Internships abroad

Page contents

1. General information
2. When you come back
3. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

General information

An internship abroad offers students excellent opportunities to expand their professional and language skills, to make valuable contacts and to explore interesting job prospects. Furthermore, an internship abroad can be used as an alternative to studying abroad and will be recognised as equivalent to the Module 3.1. To this end, you need to write a reflective essay and take an oral examination (see below: "When you come back").

If you are interested in doing an internship abroad as an alternative to studying abroad, you can either use your own contacts or make use of existing partnerships. For instance, ERASMUS+ not only supports studies abroad but also internships of between 2 and 12 months abroad. For more information, please visit the IUZ's website on placements abroad and the website of the Leonardo-Büro Sachsen, where you can find receiving institutions for internships abroad.

If you would like to do an internship outside the Erasmus+ funding region, you can consider a PROMOS grant.The programme supports internships abroad lasting between 6 weeks and 6 months, and can also fund studies abroad, theses, language courses,
specialised courses and study trips. For more information about PROMOS, please visit the IUZ website.

In addition, there are several work opportunities in South Asia in school projects, museums and libraries. If you are interested, please get in touch with Prof. Sandten:

• American College/SCILET (Madurai) (library)
• "Stone Bridge Secondary School" in Dhangadhi, Nepal (includes free accommodation and meals)
• Bhasha Research and Publication Center, Vadodara, and the Tribal Academy in Tejgadh, Gujarat, India (museum)

If you would like to study or work at any of these institutions, you can apply for a PROMOS scholarship, which involves financial support for travel and language courses.

Students in teacher training and TESOL can also do a paid internship (at least 5 months) as German-language teachers in schools in various countries (e.g. the Republic of Ireland and the United States) with the Fremdsprachenassistenzprogramm of the PAD (Pädagogischer Austauschdienst).

Furthermore, students in teacher training and TESOL can do a paid internship (10-12 months) as German-language teachers in 150 universities all over the world via the DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst).

For more information, also feel free to get in touch with any staff members (and Prof. Sandten in particular), who may be able to give you more ideas based on their personal contacts abroad.

The internship should have a minimum duration of 600 hours, and it should also have some relation to your studies (e.g. the frequent use of English; intercultural communication etc.). Please let the going-abroad coordinator ( outgoing.english@…) know what you intend to to once you have found an internship by filling in our downloadable learning agreement.

When you come back

1) Write a reflective essay about your internship abroad.

For the reflective essay (5-6 pages; in English), think about the expectations you had before going abroad, any surprises that you encountered during your stay, differences compared to home, the outcome of the stay abroad and the impact it has made on your language skills, your outlook on life and your future plans.

For the reflective essay, you may want to take the following aspects into account as possible guidelines:

• Introduction: Describe your situation, where you went, dates, what you did and/or what happened.
• Evaluation: Report what was good/bad, easy/difficult, pleasant/unpleasant etc.; compare and contrast your experiences; explain why things may have been different to what you were expecting.
• Reflection on learning experience: Report what you learned during your internship; what you learned from living in a foreign city etc.
• Reflection on the impact of your experience: Describe how what you learned has an effect on your future and possibly your BA topic. What future actions will you take?
• Conclusion: What advice would you give other students planning to do an internship abroad? What, in hindsight, would you have done differently?

The reflective essay should be written in an academic, formal style but, unlike other academic writing, is should be written in the first person perspective and include your thoughts and opinions.

2) Take the oral examination (PL).

Submit your reflective essay together with your Learning Agreement to the Sprachpraxis coordinator (Dr. van der Bom) and register for the oral examination by writing her an e-mail. Please use this cover sheet for your submission.

Usually orals take place at the end of the Winter Semester (if you submit your portfolio by January 10th) or at the beginning of the Summer Semester (if you submit your portfolio by March 10th). In the 15-minute oral exam, you will be asked questions about your experience abroad based on your portfolio. Your examiners will be Dr. van der Bom and either Prof. Sandten or Katharina Scholz, depending on with whom you coordinated your internship abroad. Make sure you argue in good academic English, emphasizing the intercultural and linguistic differences you encountered. Give ample evidence with concrete examples. The focus in the grading of the oral examination will be on your language proficiency.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)