This is a special hello,

mainly to the teenagers' families and their children, our students.

There are a few questions we would like to ask you, after the experience we have been sharing for several months so far

For parents:

What is/has been your child's involvement in this English course?  

Do you speak about our classwork at home?

Has our classwork been useful to support your child's English at school?

What are your ideas about this experience and advice for a next one?   

For pupils: 

Has it been useful to partecipate with your friends in our English course?

Has it been a demanding task? Was it fun? 

What do you think of the work we have done in class and the one you have been asked to do at home? 

Have there been any results? If so, what are they? 

For both families and students

Do you think that English Summer Camps, very short holidays where daily life and any other activities were performed in English could be useful for you to improve the language? We have plenty of ideas!

We have our very last classes together to talk about that, then you have to pass your final exam at school, and Summer is ready  for anything you like most, including enjoying and improving your English.

Leave a comment, we'll make a use of it.  

The article above is an invitation to think about technology; how to use it. The point is making a tool of it, having clear ideas of what the aims are. Find out what Hikikomori is aqnd write about it with your own words. .  

Anna - Coordinator

Source: Speak Up, May 2014

Good morning, afternoon, evening, 

this is a special homework for students working at the port of Livorno dealing with car stevedoring on board of ships.

Task n° 1: You received an informal email from Germany, enquiring about the transport via vessel of a few models of Bizzarrini cars.

You are requested to reply to the email, giving all the information required.

Task n° 2: after listening in class and talking about the two audios related to "Car shipping into containers" and "Faust, a gigantic car carrier", you have to write the answers to the questions on the worksheet above. 

"Dear Franco,

as I recently bought two models of Bizzarrini cars, I would like to join the so many other owners of these fairytale cars for an exibition that will be held in the States. My English teacher told me that I can bear on you for a perfect service of car stowage at the Port of Livorno, since the securing requirements provided by the Company you supervise are of excellent quality.

I'm sure you know that Bizzarrini cars are  unique designs, creations of a genius, the Italian Eng. Giotto Bizzarrini from your town, Livorno,  and periodically gather in selected places in the world so to remember the glories of their designer?

Could you please tell me how this type of cars are loaded onto vessels, if they are containerized, how they will be retained on board and what are the procedures to be followed in order to have them perfectly transported and desembarked in the States where I would be right to take them back in charge?

Thank you for all the info you will give me and that I would like to forward to my collector friends who would like to come to Livorno to embark their cars. 

Helmut"

For all the other students either interested in exclusive cars like the ones designed by Eng. Bizzarrini or just interested in knowing something about this genius, search on the Internet and write down for everybody what strikes you more. Also news about the gigantic Faust Ship can be found on the Internet, of course. 

Enjoy your English  

Anna - Coordinator

Source: "The genius behind Ferrari's success - Bizzarrini" Jack Koobs de Hartog

http//users.skynetbe/Bizzarrini  

Good day, 

what do you think of the idea of leaving planet Earth and go to Mars? 

If you were offered this possibility, would you accept it?

In the States there are 200.000 applicants for one way trip to Mars, and one thousand have already been selected fo this one way journey foreseen for 2023. 

A human mission will follow and unmanned one, carried out by a Rover explorer to find the best place for the human mission to settle.

Mars too will be colonized then, after two living units, two support systems and two supply units will have been launched to make human beings settle on the planet. The first crew will be there in 2023 and every two years a new one will join them. 

What does strike you most about this article?  

What do you think of the differences among peoples living on planet Earth? 

Would you take into consideration the idea of leaving planetEarth? 

Anna - Coordinator 

Source: Speak Up April 2014 

'morning, afternoon, evening, 

just breathing. Yesterday in class we talked about how also everyone' breathing can be so meaningful.

There are times in which we should pay more attention to the simpliest things in life, but so important as breathing for example. Before reading the article reply to these questions:

do you feel any necessity to be more capable of concentration? Why?

what could be breathwalking aimed at, according to you?

do you live a stressfull life? 

are there only disadvantages in having a stressfull dayly routine?

what are the tools you use to improve the quality of your life? 

if so, why is your life so stressful? 

any possibility to change it from being so stressed to being resourceful?

And now read the article and start thinking about breathing and your self perception 

any thinking of training your breathing this way?

Let us know, find your time and improve its quality with just self awareness. It is a first step, but any path  

is made by single steps.

Anna - Coordinator 

Source: Speak up October 2007

 Good day,

we could say so much about speaking English as Italians. 

If you acquire English as a second language, or third or whatever, it is one more identity you can add to your one/s. 

It allows your potentialities to surface, since so many other skills of yours were submerged and a second language is just the tool, sometimes it is just the excuse, to make you observe more, pay grater attention, listen more carefully, write to find out that there are accuracy and style, that can be transferred to your other languages; in case you are Italian, your mother tongue too can improve.

Speaking too, giving any single word an intonation to accompany any speech of yours, becomes that enjoyment the way anything related to English is. It is that one more house you can have and offer to everybody, feeling at home wherever you can hear it spoken.

Something in common, this feeling equal, and making the others feeling the same. 

Up to you to continue what English is for you, your past and present experiences, to let our readers know. 

It would be a pleasure reading them. 

Comparing experiences, what is one of the best things Mike Strevens has ever done? Why? And yours? Why? 

He speaks about Italian teachers of English. What does he say about them and what is your general evaluation about English spoken in Italy? 

Where did you learn English? How long have you been studying it? 

What do you do to improve it? Does it work? How do you evaluate that? 

We think that Mike Strevens says something quite true about the common Italians' behaviour when speaking English. Integrating school classes' programs, we see that students tend to be afraid or ashamed to be laughed at, and be seen objects of derision by the others. 

