When I had the opportunity to go to Italy last year for an apprenticeship, I got very excited. The apprenticeship only lasted a few months, but I decided to stay on after for another few months when another job opportunity presented itself. Because I am a native English speaker, I was able to help out at a local university where I was staying. I was hired on for the semester to help other English speaking natives learn Italian better. The first thing that my boss gave me was the website for a plagiarism checker for Italian language.
While I have been using the Italian language for years, I was not native to it. He knew that I would need some help when checking papers to make sure that everything was on the up and up. As he explained to me, the majority of students who end up plagiarizing do not do it on purpose. They end up looking at Italian sites for help, and sometimes that help gets transcended almost word for word into their own essays without their meaning to do that. I completely understood, and I was happy to have this tool help me steer the students in a more original direction.
The good thing is that when I used it after I collected the first wave of essays, only three of the papers popped up that there was plagiarism. I talked with the three students and explained that though they are allowed to look for help, they cannot copy it word for word. When I used the plagirism checker on their next essays, all three had dtastically improved. Without having this checker, I know I would not have caught that on my own. I enjoyed teaching and helping for that semester, and I think I am going back soon to do a few more semesters!