Gotta rush this morning, as I’ve already spent hours on this and I need to go to the (Italian) post office FOR THE THIRD TIME over some unresolved glitch regarding identity cards and savings books.
Sigh…
First, many thanks to everyone who wrote with feedback on the new exercise format (find it by reading Wednesday’s article.)
Karen, Lynne, Anita, Tim, Marci, Ruth, Janet, Zsuzsanna, Jill, Claire, Angela, Sieglind, Leslie, Anne, Annalinda, Chris, Rosemary, Maggie, Harold, Patricia, Chris, and Gill all took the time to give me feedback, which was appreciated.
Apart from one person, who wrote “I don’t find the exercise at all useful”, and someone else who couldn’t get the audio to play (I was tearing my hair out trying to help), the feedback was helpful and positive!
Several people pointed out that the words/phrases were very close together and hard to see and/or click on for those with weak eyesight and thicker fingers.
Point taken, but I spent time messing with the code this morning and couldn’t manage to change the way the words/phrases were displayed.
However, someone else wrote this:
I had just one problem and that was the tiny gaps between the words and phrases, my little finger would sometimes hit the incorrect word. I had to very carefully angle my finger and my fingers aren’t fat. That is until my husband told me to enlarge the size of the page on the screen. Did it all again and it was fine.
So there, problem solved!
Another suggestion that seemed reasonable was this one:
The capital letters are a bit of a give-away […and…] make it much too easy… Would you consider making all the words lower case?
Sure I would, and indeed I have in today’s second attempt (see below), which will now be much too difficult instead!
There were plenty of other useful ideas – changing the font, left-justifying the whole thing, having the ‘used’ words change colour, and so on.
All really great input.
Unfortunately, everyone who knows how to code has left Bologna, destination San Franscisco, to work for a start-up or a tech giant, which rather limits what can be done.
(Sadly, I’m a language teacher not a coder, or I’d have gone, too!)
One other thing that came up from the many emails and comments – it seems that not everyone is aware that there are many, many, many more exercises and listenings on the club website.
Ragazzi, you don’t need to wait for me to send you something three times a week (which may, anyway, be the wrong level for you).
Get yourselves along to the clubhouse and click around until you find something useful.
There are literally thousands of pages of free materials, including loads of listenings and enough exercises (of all types, not just word-order) to bore you rigid.
That said, I DO have something new for you today!
Another set of conversation prompts, and another exercise based on them, suitably modified as per your feedback!
The topic is ‘Psicologia’ and you’ll find the conversation prompts here.
There’s no listening this time. Just the questions to use with a teacher or classmate.
Other conversation prompts of this type can be found on the ‘conversation’ page.
O.K. and based on those questions… (drum roll, trumpets) … I have created THIS NEW EXERCISE, which as I have said will be too hard, given that I took away the capital letters at several people’s insistence.
Have fun!
A lunedì.
Last chance to get the ‘Book of the Week’ at £3.99…
Here’s a final nudge regarding this week’s ‘Book of the Week’, ‘Colpo di forbici‘, which is IDEAL for beginner or elementary students.
Download the free sample chapter (.pdf) to see what’s involved.
- .pdf e-book (+ audio available free online at soundcloud.com)
- 8 chapters to read and listen to
- Comprehension questions to check your understanding
- Italian/English glossary of ‘difficult’ terms for the level
- Suitable for students at elementary level or above
- Your e-book will be e-mailed to you within 24 hours of purchase
- Normal price £7.99. This week JUST £3.99!
Buy ‘Colpo di forbici’, just £3.99! | FREE sample chapter (.pdf) | Browse Catalog
And don’t forget that there are French, German and Spanish versions of this story, also half-price this week!
Lynne F says
Hi Daniel, Without the audio i personally found this exercise less useful The text was too long to remember it all, even after several readings and therefore I had to look back at the text and this made me feel like i was cheating.. Having no capital letters made it more difficult but i managed to construct the Italian sentences (and the two English ones) so thanks again for your continued efforts to provide us with different activities. Lynne