Help me out with this Italian exercise template, will you?

So the problem is this: Italian state schools don’t start their autumn term for what still feels like forever.

There are another three weeks, nearly four, until I can work at home undisturbed.

To keep themselves occupied in the meantime, shopping and socialising, my daughters need cash!

While I personally don’t get any kind of salary for writing these articles (it’s sort of a hobby, plus marketing for our Italian school), the writers, editors and online teachers, who do most of the work, do get paid for their efforts.

Naturally then, I’ve been trying to kill two birds with one stone – the kids earn money by creating materials for the club, which in turn keep you guys interested and learning, and so makes my part, writing these articles, commensurately easier.

You probably noticed.

The ‘Italian Native-Speaker Conversations’ series, for example, was entirely done by my children, with a little technical support from their mum.

But, with practice, they’ve got much too good at it. They’ve long out-paced my ability to find new materials for them to work on:

“Dad, we need MORE WORK!”

Hence, I was casting around for a new idea.

I know, I thought to myself, how about I try exploiting the ‘Italian Native-Speaker Conversations’ series by getting the girls to add some exercises to them?

Genius!

All I’ll need is an exercise template, which the team can then apply to all twenty transcripts to create a batch of new exercises.

So in a quiet moment yesterday afternoon, I copied the transcript from the first native-speaker conversation ‘Lavori o studi?‘, modified the code powering one of our ancient exercises, and copied and pasted in a (slightly-shortened) version of the original text.

Et voilà! A new interactive exercise based on the audio transcript.

The idea, obviously, is that you can listen to the audio and/or read the transcipt, then consolidate your understanding with the ‘word order’ exercise.

Or vice versa, it’s up to you really.

So, take a look at the template/example, will you? The link is here below.

And do let me have some feedback so I can fix anything that’s wrong BEFORE I pay the young people to create nineteen more like it…

‘Lavori o studi?’ – EXERCISE | Original audio & transcript

By the way, I was thinking of giving you more detailed instructions on how to work the exercise.

But then I figured that, if I did, I wouldn’t know if the instructions on the page are inadequate in some way.

So if you end up tearing your hair out, please feedback to me on what could be improved.

That is to say, how I could write the instructions on the exercise better to make the whole thing clearer.

Or maybe it’s fine as it is…

‘Lavori o studi?’ – EXERCISE | Original audio & transcript

A venerdì!

‘Book of the Week’ Reminder!

Don’t forget this week’s ‘Book of the Week’, ‘Colpo di forbici‘.

Antonio and Martina have been married for forty years and together run their own hairdressing salon. Naturally, they know everyone’s secrets, and like to help people if they can…

• .pdf e-book (+ audio available free online at soundcloud.com)
• download a FREE SAMPLE CHAPTER (.pdf)
• 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!

And don’t forget, also, to start by downloading the free sample chapter.

Take a look at that to check it works on your computer, tablet or phone. If there’s a technical issue, or if it’s too easy or too hard, write to me.

My email is at the bottom of every page on our website.

Buy ‘Colpo di forbici’, just £3.99! | FREE sample chapter (.pdf) | Browse Catalog

And as I mentioned on Monday, the French, German and Spanish versions of this story are also half-price this week:

Italian | French | German | Spanish