Buondì.
Now that I’m done banging my head against a brick wall (teaching Italian adults English), all sorts of new projects are coming to mind, more than enough to fill any extra time I might have.
One of those ideas is to go back and look at the organisation and content of the club website, which hasn’t changed for a while, and in any case, was always a ‘hobby’ project, rather than being something that was planned with a particular outcome in mind.
Our Italian school in Bologna recently received a two-star review on Google, from a beginner who was upset that:
1.) The teacher refused to explain things in English
2.) Everyone else in the class (various suspicious young foreigners) were ‘better’ than she was
Now, no one likes getting two-star reviews, and this was totally unjustified.
As far as I’m aware, ALL Italian schools in Italy teach in Italian, not English, for the quite obvious reasons that a.) not all the students in a class will actually know English, b.) a language school can’t expect its teachers to know the language of every student in the class, and c.) learning a language in the medium of the language that you are learning, so to speak, is arguably good for the students, even if potentially frustrating at first.
We try to make clear on our website that this is what we do, and also, at times, I’ve written articles on why it can be tough at the beginning, how the first week can be a big pyschological challenge for beginners, and so on.
But the bigger problem is the woman’s accusation that the other students in the class can’t have been real beginners (because they didn’t experience the same difficulties), this being clear evidence that we’d unscrupulously chuck anyone into the same group, just to make more cash.
Totally not true, of course – all the students having had their level evaluated before the beginning of the course – however, there’s no doubt that the unhappy reviewer might well have assumed it to be the case.
And here I’m getting to the point.
Assuming that everyone else in the class was from Europe or South America, then everyone else would likely be either a native speaker of a Latin-origin language (Spanish, French, Portuguese, etc.), have benefited from many years of foreign language education during their state school education, or both, Picture, for example, a French college student, who knows English well, has reasonable German, and perhaps a sprinkling of Spanish.
And now picture our angry former client, a native-English speaker who, in contrast, never got to grips with any foreign language at school, quit at the first opportunity and, since buying a home in Italy many decades later, has therefore not made any progress learning Italian.
She decides to give the professionals a chance, and signs up for a course totalling FIFTEEN WHOLE HOURS of instruction! That’s more than enough to get our sparky young Frenchwoman into the idea of Italian, but woefully insufficient for her less-experienced classmate who rapidly and understandably comes to the conclusion that, as everyone else appears to be way more capable of understanding what’s going on, they can’t be real beginners. We’ve taken her money under false pretences!
The problem, of course, is that we can’t pre-select our students, other than by excluding people who are not adults, or who have an incompatible level (we do that all the time.)
We certainly can’t exclude all native-English speakers, unless they have proven experience learning a foreign language. That would be absurd, and unfair. And would trash my marketing strategy, to boot.
Neither can we, before swiping their credit cards through the machine, take people gently by the hand, lead them into a quite corner and ask, in a concerned voice, whether the potential student really thinks they have what it takes to learn Italian, whether they are they really sure they want to go head to head with all these smart young Europeans, and whether they are aware that they might find the experience a ‘challenge’?
Perhaps we should, I don’t know.
I do know that all of our teachers, and my wife, and I, want the best for every single student. It pains us when someone doesn’t achieve their goals. We know that if they stick at it long enough, they’ll overcome the obstacles and negative thoughts and actually begin to learn. Because we see that happen all the time.
But we can’t force people to come to classes. There’s nothing we can do to stop students quitting.
Anyway, here we are, back at the point.
Most club members are native-English speakers (smart, confident, able ones, I’m sure) and it occurs to me, therefore, that maybe our material could be rejigged or supplemented so as to help them SPECIFICALLY.
Say by emphasising the things about Italian that, while they may be more or less the same in French, Spanish etc., are puzzling foreign concepts to people like me, and perhaps like you, too.
Nouns with gender, for example.
Verbs that have to be conjugated! But why?
The seemingly optional subject pronouns. Oh, that’s why!
Prepositions which look the same but mean different things.
