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Published: October 16th 2014
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Ciao and happy Thursday family and friends. A look into my teaching experience in Italian Scuola Media. The word I use most often during my solo teaching is SILENZIO! I think ofcourse you can take an educated guess for the translation of this word. A word similar to Spanish too!
Your could say that Wednesday was my first 'solo' English lesson, as the teacher I work with, Francesca was out today. There was an official substitute in the classroom, however, since it was English class, it made most sense that I carry on with the lessons. Speaking of substitutes, in the Italian school system, it is common for a teacher who already works in that school to be the substitute. It works out well this way because as mentioned in previous blogs--teachers switch classrooms, not the students. This means teachers have certain class hours free and therefore can substitute in a class.
The first class going solo was probably the most challenging because it was first year students (6th grade) and their conversational skills are minimal. Since I began teaching 2 weeks ago with this class, we have worked on questions such as what is your favorite color? What is your favorite food? And the verb 'to be.' Learning a language all starts at the basics. Most of the first year students are able to answer questions such as these. I even assigned the class some homework. I only hope they understood what the assigment was 😊
In the second year class (7th grade) the students had a previous assignment to write as many sentences as possible describing themselves. I had the students read aloud the descriptions of themselves and than asked questions to the rest of the class about the students decriptions. This was a real good listening activity for the students because they can write and talk in English but listening is a different skill that needs more work on in this particular class. I was also able to describe to this class what a blog was, and I naturally was so happy about that!
In the 3rd year class (8th graders) we focused mostly on conversational English. They asked me many questions which is important for them to do in order to learn about American culture, and practice their speaking skills. One student asked what my favorite type of movies were, and I answered chick flicks. The students gave me strange looks because they have only heard the word chick in reference to a baby chicken. I explained to them that chick can also be a word for a woman in America. Now I just hope the Italian boys dont travel to America and call all woman they see a chick. The 3rd year students are great to teach because most of these students can carry on conversations, and for the most part still respect the teachers. Some sentences are trickier to form than others, and some grammer is incorrect when spoken, but the important part is that they are practicing English. That is the most important aspect of learning any language, to be able to PRACTICE the language. Anyone can take language lessons and put it in their memory bank, but if you do not use it, the skils will become weak.... And that is the main reason my Spanish has been lost--I did not continue to practice after 3 years of taking Spanish in middle and high school. I am glad to know some Spanish words because Italian and Spanish romance language have similarities which is helpful as I listen to Italian conversations all around me.
I will leave you the wonderful pizza I ate last night and yet another video from Milan.....
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