultural and social events in Italy, drawing on a variety of points of view, and stressing the importance of historical contextualization. Furthermore, I offer students the chance to engage with non-common sources, such as Italian comics, to foster an interdisciplinary approach to Italian culture as well as the development of multimodal literacy, which is increasingly necessary to comprehend and navigate contemporary communication.
Studying comics at the Lilly Library 
Intermediate Italian II 
Advanced Expression 
Sara Dallavalle, PhD 