We are convinced that the approach to a second language at school should consider it behaviour, not a subject. A language is a matter of life, a lifelong competence, a vehicle for any meaning you want to communicate and talk about. With the teacher acting in English, it should be perceveid as such.  A language is you and your entire body, the way you feel at ease with it.  

Read the article, think of it, write a comment for us to read and talk about when back in class. 

Thanks everybody, enjoy your English

Anna - Coordinator 

Source: Speak Up, March 2014 

 Good morning, afternoon, evening, 

when children are asked to cope with war, when they experience anything else but war and fleeing from the war.

Do they know that we are looking at them on protographs?

Do they know that all over the world their faces are shown to make us think about ...........? What are you thinking about while watching them?

Do you know what resilience is, in what diferent areas it is adopted and to define what?  

What are the infancy's rights? 

Are they the same the world wide?

If anyone can draw, try to portrait these faces, each one expressing different feelings, one more way to pay the great attention they would deserve as human beings. 

Do you work as volunteers for some action? 

If so, let us know as a comment. If so,let's hold on  and contribute to change even one life, gesture by gesture, word by word. It could make the difference for someone. 

Anna - Coordinator

Source: Time, February 10

Good morning, afternoon, evening

There is a class interested in tattoos.

That is why we tried to find an article everybody can read and work on, answering the questions of the wowrksheet.

It is good practice for your English.

Agnese, Alessandra, Anna, Martina, Samuele, see you in class then, ready to talk about tattoos!

Enjoy your English

Anna - Coordinator

Source: Speak Up July 2006 

Good day, 

after posting articles about films, Gravity won seven Academy Awards; we would also like to celebrate the Italian one, with The Great Beauty, by Film Director Paolo Sorrentino.  

We haven't watched it  yet, since we would like to do it the way Americans did, with English subtitles.  Below you have the link for the English trailer, on Youtube. It' important listening to the original audio of each film, and compare the two productions simultaneously, an ability you can develop thanks to just watching films and that can be of benefit in any other field.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJfvX6zPAuQ 

It would be so great of you writing your own comment about the film, there are so many different impressions!

Enjoy cinema, enjoy English, practice it as much as possible, go to the cinema as often as you can!

Karall: thank you for your articulated comment. We do agree the award has been also for Rome, that plays an extraordinary fascination on American people and whoever all over the world. If you were a student in class, there would be occasions for mastering grammar and sentence constraction. At this very stage, communication works and mistakes do not impoede comprehension.

Rimas: we do adore visual language too, and any others. Thank you for highlighting how important it is to perceive all possible languages a film works on. The more we become aware of our perceptions, the more we can appreciate art.

Eleonora: going to the cinema is fundamental, but in order to appreciate the quality of a film, I would say the inner disposition is important too. It's not the case of the great beauty, that's in Italian, but sometimes if you want to watch a film in its original language, you have to choose for a DVD or otherwise. 

Anna - Coordinator 

Good day, 

these are two different articles at a more advanced level, and if you do not read what the level is, we think it is worth trying them. You can help your comprehension with the notes at your disposal.  

Two different solitudes in two films, the immense space and the vaste sea.

Robert Redford, a "solo" interpretation in All is lost, needing a unique experience as an actor, and it can easily be said as a human being too.

Sandra Bullock acting as an astronaut in Lost in Space that reminds us of real unpredictable risks when outside into the space like the one recently ran by the Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano. In the interview by Radio Tre we mentioned elsewhere, he was also asked about this film, and for sure, professionals' perception is different from common film viewers' one.  

Actors have this possibility, to play roles as they were real life, to face other selves, and what about us?

What can we do if we need to be different from how we commonly are? Do you ever feel this need? 

Try to write as a comment if you agree with Redford and Bullock, and what you would have done in such situations, or what you did if you ever found yourself as a "solo going" and where you had to "go".

In case you have questions for the actors Redford and Bullock after reading the articles and watching the films, ask your questions here, we will do our best to have proper replies.  

See you in class,  

Anna - Coordinator

Source: Speak Up, February 2014

Eleonora: films and films! How nice speaking about them! I  have been on the set of a short film, but I would like to see how the whole set of a film works. How you go through scene by scene respecting the script to get the final result.  Being a film maker is a matter of having great professionality, sensitivity, intelligence, skills. Cinema can play an important role in claiming human rights.

Do not ever forget how meaningful is watching films also to acquire English. The context works with the plot, and images support delighting your interest.

Good day everybody, 

we tried to find an article at low-intermediate level, a few others are advanced level, they are for a next time. Trust yourselves, and very soon you all will be able to read them.

It's impressive how so many times human life depends on a dog's one. We found this article about guide dogs, "someone" we have to rely on when blind.

Never met people who can't see? Never realized how many times we use expressions like "See you" and how kindly they reply?

Never met people with guide dogs? Never spoken to them?

What a sensitivity and fantasy they have, being capable of living in the dark, continuously developing strategies to cope with the reality they can't see. 

If you have anecdotes or stories, please tell us, we would be so pleased to know them. 

It would also be great to read your stories about your dogs, if you have any. You know, sometimes we talk about animals just to learn how to speak about humans. 

To practice your low-intermediate English, you can reply to these questions related to the article:

1. What is "The Seeing Eye"?

2. When was it founded?

3. Who founded it?

4. What breed of dogs are trained at "The Seeing Eye"?  

5. How many puppies are raised each year?

6. What happens to an eight-week-old puppy?

7. What happens after that?

8. How long does the training last? 

Enjoy your English, very soon one more demanding text for everybody to read and practice on. See you in class.

Anna - Coordinator 

Source: Speak Up, February 2014