Good morning, afternoon, evening Mirella, Elisa, Federica, Daniele, Sergio, 

I read "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri many years ago, when she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize with  these short stories of hers. A student of mine had to study it for her English university exams. Fascinating stories, with their characters personifying so delicate human feelings.  

People of Indian origin living in the States, multiple identities, more complex and richer. The way you feel when accepting to let the new identity a language represents, to be part of you and be shared with all the others you meet.  

For all these years, every now and then I've had the chance to listen to her while being interviewd on Radio Tre, time by time speaking a better Italian, nowadays with almost no accent  at all. 

What struck me was her deep understanding of what a language can be for a person, how poverty is significant in such a case and that it has to be consciously experienced when struggling to speak a new language, with no enough vocabulary and structures. The sense of inadequacy that shapes you so to make you develop surviving strategies to better perform, in order to be perceived adequately by the others. 

Recently, I've heard her speaking about the feeling of persisting marvel to be experienced when coping with the discovery any single moment of reality, knowledge and people. 

Human feelings to understand and experience at the same time while finding out that a language is you, shows your potential, obiectives to achieve, is your personality and your intelligence, colours your life, nurishes it and allows to be engaged in meaningful relationships with all those people you meet and you already have around you.  

Migrations and migrant people are such an opportunity for everybody to experience new realities, cultures and unexpected feelings. And to understand why they happen going backward in history. 

What is your experience with reading books written by immigrants? 

Do you have any special story to say about immigrants you know? 

What do you know about Jhumpa Lahiri? 

Write down what you can find about her and tell us in class. 

Enjoy your English and all the other languages you can be exposed to. 

Anna - Coordinator

Source: CULT, DEA Scuola 2014, such a stimulating text book  

 

 

2 comments

 Good morning,afternoon, evening, 

who can tell us why we wrote The Universe "Once more" ? 

Is the Universe a subject of interest to you?

What about the figurative language that uses universe as a noun?  

Where can you see a universe or universes, or better, as it's being sayed nowadays, a multiverse? 

Have you read any of the books written by Stephen Hawking together with his daughter Lucy?

Do you know any films involving subjects such as wormholes, or time travelling?

Let us know either here or in class. Read the article and enjoy your English!

Federica: what a good contribution, yours, to our page!  Definetely a good interpretation, yours, of "once more" and it might be.  We meant that since the universe is both figurative language and an ispiration to this blog, it is on previous pages too. Visit some of them, including the third on your right from the blue menu. What a pity we can't find enough time to upload more and make you reply! But we'll try, do not despair. 

Anna - Coordinator 

Source: Speak Up, April 2019 

2 comments

 

Good morning, afternoon, evening,

 

since success at work also depends on a series of skills quite difficult to be defined, we are going to deal with them.

With this page we continue talking about our professions.

What do you mainly like of your job?

Which task do you think you fulfill best?

What is the role played by other people in jour job? 

What skills do you appreciate more in other people? 

How can they be correlated to the goals targeted in rheir and your job?

Read the pages of this article and come to class ready to speak about them, comparing your ideas with those of your mates.

Try to broaden your reflextions as much as possible and in case you can write them as a comment here before that.

These are aspects of our jobs for long time undervaluated, while they are fundamental in building up that "soft" complexity that reveals itself being a resource noy only for our job, but for life too. 

 

Let us know and never forget to enjoy your English 

 

Anna - Coordinator 

Source: Speak Up April 2019 

 

5 comments


Hello Dennis, Marina, Michelle, Alessandro, Alice, Pier Daniele, Haila, Riccardo, Tama, Chiara, Lorenzo, Camilla, Alessandro, Alina, Alessio, Diego, Alessio, Alyssia, Martina, Alessandro, Greta, Federico, Marta, Kejsi, Sara, Leonardo, Marianna, Chiara,  Valerio, Francesca, Moundor, Xhuljana, Gabriele, Martina, Chiara, Riccardo, Davide, Eleonora, Francesco

and Federica, Silvia, Loretto, Mirella, Daniele, Elisa, 

this is a page for you to practice some more parts of the PET Examination you are going to cope with soon. 