The different position and sequence of adverbs.
The subjunctive…
Clearly, teachers in our Italian school are not going to begin Monday morning by explaining to a new class containing a majority of Spanish and French native speakers that (io) bevo but (tu) bevi, that la birra is feminine but il caffè is masculine, and that dopo andiamo tutti insieme al bar per prendere un caffè, ma non una birra perché non si fa…
If we had classes that were monolingual (all the students having the same mother tongue) then it might be an option. But we don’t, so it isn’t.
And in any case, not all our teachers know English well enough to understand the structural differences between the two languages.
But I do! And given that these articles are in English, so are read mostly by native-English speakers (not exclusively, so no need to email to remind me), maybe that would be a useful way to go.
What do you think? And can you add to my list of things that native-speakers should know that are weird about Italian?
If so, do leave a comment on this article, so everyone can read your suggestion(s).
To do that, click this link, scroll down to the end, and fill in the form. Your email address won’t be published.
Comments will be moderated before publication (to weed out automated spam, which is quite obnoxious, let me tell you…) So don’t be surprised if yours isn’t visible immediately, or even the same day. All genuine comments will be published.
A lunedì, allora.
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Madeleine Gillies says
In my – considerable – experience, English mother tongue speakers who have minimal ‘linguistic awareness’ are particularly thrown by the idea of tenses and by some grammatical terminology – in English, much less the target language. Perhaps teachers should therefore give some sort of basic grammatical overview towards the beginning. I have also heard from those who attended courses in e.g. Firenze, Perugia that Italian teachers had a tendency to ‘gabble away’ in Italian from the off – without any apparent awareness of the level of their students. I have also noted that some Italian readers described as being ‘For beginning students’ are not at all appropriate for that level and I think sometime teachers confuse linguistic with age appropriacy. Thanks heavens therefore for your graded readers which I continue to use extensively and which are much appreciated by my adult learners. You have contributed enormously to the pool of appropriate material!
John Dixie says
“You” in Engkish can be singular or plural as thee and thou and thine etc. died out ages ago, probably after the first Elizabethan age.
LESLEY TEITELBAUM says
I have discovered great frustration during my years of learning italian – my initial enthusiasm waned after joining an italian online class (my dream) – I found I did not understand the teacher who spoke quickly to my ears and all in italian – the definitions of vocabulary words were very difficult when given in italian which of course was necessary due to diversity of native languages of italian learners – and a great deal of the time in my first group of classes the teacher did not understand me when in my mind I was clearly speaking italian – which of course was very disheartening
The ways I dealt was this challenge were: ii reminded myself that listening to a native italian speaker is a great way to learn the language and improves your pronunciation- also listening even without comprehension improves your language skills because your right hemisphere of your brain is working – both hemispheres the left – where you learn the mechanics and the right where you learn global concepts and sounds (like when you listen to Italians news – kindly offered by this organization- italian radio and italian tv – is immeasurably helpful even if you don’t notice your progress) –
to help me survive the classes instead of doing the minimum homework an hour before class as usual – I extended my homework time to teach myself the concept in English – there are many helpful resources – professor Dave explains – Italy made easy both on you tube -?the thought company website which has many useful italian language articles and Collins italian american dictionary website which has a great section on grammar with many subtopics – these are all free resources
The other thing I did was studied daily and also tried to work ahead in my workbook using resources above – then when the teacher explained the concepts in italian I was learning the idea for the second time rather than first – which left me strengthened rather than demoralized-
I remained the poorest speaker in my international classes – however I felt privileged to study in great company – everyone was kind to me. And I did my best for the day –
I also was able to supplement my group classes later on with a few private classes which supported me – and private classes were with an italian speaker who was living in my country and had excellent English skills which helped a great deal with explanations of complexities of italian language –
Best wishes to all who pursue learning any foreign language – your efforts are richly rewarded and the world becomes richer, more colorful and seemingly more beautiful place to share with others. Buon viaggio!!
