Let's talk again about learning: a bilingual approach with curiosity and love by SilviaC

Leggi l'informativa su Privacy & Cookie a lato, all'interno della stessa trovi le modalità per non aderire. Se vuoi aderire è sufficiente che prendi visione e continui la navigazione sul nostro blog. Grazie

Dearest friends,

The bad news is that summer is quickly ending. Our holidays are becoming photographs.

Where have you been to relax?

City, sea, mountains, lake ... the 2021 summer is changing into a memory, like a photo album to look at, when we want to ... dream, in wintertime!

During my holidays, I speculated about learning.

Sometimes I changed my mind. In others, I didn't.

I listened to people, experts and non-experts, and I understood many things myself.

I still believe that beyond the thousand modern methods, which are welcome and absolutely pleasant, the important in learning is the human relationship: welcoming, positive, cheerful, assertive, safe, engaging and satisfying. 

At any age! 

Here I am, at the beginning of the new learning season with my reflections, ready to answer your questions, needs, and requests.

This summer, I recalled when I was living in Finland, teaching Italian to teenagers. 

I was teaching Italian in English to teenagers who only spoke Finnish.

There were no mobile phones at that time, and I could use the internet in the library, but it was not as advanced as today (anyway, I'm still young, don't get strange ideas).

One morning, we talked about trips to Italy, and it was hard to get them to say something. 

In a moment, we ended up talking about the Dolomites, and just as everything was starting to flow, one of them asked:  "Excuse me, what is the goat's unguis called in Italian?".

Unfortunately, I did not know.

Try to take the old 4 kg vocabulary, and see if you can understand how you get to the name from the definition.

I still hadn't found it (I was very young and not very smart, don't laugh). 

A boy got up, came to the blackboard, made the drawing of the goat's unguis and tried to explain it, in Italian-Finnish. 

He said that the unguis of the goat is called "unghiafessa" because it is a split nail.

In the end, everyone was enthusiastic, and from then on, the task became "looking for the questions that the teacher cannot answer".

It was a happy year.

In Finland, I did not use grades. I did not punish. I did not roast anyone, but I simply talked to the teens. 

I explained to them what they had learned and what each of them needed to improve.

If I was wrong, I laughed and let myself be fooled.

I understood the importance of a bilingual approach to a foreign language. 

Imagine how many times someone told me: 

"But you are Italian, and you don't even go to England very often, you can't know it, you can't do it, you don't know anything." 

or 

"But I'm bilingual, I live in England, and even if I'm not graduated, I know how to teach and translate better than you ", and much more.

I would like to clarify that my idea is that a bilingual approach has nothing to do with 

- 3 months English course and you speak English as Italian 

- you will see that you will be able to say and understand everything ...

A bilingual approach is a way to approach a new language, learning and opening our minds to the different. Different sound, way of being, way of thinking ... 

You will believe me the day when you pay to send your son or daughter to England, and they will be happy again because they spoke English (or Italian, but in this case, I am also mother tongue), they made a mistake and knew how to laugh at that. 

They understood the jokes of their friends, they could see a musical or a film.

If they didn't understand every word, they didn't spend their time looking for their meaning in Italian; but they had a bilingual approach to the second language.

It's a path built slowly, patiently. 

Smiling with curiosity. 

Indeed, the language must be cultivated and trained. 

Here comes the preference for the mother tongue teacher, who must have a specific pedagogical preparation. 

To be Italian is not the primary ability; to be an excellent Italian teacher.

Be careful not to make learning bondage. Have you ever tried to dance on pointe, hating ballet? You cannot be a dancer if you do not love dance. If you do not open your heart and smile to dance and language, you won't go on.

I know a child who has never managed to take a swimming course to the end. 

He had done 6 months swimming course when he was 3 years old. The age when swimming is just aquatic. In any case, he started going to swim every summer with his parents, and he loved it so much that he got it.

He played. He was a shark or a dolphin or anything else. 

At ten, he knew how to swim freestyle and began to practice the dolphin, effortlessly, with the biggest smile in the world.

That is learning for me.

See you soon.

SilviaC