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Phone:
800.336.1616
802.258.3510
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802.258.3388
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PO Box 676, 1 Kipling Road
Brattleboro, VT 05302 USA
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French in US Public Schools
Alumni Profile
Michelle Chamberlain
French and Spanish Teacher
Brattleboro Area Middle School
"SIT helped me rediscover who I am as a teacher."
I chose foreign language teaching as a medium to promote intercultural understanding and bring change into the world. Going to Madagascar with SIT Study Abroad as an undergraduate, I started to see my responsibilities as a global citizen in a different way. That experience also introduced me to SIT’s experiential learning methods.
My other educational experiences were very different from SIT. My previous French classes were literature-based and teacher-centered; my education classes were theoretical, fluffy, and impractical. But at SIT, all my classes were experiential, student-centered, and focused on connecting theory to practice. I learned to rely on myself rather than on the teacher.
Because SIT’s MAT program is only for language teachers, I received specialized, French-specific training—not classes that mixed me in with teachers of music, social studies, and other disciplines, like at most schools. This practical training—and connections made during my SIT internship—paid off when I interviewed for my first full-time teaching job. I was asked to teach a sample lesson and was hired as a result!
The MAT program has been a journey of personal growth. At SIT, you not only learn about teaching—you form deep connections with others who share your passion. But most important, you learn about yourself.