Diane Harcourt says
Hi. What a shame! Silly woman – it’s way better to be taught at least mainly in the language. Of course it’s easier in a school – you walk in, say levez-vous with a gesture and they know they stand when a teacher enters , likewise being told to sit and it goes from there.
I’m doing a course on zoom (local authority’s evening class) and we have a lady who feels the same as yours but she said so, and we all encouraged her. I have taught myself a bit in the past before a holiday in Italy 10 years ago but more importantly I used to teach French, German and Spanish, so I learn grammar “oh, that’s like French, that’s like Spanish” (I think the subjunctive is like Spanish, but we haven’t done it yet.”
Also, I’m more willing to take risks and when I end up in Spanish by mistake we all have a good life. It’s about communication – not perfection- and I AM doing it for fun!
I missed the first term which evened things up. I read way above my level and love your books. I must try the original version of ‘la Montagna’! The grammar is catching up and I find it a useful shortcut. I also like a structure. Speaking is hardest – vocab falls out of my head and that’s when I end up in Spanish.
By the way, we have one bit of subjunctive left in English: IF I WERE YOU…. (But I’m not!) Try them with “if I were a rich man….”
It would help if I did my homework properly, instead of reading late at night… plus ca change! ‘‘Twas always this” Ciao, and don’t be too disappointed. There’s always one. If you have several mixed-experience Brits you could try getting them to talk to each other – it helped our discouraged participant. She did pair work with me in a breakout room recently and did really well! I understood everything she said.
Sorry I’ve rambled a bit. Hope it helps. Diane
Christiane Bonham says
Hi Daniel,
Your suggestions for specifically target native English speakers is spot on! (I may be biased as a native English speaker)
So many times I have been perplexed as to why the Italian sentence is written the way it is. Why some verbs need a preposition before an infinitive (I think that that is what I mean, grammar has never been my strong point!) etc., etc.
I hope that there is enough support for your suggestion.
Brenda Burton says
Your list covers the main issues, but as a native English speaker, I had problems (and still do) with Italian adjectives that have to agree in number and gender with the noun they are modifying.
Also the difference in expressing possession is still tricky for me. Instead of “my friend’s house”, “la casa del mio amico”. My brain is getting better at anticipating this and placing the possessed first, followed by the possessor. 😊
Fiona Lascelles says
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak0rlgMlW0w
Not much help linguistically but if your students/readers haven’t seen this , it is from a few years back but very funny. And makes the point that sometimes it is worth just learning a few simple expressions that fit any situation…
eg penso di si, non fa niente, chissà etc
prepositions, pronouns… and word order! My other suggestions are: reading the weather app il meteo – always entertaining … looking at Amazon.it when buying something, even if it is then bought from Amazon.uk. I could go on forever…..
Tim Hggins says
It might be useful to native english speakers to explain why nouns seem inconsistent in gender. For example the parts of a tree may be masculine or feminine (and parts of the body). Having to remember the gender of a noun is tough enough, but I guess we english speakers try to work out the logic, if any, behind it.
Charles Vickers says
Hi. My comment is about your newsletter of 10 june and will, regrettably, be in English. I have been learning languages, occasionally successfully, for nearly 70 years so what follows is a summary of the good over that time whilst learning Latin & French (started at 9), ancient Greek (12), German (19 at University for a degree in chemical engineering) and Spanish and Italian (over the last – but I am ashamed to say how long) at our local adult education centre and with onlineitalianclub.
First .Never lose sight of the fact that learning is a social experience – see the writings of Vygotsky, particularly his concept of the Zone of Proximal Learning (ZPL)
Second. Chanting and repetition are vital. When I was 8 we daily chanted our way through the times table from 2x to 12x. Since then my mental arithmetic has always been more than adequate. and indeed more recently better than the doctor who decided I needed some sort of mental test.
Third. When I started French and Latin at 9 we chanted Latin but not French which we were taught more formally. The result is that I can still chant some of my latin pronouns – but never do in public, it would just look silly.
.
