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Buondì.

Recently I was sitting in on an Italian class at our language school in Bologna, that because we have an inspection coming up and each teacher is supposed to be observed at least once a year.

This was a beginners’ group. Four students, all English speakers. The teacher was pleasant and competent, the lesson topic appropriate, and – overall – satisfactory progress was being made.

However, there was an issue. One particular student would not stop asking questions. Insistently, as if her every doubt needed to be resolved immediately, and completely.

Worse, and given that this was a beginners’ group, she was voicing her questions and doubts in English.

Our Italian classes are ‘Italian-medium’, which is to say that Italian is the language of instruction. While we can hire teachers who know English well enough to teach in that langauge (if they must), what we can’t and won’t do is only enroll students who know English to a good level.

Suppose we have a class with three native English speakers and one Thai, who doesn’t speak a word of English (this absolutely wasn’t the case, but suppose), then the non-English speaking student would be excluded from any explanations given in English. See?

As far as I’m aware, other Italian language schools in Italy do the same – classes are taught by trained Italian native-speaker teachers, in italiano, not in English.

Classes are typically ‘multi-lingual’, so composed of speakers of various languages. The ‘lingua franca’, by design and by necessity, is italiano.

Some schools handle large groups of college students from the USA (for example), in which case the class would be ‘mono-lingual’ (all the students being native English speakers), so there’d be an argument for teaching at least some of the lesson in English rather than in italiano.

That’s also how English classes are mostly taught in Italian state schools, of course. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with teaching a mono-lingual class in their own language, if the teacher knows the language well enough.

But we don’t offer that. Our classses are ‘Italian-medium’, so teachable even by trained Italian native-speaker teachers who don’t know English well, and open to students of any mother tongue.

The teacher I was observing was strict about replying to questions posed in English ‘in italiano’, though she failed to deter the persistent student from interrupting each time a question occurred to her.

In my post-lesson written feedback I suggested that the nettle should have been grasped firmly, and that it would have been a simple matter to communicate to the student concerned that questions asked in English would not be part of the lesson.

You could, I suggested, mime not understanding. Play dumb. OUTSIDE the class you can understand English, but during your lessons it’s Double-Dutch to you. Boh? That would get the message across.

But OK, put aside everything I’ve so far written about why our classes are Italian-medium, and consider the nature of the student’s doubts and questions.

Some were relevant: she spotted that the meaning of ‘prima’ in the current class (before) was not the same as the meaning she’d picked up in a previous lesson with a different teacher (first). Fair point.

I guess the teacher could have clarified briefly, except that to do so would have disrupted what she was doing at the moment the question was raised: giving instructions for the group’s next activity.

She could have promised to answer the question later. Or suggested the student check the meanings of ‘prima’ in a dictionary. Or she could have played dumb and pretended she couldn’t understand questions in English.

But let’s say she was able to give a clear, timely explanation each and every time the insistent student demanded one, without wasting the other students’ time. Would that have helped?

In my opinion, no.

First of all, ‘explanations’ of a thing – whether in English or italiano, no matter if spoken or written – are not the thing itself, but a description of the thing. As a map is to a city, as a portrait is to the sitter.

Explanations have their own complexity, their own strengths and weaknesses. Maps can mislead. Portraits can exaggerate beauty, or be cruel.

Bear with me.

If I answer your question about the English word ‘bear’, employing the famous explanation that it’s an animal that defecates in the woods, is that enough?

Maybe a picture would help? I could draw one on the whiteboard!

But how could I verify that the student had understood that ‘bear = orso’? Maybe there are no ‘orsi’ where she comes from? Maybe different types of ‘orso’ have different names (as fish do: cod, haddock, salmon, etc.)?

Or worse, what if the student was actually asking about the VERB meaning of ‘bear’? Or she was Swedish, and really wanted to know about ‘berries’, which sound very like ‘bear’ in English.

Just ONE WORD, and more or less ANY WORD, can be an Alice’s rabbit hole of possibilities. But a language is not just one word, is it?

Consider this article, which says that Italian has around two million, of which “more than 50,000 … words carry multiple meanings some with over 30 distinct definitions depending on the context.”

E poi there’s the grammar. If you’re anywhere at all with Italian, you’ll have noticed that almost nothing about Italian grammar matches with the English equivalent. The infuriating gender of nouns, the complex plurals, the innumerable articles, the army of irregular verbs, the many tenses that really should exist but appear not to, and so on and so forth.

What about register (formality i.e. ciao vs. buongiorno), style, regional variations (dialect, variations in grammar usage)?

What about pronunciation, comprehension, learning strategies?

What about, what about, what about a million things you might happen to not entirely comrephend at this exact moment in time?

There’s no such thing as a stupid question, we’re told, and perhaps that’s true. But unhelpful, distracting, irrelevant questions abound.

And asking them – relentlessly – can be more of a hinder than a help.

Instead, just chill.

Some stuff might make little or no sense to you now, but that’s normal. There’ll always be some stuff that won’t make sense.

Languages are vast, complex, ever-changing systems that no one person can ‘know’, but which a language’s users are familiar with, to a greater or lesser degree. Consider, for instance the difference between a three-year-old’s speech and a university professor’s. Yet they can communicate.

What’s important – for a learner – is to engage with the language, to begin to use its elements, to interact, to nod, to smile, to chat, to read, to hear, to begin to understand.

The trick is to lever the stuff that does make sense, and interact by using it, while not sweating the rest.

Assuming you engage with other users of the language you aim to master, whether that’s through speaking, listening, reading, writing, or all of those, then eventually the stuff that makes sense will begin to balance out, and one day – hopefully – even outweigh, the stuff that’s still a mystery.

Here’s a final thought: I don’t know anyone, not teachers (especially not them), not grammar book writers, not straight-A students, not native-speakers, not my mom or my wife, not even ME (though it’s difficult to believe), who can explain EVERYTHING about a language.

A million words, multiplied by a weird, unfamiliar grammar system, multiplied by generational drift, multiplied by regional variation, multiplied by cultural niches, equals a very, very, very large number of unknowns that you might want to enquire about.

Wise students will hold their tongues, at least most of the time.

Wise teachers – when they’re asked something inappropriate – will smile encouragingly, distract the questioner, and gently guide the class back to doing something useful.

Alla prossima settimana!

P.S.

And here’s a reminder to read/listen to Tuesday’s bulletin of news from EasyItalianNews.com.

Reading/listening practice will help you consolidate the Italian you’re studying, expand your vocabulary, and build vital comprehension skills.

EasyItalianNews.com is FREE to read/listen to.

Subscribing, and so receiving all three text + audio bulletins of ‘easy’ news via email each week – on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays – is also FREE.

Just enter your email address on this page and click the confirmation link that will be sent to you.

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