BAAAAAAHHH.

May 29, 2009

Our host lady, Rita, is driving Hillary and I NUTS!!  She always talks to us like we’re dumb and we don’t understand her with big gestures and repeating over and over the same thing.  Also, the lady screams NON STOP!  When we get home she is constantly yelling at her son or her grandson or her husband.  It’s not your normal yelling; it’s with this high shrill that is capable of causing migraines.  And it doesn’t matter where she is in the house, we can always hear it as if she were standing right outside the door.  Every night, right before she goes to bed, she calls her cats in.  She yells outside from the front door and she goes, “TOPPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!”  Over and over again.  Hillary and I are going to try to catch in on video one of these days because it is too funny.  But she does this every night without fail. 

This morning our first class was the 5^th class.  Professor M. let me have the whole period to do my little survey.  I asked the students several questions about what they liked about their high school English learning experience and if they felt that the teacher explained the language well enough, etc.  They were really helpful and filled out the questions.  Now I just have to go through them and analyze the answers so that I can give the Professor helpful feedback.  I explained to the students about visual, audio, and tactile learning styles and tried to get them to identify which was most prominent for them.  Since in Italy it isn’t very common to talk about these things it was interesting to them. 

The next class was the 2^nd G class.  Professor M. tried to get them to talk about and summarize the film they saw yesterday but apparently their English was not working today.  Everyone was silent and not very many students could answer his questions, which got him a bit irritated.  He lectured them some more on how they have GOT to do better.  Poor kids, they get it every time. 

The next period was the 2^nd A class.  They also had to give a summary about the movie.  There was a certain boy in the class that hardly every pays attention and today the teacher let him have it.  He told him that he just needs to concentrate more!  I wonder if these kids ever get embarrassed about being singled out in class, or maybe they are just used to it by now.  There was a line in the film that talked about not being a sheep and following the crowd but being just you.  Professor M. tried to emphasize the importance of this.  It made me think of all the kids that I saw out in the courtyard on the way to class that were all standing together smoking.  BAHHHHHH!

Since I’m lacking hours for my internship Professor M. is helping me arrange to go with other teachers during the periods that he doesn’t teach.  Today for the last hour I went with another English teacher.  Her name is Assunta, she’s originally from the Naples area and she’s very nice.  This is her first year teaching high school so she’s not incredibly confident and the students take advantage of it.  Today I went with her to the 3^rd I class.  It was really weird not being in the class with Professor M.  I could tell right away that she was a lot less confident that he usually is in the classroom.  The topic that they were studying that day was about describing appearance.  She asked me to help explain some things so I introduced myself and then talked about myself.  I talked about the color of my eyes, my hair, my face, etc.  It felt really good to get a chance at connecting with the students.  I felt confident and I felt like I had gotten the hang of speaking in a loud, clear voice that they could understand.  I knew which words to write on the board and which words to have them repeat after me so they could pronounce it.  After we did a few exercises, Assunta asked me to explain to the students about some of the differences that I have noticed between Italian and American schools.  This sort of gave me an opportunity to vent about the kids smoking at such a young age, cheating in school and discipline in the classrooms.  I felt like Assunta totally backed me up and agreed with a lot of the things that I said.  That was really nice!    Assunta is a really sweet lady and a lot less intimidating that Professor M.  I felt really comfortable around her.   

Since my fiancé loves Disney World more than he loves me I didn’t get to talk to him on the phone today but I still came to the Internet place to write in my blog.  I hope you are all reading my blog as devotedly as I write it!  J

Hillary has to work tonight so we won’t be having our movie night…but that’s okay because I’ll need plenty of sleep since we’re leaving for Venice tomorrow morning.  We’ll be there until Sunday and then I might go to Milano for a couple of days.  So if I don’t write for a couple of days…don’t be alarmed, I’m still alive!!