Third. Motivation is key. I still remember failing French O level 5 years after I started it ( Ipassed Latin). The French teacher was a delightful man and very hardworking (unlike the Latin teacher who was just hardworking and was unafraid to use public humiliation – social means to an end). Next term when I started the retake French class I was horrified to see my old French teacher walk in – but this time with a load of paperbacks, The paperbacks had a cover with a seaplane climbing away from a tropical island with a man clinging to a float and a huge anaconda clinging to the man. We (all boys) loved it, assiduously translated the exciting story into English and listened with interest to the explanations. We all passed!
Four. Use the target language. I had to learn German (the other option was Russian) at university for technical translation. the first lecturer never spoke English, never used a book. He started simply gradually building a sentence – holding up a pen -Der Stift, then Der stift its auf dem schreibtisch – german thanks to google). By the end of the term our conversational German was great and we were learning technical terms. Unfortunately he left for another job at Christmas and despite his replacement I passed the exam in May and I credit that to what I learnt in the first term
Five. When I was 25 I spent a year in Paris going to the Alliance Française to learn French. At that time they had their own method and texts and I learnt French to a significant depth. Yes I know I was actually in France but I am convinced their method was the reason for the standard I reached. Now, 50 years later I can still speak acceptable French even though I rarely go to France. Some 5 years ago whilst visiting family in Arequipa, Peru, my wife and I went to the local Alliance (they have been in Peru for over 130 years) to learn Spanish. Beh! Gone was the old method replaced by modern levels, A2, B1,and texts and gone was the learning experience I remembered. I do not like the current system. Even the BBC “Talk Spanish” was better. Rightly or wrongly I am convinced that the current standardised system does more harm than good to language learning.
Six. What about pedagogy? When I had to train people in my work I used the “Accelerated Learning System”. I think it is brilliant and my wife who adopted it for her maths teaching found her students leaning quicker than she could produce material.
Seven. Finally why am I not now fluent in Spanish and Italian? I blame retirement! Since I retired I have been busier than ever and since languages (two) was only one of the projects I started on, the time required for chanting and repetition evades me (as does somewhere private for me to carry out the activities)
So there are my suggestions:
1. Chant
2, Repeat ad nauseam
3. Motivation has to be part of every lesson, no matter how short, (see Accelerated Learning – six steps for every lesson -Motivate, Acquire, Search, Memorise, Show You Know, Reflect)
4. Use the target language
5. Chuck out the modern texts. levels and all that nonsense which just get in the way of learning..
6. Pedagogy should be deeply professional and fit for the purpose of teaching languages (Vygotsky/ZPL, and Accelerated Learning https://acceleratedlearning.com/learning/)
7. Don’t take on too much, unless you are a genius!
Isabel says
Hello Charles,
I agree with you about chanting but I think it needs to be done in company with others – far more entertaining and less weird. 🙂
I too can still chant Latin verbs and times tables remain useful (in fact, my daughter, who was not taught the same way and is better generally at maths than I am) .often asks what’s x times y and knows she will get a result quicker than a calculator.
Repetition also very handy. When I was young, I learnt Russian at uni, and my best friend at the time and I would take turns with practice dialogues and repeat and repeat (and laugh at phrases like “my mother is a collective farm worker” and “I see you have icons hanging”. I can also repeat the entire first dialogue we ever practised together. I dropped out of uni and only tried sporadically to learn more Russian later on but other things in life got in the way.
I’ll check out the link you put up – looks interesting..
Cheers,
Isabel
Caroline says
Dal dentista ma all’ufficio. Easy, or easier, once you’ve learnt the rule, ie whether it’s a person or a place. Italian and French prepositions are generally difficult for English learners.
As native speakers of the equally weird English language we should be grateful that the Italian rules of pronunciation are so straightforward!
Steph says
Ditto to everything said above.
I can only add that, as an English speaker in a class with a native Italian teacher, I frequently understand immediately where the confusion lies for a particular (English speaking) student, while the teacher often misunderstands the issue and explains something else.
