May 7, 2009
This morning I was so tired when I got up. Hillary didn’t have to go to her internship until this evening but she got up to eat breakfast with me because we both hate eating alone. I’m starting to really rely on this companionship because all we have here is each other. I took the bus and it wasn’t very busy this morning so the bus got there early. I stopped by a store and bought some paper so I could take notes on the events of class.
I waited in the teacher’s lounge for Prof Monaci and as soon as he showed up and we grabbed the books from his locker that we would need for that day we headed down to the snack bar to grab him a coffee. He talked to me about some ideas that he had to show me how he does the grading. He also said that it might be interesting for me to sort of survey and ask students how they liked the course and whether they thought the teacher was effective and if they had any thing they would like to change or improve. Prof Monaci seemed sort of tired and he said how asleep he was and didn’t really want to go to class. I was like, “what?!” He was like, “Oh sure, all of the teachers hate coming to school, and the students just come to have fun.” Wow, this attitude is so different from stuff I’ve learned in my classes. The teacher that taught my Teaching Literacy class, Dr. Anderson, was always super excited to teach and he was inspiring! I feel like most of my teachers at school growing up were always really upbeat and excited to teach. I guess Italy is just a different place, right?!
So we went off to our first class, which was held in the language lab. I didn’t count the computer stations but there were probably about 25. The object of the day was to teach the students how to find resourceful information on the web about English Language Schools abroad. The first one that we looked at together was called Safron Waldon Bell School in the UK. The Professor talked about what you need to be aware of when choosing the school such as making sure the program has had official recognision or that it meets cerain standards. You have to make sure that they are good schools because you don’t want to waste your money and there are a lot of scams out there. He taught them how to read the websites and English and pointed out certain vocabulary that might be unfamiliar to them such as tuition, non refundable, application, etc. He taught them that you first have to choose what courses you want and the sort of things or proficiency level that you want to learn. He taught them how to look for that sort of information on the websites and showed a couple of examples of websites that are too cluttered or confusing. The main thing that they are looking for is that the school offers certain certificates as the PET or preliminary English test, which is useful for getting in to universities in the UK or in Europe. The teacher asked one of the students to tell about his experience that he had had abroad. He told of how the website he had looked at had been misleading. The teachers weren’t very good; apparently they misspelled a lot. He told of how in his accommodations they places were run down and a lot of the students often had things stolen. The student said that the buildings were ugly, whereas in the pictures it they had looked different. The professor talked about types of things that they have to take into consideration for example, different religions, or the types of food. He talked about how in some places around the world ravioli comes in a can. It was so funny because one of the girls in the classroom made a horrified face at that idea and she was just shocked as such a thing! Oh man, if they knew that I ate that stuff from chef boyardi all that time at college they would probably spit at me.
I suggested they look at the ELC (the English Learning Center at BYU) website. The teacher pointed out how well organized the website was and how you could tell that it was a very good school. All of the information was easily attainable and understandable. He had me talk to the class about the ELC. I explained a bunch of stuff about the different levels, the sort of atmosphere, and about life in Provo and the ELC. I also talked a bit about the TOEFL which is not something that the students here are familiar with since most of their focus is on the British programs.
There’s this one kid in the class. He’s got bright red curly hair and freckles and he looks a lot younger and smaller that the rest of the boys in that class. I asked the teacher and he said that this boy had had a bone marrow transplant a few years ago because he had cancer. This boy is so quiet and timid and he hardly ever talks in class but I can tell that he pays attention. I just wanted to give the kid a big hug because he’s so adorable.
Okay, I have to take a moment to comment on some of the things that I heard the professor say to the students, other than ‘shut-up’, because some of them are so funny. There is this one student who dresses like a hippie so when he was taking role he was like, “oh yeah, he’s here because I saw him in his pajamas earlier…” and in response to wrong answers there was “sei una bestia!” meaning, “You are a besat!” and “Ti spezzo le gambe!” or “I’ll break your legs!” Seriously, this man never ceases to amaze me with the sort of things that he yells at the kids! Oh, isn’t Italy wonderful?! Wouldn’t you like to send your kids to school here? J
The second class we taught was from the 2nd class. He started out with, “Yesterday was disgusting so I really hope that you guys perform better today or else you are all failing.” Then he proceeded to say how some students were in not very good standing grades wise and then called them out by name. Mamma mia! Seriously, this is so different from the US. He reviewed the grammar homework that was due. Then he taught about the verb usage with things such as borrow/lend, regret, mean, stop, try, and feel and when these are followed by a gerund or an infinitive. He did well at pointing out the differences from Italian.
