MELBOURNE – In Italy, Tamai obtained an undergraduate degree in tourism, before deciding to hit the books again by enrolling in a master’s degree at the University of Udine to teach Italian to foreigners.

After finishing postgrad, Tamai left for Samara, a city on the Volga River in south-west Russia with over a million inhabitants, where she taught Italian to kindergarten children through a European volunteer program.

Upon returning Italy, she worked with cooperatives teaching Italian to asylum seekers for three years. Then, in 2018, Tamai felt the urge to travel again and decided to fly to India, where she spent six months in a high school classroom.

“I had had my Australian passport in a drawer for years, I could get it by descent as my mum was born in Australia, but I never decided to use it,” explained Tamai.

“Then, in 2019, when my experience in India came to an end, I decided to head east and come Down Under for the first time.”

Upon landing in Melbourne, Tamai’s initial goal was to improve her English, so she decided to live with a local family as an au pair.

Once the long Covid lockdown that paralysed the city ended, Tamai was finally able to resume teaching by becoming a language assistant through Co.As.It.

She began with a placement at a high school in Hopper Crossing before moving to the bilingual primary school in Footscray.

“In the meantime, I worked as a teacher at the Victorian School of Languages (VSL) on Saturday mornings, where I taught a three-hour class,” she added.

Tamai’s energy is not lacking as she continues to teach Italian on Saturday mornings with the VSL, all the while working as a teacher with Year 7 and 8 classes at a Melbourne high school and pursuing a master’s degree to become a fully-fledged teacher.

“Comparing the two groups of students, the most obvious difference is that those at the VSL are definitely more motivated,” Tamai reveals, “partly because many of them have a connection with the Italian language and culture that drives them to constant improvement.”

The teacher is critical of the Victorian Italian curriculum, which she considers boring and uninspiring for the students.

On one occasion, in order to get the students more involved, she took them out of the VSL class and brought them to experience the language organically in Carlton.

“It was the first trip after Covid, and the bureaucracy was terribly difficult to deal with,” she recalled.

“I had to fill out a lot of paperwork and it took months to get approval, but in the end we got it done and had a great day.”

With about 20 of her Year 9 and 10 VSL students, Tamai visited the Co.As.It. Italian Museum where they did some activities and met another group of kids their age.

They also embarked on an exciting ‘treasure hunt’ along Lygon Street before finally tasting Brunetti’s speciality sweets.

“It was a simple outing, but the kids really enjoyed it,” assured Tamai, who also pointed out that she “would like to change things up a little bit to make it more interesting”.

For the current year, she already has some ideas ranging from email correspondence with an Italian school to reading newspapers in class in order to have relevant and timely conversations.