Daniel , you have a unique opportunity to understand the mindset of English speakers – definitely use it!!!!
Claire says
I really like your idea of a section on things that are odd to native English speakers – so often I think – ok, but why?
Thanks for considering this & I hope you can take it forward
Derek Hook says
These are some areas that make it difficult for those nit familiar with Italians to understand the language
Pronominal verbs
Difficulty to say “wish” in Italian with the same meaning in English
Italian Idioms
Italian street slang
Passato remoto in books (for me crime novels i.e.’gialli)
Rick says
“The seemingly optional subject pronouns.” haha, one of my main annoyances as a beginner!
Rick Frank says
Your concept of focusing on the differences of Italian vs. English would benefit me doubly. I’m an English speaker and I find it more memorable to assemble a bank of exceptions between the two languages. The rules and regulars are important but also easier to learn and more commonly available. Whether in grammar, syntax or vocabulary the exceptions are often the more interesting because of their idiosyncrasies.
Markus says
There is no sense to explain “differences”. You are not studying comparative linguistics. The earlier you stop thinking in your native language, and immerse in the language you want to master, the better for the start and the farer you come. You probably don’t know anyway enough about your own grammar, to write an essay. This is just a smokescreen. You need to read, listen, write every day for a time. Then you develop ‘sensatività linguistica.’ The brain builds patterns under constant input., you help to build them.Ask Berlitz, all interaction starts with the target language, even if you don’t understand a word a t the beginning.Have fun, you can think differently, but you will come to similar conclusions, after the third language.
Daniel says
“Ask Berlitz, all interaction starts with the target language, even if you don’t understand a word a t the beginning.”
Yes, there used to be a Berlitz-branded school here in Bologna. I think it went bust about fifteen years ago…
The rest of this is nonsense. Comparing languages is hugely useful IF the teacher/students have the knowledge to do so, which is usually not the case in commercial language schools IN the country, but invariably true in state/public schools at home. State school lnaguage teachers are not usually mother tongue, but if they’re not total idiots, they’ll know enough to guide their students through the main areas of difficult. And the main areas of difficulty are where the languages diverge.
I’m a native-English speaker, but know Italian, Turkish, Swedish, and a little French and Spanish. Why would I not compare the structures of those langauges to my own? ESPECIALLY if I was teaching them. Turks, for instance use the continuous tense forms all the time, which is odd for me, but a nightmare for Italians, who don’t bother with them overmuch. Italians would be relieved to find that there are no continuous forms in Swedish, but frustrated that the Present Perfect/Simple Past issue, which they find so hard in English, exists in exactly the same way in Swedish too.
A Swedish teacher I once worked with (very, very briefly) was so unaware of what you term ‘comparative linguistics’ that she tried to teach her English pupil (me) the difference between those two forms (they are exactly the same in English), as if I were, for instance, Italian and had no hope of understanding them. That’s just dumb.
Insomma, there is every reason for both teacher and student to be as aware as possible of the differences between the target language and the student’s mother tongue and other languages she might know. In a multilingual class, that’s hard or impossible, hence the profusion of miracle methods, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be helpful.
Jay says
To your list of challenges for native English speakers I would add the prevalence in Italian to start sentences with an object rather than the subject. It sounds to an English speaker like the speech pattern of Yoda. (Of course I did it myself just above.)
John says
I often see appalling grammatical errors in English (and American) language periodicals, etc;, so it’s not surprising that such people have difficulty learning a language where grammar matters for understanding. In English, so long as the words are in the right order, the meaning should be clear, regardless of grammatical or spelling mistakes. Given the poor quality of written and spoken English among native speakers, it’s no wonder so many have difficulty learning a second language.
Daniel says
I couldn’t disagree more, John, no offence intended.
First, I don’t agree that there exists such a thing as a grammartical ‘mistake’, and grammatical inaccuracy in a native speaker of any educational level is vanishingly rare. Did you ever hear a native speaker use a past tense when they intended to refer to the future? I rest my case.