The next hour we taught another 2nd class. On our way to class we passed by the courtyard, which is still within the school grounds. There was a group of about 30 students or so and they were all just standing together socializing and…SMOKING!! Most of them didn’t look older than 14. I almost had a stroke right there on the spot. Ok, maybe not really but I was like, “What?!” I asked the professor, “What about lung cancer and disease?! The Italian population is already declining are they really trying to kill themselves at an earlier age?!” He was like, “Yeah, a couple of years back it wasn’t allowed to do it at school but now it is.” The professor stopped and said hello to another teacher. She had this horrible raspy voice and her whole face looked grey with the color intensifying around her mouth and teeth. Her face was all wrinkly and she reeked of smoke. I took a wif because it was just so awesomely disgusting that I wanted to remember it forever. I can’t believe that these kids see this teacher and still want to keep smoking! I wish I could do an anti-smoking campaign, I would totally try to hire that lady; she would be perfect!
They class had a test that day. Both the professor and I took the test so that he could have a key. The test had multiple-choice problems such as: “What did the newspaper ___ about the accident? A. tell, B. refer, C. say, or D. speak (C is the right answer). Then there was also a part where they gave you a narrative passage that had the paragraphs out of order and you had to put them in order. That one was kind of hard, even for me! After both the professor and I had finished with the test we compared answers and then he showed me how he graded the exams. The students here get a number grade from a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest. So he said that he graded with a 2/3rds sort of thing that I didn’t really understand when he explained it to me but it looks something like this: This particular test had 42 questions so that means 42 possible points.
| Points | Grade |
| 42 | 10 |
| 41 | 9 ½ |
| 40 | 9 |
| 39 | 8 ½ |
| 38 | 8- |
| 37 | 8 |
| 36 | 8+ |
| 35 | 7 ½ |
| 34 | 7- |
| 33 | 7 |
| 32 | 7+ |
And so on… So basically only a 42 can get a 10. Only a 41 and a 40 can get some sort of 9 and then 4 points go to one sort of grade. I probably explained that really badly but that’s probably because I didn’t understand it very well. The professor walked around a bit making sure that they were all completing their own tests. There was this one chubby boy that kept looking at me during the test. When he was turning in his test in a pile that was right in front of me he sort of pointed at a question on his paper and looked at me as if expecting me to give him the answer. I had to bite my lip from laughing because I was just thinking, “Seriously?” Oh yeah, I’m back in high school.
Our last hour we taught a 4th class. Professor Monaci hates this class! He told me that they are a bunch of rich snobs and they have no manners. He started the class telling them how rude and ill-mannered they are. One of the kids volunteered himself to be interrogated that day because he had studied extra hard. The topic was Robinson Crusoe and Daniel Defoe. Professor Monaci had to stope every 5 mintues to tell the rest of the class to stop talking during the interrogation but they just kept talking. Finally he stopped and spent about 10 minutes lecturing about how if they want to talk they can just leave class. He told them that if he had to stop class again that he would ask those that were talking to leave. He said, “I am totally serious about this. If you don’t want to learn just get up and leave, go to the snack bar or something, have a coffee with some friends and when you’re ready to learn come back.” The students all looked indifferent the whole time he was talking. Not one student looked scared or looked like he was being reprimanded. I felt so bad for Professor Monaci! Things like this make me not want to teach because I think I would go grey a lot faster!
So as soon as school was out I came to the library!! Yay, I love the library! The internet here good and its free and I like it because its quiet here. I can just sit and write peacefully! Now I’m headed home. Hillary wont be there tonight because she has her internship. Oh well. Till tomorrow!
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