As regards spelling ‘mistakes’, which plague me, these are the consequence of an idiosyncratic and unreformed writing system, which has the effect of excluding people who don’t benefit from an education which sadly is often only available to some, not all. Italians don’t make spelling mistakes, because the Italian writing system is phonetic. Ergo, the problem is with the system not the user.
And finally, ‘such people’, the ones who’ve not had the advantages that you and I have had, seem to be perfectly capable of learning languages, witness those you might meet on holiday – waiters, camel drivers, and so on – who surely didn’t learn the many languages they seem to be able to haggle in in any school system.
Picking up foreign languages is normal and natural, FOR THOSE WHO ARE EXPOSED TO THEM. For Brits, Australians, the Irish and many who live in the USA, that’s not the case. Hence inexperience, sometimes panic, and consequent poor results when first attempting a task that is unfamiliar.
John says
Food for thought. Of course past/future tense is an easy example, but it’s amazing how often you hear the present tense being used to refer to events in the past or future. Maybe I’m too pedantic, but for a very brief period I had a good English teacher who insisted on “correct” grammar, e.g., not confusing adjectives and adverbs. What is not clear is not good English, and probably not good in any other language.
Keep up the good work; it’s always enjoyable, especially when we disagree.
Isabel says
Buondi Daniel,
I just went back to the beginning to refresh my memory of how the website goes and it all seems pretty straightforward: BEGIN HERE in nice capital letters and so it goes …. covering gender and articles and the way verb endings change depending … etc. and I can’t see why you would need more than those things to get an overview for a beginner. But of course you know that.:)
Getting people to actually read it is the problem because obviously those that need to the most don’t. And as you say – I guess you can’t scare prospective customers away by insisting they do work (ie. read) by themselves first when they possibly think that they’re paying your school to do it all for them.
Maybe another of your readers has a real solution. Speriamo!
And English is THE pazzo language – this is an article I came across … very entertaining ….
https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-english-so-weirdly-different-from-other-languages
Isabel
Mike McIntyre says
Daniel, I think your point about prior language learning experience is absolutely crucial for those of us, who do not have that background, to understand. I SO, now that I am learning Italian, that I had actually put some effort into learning the Spanish I was required to take in high school. I know it would have accelerated my progress a great deal. Yet, though I did the absolute minimum in my Spanish classes it was immensely helpful in that gendered nouns and conjugating verbs were not a surprise and thus I put no energy into being frustrated by a new concept. However, I must have absorbed much more Spanish than I thought because immediately with my tutor I would spontaneously drop in Spanish words for the Italian word I was looking for – and I didn’t even know I knew the Spanish word, it just came out. That is interesting and funny.
For me the most difficult thing has been, and continues to be, is it DI, DA, PER or A before an infinitive….or nothing at all. But, and this is to a point you continually make and we seem to not get very well, as long as I am COMMUNICATING with my Italian friends, as long as they get my MEANING, who cares if I get it wrong! The fact is I am online having a conversations with Italians, in Italian, and they understand me (well, a lot of the time). I may NEVER get that completely figured out but so what. I am communicating.
Mike Bunamo says
Hi Daniel,
I think that your approach to learning languages is very helpful.
In my case, I have brought myself up to an A2 level after 10 months by following your advice. I listen to Easy Italian News, I read simple stories from your online store and I have started taking speaking lessons. I have taken a diverse approach to studying Italian, aimed at being able to use the language to order dinner, ask directions, shop etc when I travel to Italy in the future. I believe I will be able to accomplish my goal.
In contrast, I also studied Brazilian Portuguese as a young man. I was an economist following developments in the Brazilian economy. So I concentrated on grammar in order to read the Brazilian financial press, daily newspapers, magazines and economic monographs. Through constant practice, I got pretty good at being able to read Portuguese. But when I traveled to Brazil, I was only able to communicate with the locals at the most basic level.
With this said, I would encourage you to look for ways to promote your approach to language professionals. Perhaps you could write articles on language teaching. Or look for data–if it exists–to show that your method of language teaching leads to better results for students. I think that many people would be in your debt.
Donald Bell says
I empathize with your frustration of ‘one’ dissatisfied customer, whose ranking of the club was illegitimate. Obviously serving multi-nationalities, one size can’t fit all, and you go out of your way providing certification, preparation courses for 6 different levels. And, you provide thorough outlines of what content is within each of those six courses, by which to assess which level might be the most appropriate for someone to begin with. While having been teaching myself Italian for 10 years, I was very pleased to come across your A1=C1 certification courses which are incredibly comprehensive (the principles, grammar, listening, vocaulary, and many exercies). My obective is to achieve the B1 level of certification that I understand is required for Italian citizenship, while I won’t be applying for citizenship. Rather, it’s to quantify my progress and to enjoy confirmation that I’ve attained a decent level of fluency in Italian, la bella lingua. By checking out the course content of the various levels, I decided to begin with your A2 – Pre-Intermediate course. I think it’s fantastic, especially for reviewing those areas in which I already feel competent, but being able concentrate on areas where I need more development (ie…. the Congiuntivo Presente, and a little reinforcement of when to use the Imperfetto vs Passato, having found the conjugations themselves pretty easy). Oh, and all of this for free. Sono al settimo cielo 🙂 Truly impressive content development. Mille grazie.
Donald Bell says
I may have just mistakenly associated a post about someone’s criticism of an Italian instructional school in Bolgna, thinking that criticism was directed towards your Online Italian Club, Mea culpa. Still, I was able to post compliments specific to the Online Italian Club and all of your various courses including your A2 = Pre-Intermediate certification prep course that I’m currently immersed in. Sorry for any confusion on my part.
Kathryn Temple says
I’ve just completed two weeks at the school (B1 level) and the diversity of the class was sheer joy. We had a Russian student who spoke English (and maybe French?), a Belgian student who had grown up speaking Sicilian and also spoke French, another American who spoke fluent Spanish, and a student from the Philippines who spoke ??, not sure but English and at least one other language. Although this meant that in some ways I was the worst in the class (worst speaker, most inhibited, least language learning experience, probably understood much less of what the teacher said than the other students, maybe knew a bit more grammar but that is not very helpful!)
I would not want to be in a class with only other Americans like myself, how boring. (Although the American in this class was not boring but then she had a fascinating background.)
The teacher explained everything in Italian and when we asked each other for definitions, we were supposed to give them in Italian. By the end of two weeks (with a lot of listening to sitcoms and other materials on my own), I was getting about 50% of the meaning although sometimes only the general thrust of it.
And I’m fine with that!
It’s interesting to learn some targeted info about language differences, etc. but I wouldn’t want to focus on that. Maybe an optional lesson or some blog posts would do it. One area I’m interested in is the relationship between language and thought patterns and culture. Italian seems to me to pack a LOT of info into the beginning of sentences compared to English. I’m not sure if that’s true but if it is then how does that impact thought patterns, cultural attitudes, etc.? Or does it? I don’t know enough about linguistics to know.
As far as the bad review goes, how ridiculous. This person needs to talk with other language learners and learn more about the process. I’ve experienced at least six Italian learning environments: elite university in the U.S., private tutoring, a school in Rome that used a top-down method and gave us very little time to interact, Duolingo, Pimsleur, a few other online programs (Coffeebreak Italian is fun to listen to on my commute). If I had to choose, it would be Madrelingua plus private tutoring but almost everything except the school in Rome has been helpful, even Duolingo!
The one thing I’d change about the website is this lighter print and maybe the font for better visibility? But again this is just me–I have some vision issues due to a medical condition and even enlarging the page doesn’t quite do it. Creating an easier-to-read page is much discussed on web-building blogs. There are probably also some changes you could make to improve access for other disabilities (a big issue at my school) but the organization of the page makes sense to me.
I love the school, The teachers are amazing! And I’ll be back in September for a couple of weeks and then hopefully for at least a month next May, maybe two. And this website has been invaluable for extra exercises, info, slow Italian news, etc.
–Kathryn
Derek Hook says
For an almost incomprehensible film try L’Avventura
Alison Ledgerwood says
Imparare canzoni o poesie può essere molto utile.
Questa canzone – Alla Fiera dell’Est – ho imparato più di quaranta anni fa quando lavoravo in una colonia per bambini vicino a Torino. A quel tempo credevo che fosse sola una vecchia canzone per bambini ma l’ho appena cercata e ho scoperto che è stata scritta solo nel 1976.
È una buona canzone per imparare il passato remoto. Ricordo ogni parola fino ad ‘oggi. La cantavamo sempre molto più velocemente con i bambini; ogni verso più veloce di quello precedente. I bambini l’amavano.
https://www.italyheritage.com/italian-songs/artists/branduardi/alla-fiera-dell-est.htm
Steph says
This is a very old Jewish song sung in Hebrew at Passover!!!
Carol Re says
Daniel, learning a language is really difficult. I’ve been learning for years and still I struggle so much!
Sometimes people think it’s going to be easy to learn a language. I remember someone I met one day said she was off to Italy in a few months time and must hurry up and learn the language, as if she would pick it up in no time at all. It takes years of lessons, reading and listening. I loved my 2 weeks at your school a few years back and still enjoy the challenge of learning and I appreciate how much you give to us students with the news, books and any grammar we may choose to learn and practice on your website.
Thank you so so much for helping me get this far!
Nicole says
This article was especially interesting to read. As an english native speaker who has watched content on YouTube (RaiTV) especially I felt lost. And lo would you behold, there was no option for english subtitles – at all. I felt very lost. I could pick out a few phrases as well as individual words, but I had to watch the video at least twenty times to get an elementary idea of what the video was about. I have given this article a nice long time so I could ruminate some possible solutions to this one woman’s predicament, because I am very much in her shoes. While I wish I could have the opportunity to take a course in your school, alas, I cannot, I live in the states, I can still offer some ideas based on my experience from watching videos.
1. Offer the coursework in PDFs in both the target language and native language with single words or small phrases missing in the beginning, then as the student progresses through the class increase the missing content. We call these closed notes here in the states. It forces the student to remain engaged in the coursework and treats it like a game in order to fill in the blanks. Does this take more planning time, yes – yes, it does.
2. Offer several “textbooks” for each course. The textbooks can include the target language and the learner’s native language. Offer them as digital books so you don’t have to pay for printing costs, otherwise the books would be too expensive for the students to purchase them. They can follow the Italian speaking teacher with the target language so they do not feel lost.
3. Have the concepts already typed up in Italian and allow students to audio record the lesson when they are attending. The student can then refer to their recording with the notes and translate outside of class if they got lost. Or offer a recording online of that day’s lesson for a small fee ($0.99/lesson or charge a fee up front for the total number of classes – for example: $24 for 24 lessons)
4. I am a visual learner, so Pictionary is a great tool. The teacher can point to body parts, objects when they are asking for students to identify Italian vocabulary. Charades is also great for this, and images online – I have found things online that I have printed and glued to words, phrases and sentences to help me, so I could get past my vocabulary flash cards that have both italian and english on them. The picture with the italian word helps me “think” in italian rather than “translating” into italian from english – this is still hard though, because there are not too many people that I am able to converse in italian with for free. Limited money for learning languages, means I have to find more free resources than ones that I pay for, so I have to very picky about which paid resources I use.
Just a few ideas. I could probably come up with some more “out-of-the-box” ideas, but I think 4 is enough for now. I will now go back to my Italian Scavenger Hunt Game (oops, number five).
Arrivederci!
Daniel says
All the materials on this website are free to use, Nicole. Thousands of pages of them, in total. Why not pause your incomprehensible Youtube videos and take a look, for instance, at the six levels of grammar and listening practice activities we offer?