PET Paper 1 Reading and Writing: Reading Part 2 (Question 6),  Writing Part 3 (Questions 7 - 8)

PET Speaking Test, Speaking Part 2 (2 - 3 minutes)

Read carefully the texts that riproduce exactly what your interlocutor is going to tell you when tested at the exam. 

Try to have the whole vision of the exam and go to pass it after practicing as often as you can any single part of it, so to have no difficulties. Create by yourselves your own advantages, you will be more satisfied of yourselves. 

A proof passed is a good result not just for the school, but for you and your entire life. . 

Enjoy your English, 

Anna - Coordinator 

Source: own source material for PON 3504 and photos taken on May 9 

 

2 comments

Good morning, afternoon, evening,

 

 

Silvia, Federica, Elisa, Mirella, Daniele, Loretto,

 

what do you know about the two subjects of the page before reading the articles?

There is this idea that acquiring a new language makes you loose yours. That's completely wrong, since it is just when you acquire a new one that you may compare the two languages. 

You can also improve the first you learned, since it is a great opportunity to notice differences and similarities,and then developing this skill.  

An example? There are so many, but just a few: nobody knows any more how to say spelling in Italian, because they do not even think of it as an English word. 

Speaking of left-handed people, nobody knows how to say right-handed in Italian and they mix humans with shells.

They notice that in Italian too words can have two meanings only after knowing that about English words.

What an opportunity then to broaden horizons! Word by word, as much as you like and want, up to you to decide, life is not long enough. 

Do you know any other fields where synestheasia can be applied as a reference to understand? 

Let us know, write your comment and we'll read them in class. 

Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy your English 

 

Anna - Coordinator

Source: own worksheets and Speak Up  August 2017 - August 2018 

9 comments

             Hello

Dennis, Marina, Michelle, Alessandro, Alice, Pier Daniele, Haila, Riccardo, Tama, Chiara, Lorenzo, Camilla, Alessandro, Alina, Alessio, Diego, Alessio, Alyssia, Martina, Alessandro, Greta, Federico, Marta, Kejsi, Sara, Leonardo, Marianna, Chiara,  Valerio, Francesca, Moundor, Xhuljana, Gabriele, Martina, Chiara, Riccardo, Davide, Eleonora, Francesco once more, 

and Federica, Silvia, Loretto, Mirella, Daniele, Elisa, 

you have plenty of work to do here, if you like.

You can read about the very first sections of the "Museo della Città", in Livorno, and do your PET practice tests, Reading and writing, reading part 5, Writing part 1, finding the right order of the pages that unfortunately have no number, but it shouldn't be too difficult finding it.  

In addition, there are a few pages written by ITI G. Galilei Livorno's students when asked to connect the words on top of the pages about Europe, and to answer the following questions you too can reply to:

1. What is there in Livorno that can be of European interest? Think of European people coming to visit Livorno. What would you suggest them to visit to feel in Europe here too?

2. Use the 24 different languages of the EU to express a few basic ideas, such as "bravo", "you can do better", "sorry, I can't understand", "by heart". Make your research with a mate at home and we will trust you, since we cannot check  all European languages.

3. What is a tradition? When is it that a tradition becomes such?

4. Can you see any tradition in Livorno that might be of European interest?   

Leave comments and answers, enjoy your English, come back to visit us. 

Federica: thank you for your contribution. We'll read your comments in class. Livorno and painters, what a beautiful identity to master for our city!

Silvia: Livorno and music, definetely our city deserves much more attention and appreciation than it has! We could go and visit it in English, as an open class! Would you do it?  

Anna - Coordinator 

Own source PET Material plus ITI G. Galilei Livorno's students writings  

4 comments

Hello  Dennis, Marina, Michelle, Alessandro, Alice, Pier Daniele, Haila, Riccardo, Tama, Chiara, Lorenzo, Camilla, Alessandro, Alina, Alessio, Diego, Alessio, Alyssia, Martina, Alessandro, Greta, Federico, Marta, Kejsi, Sara, Leonardo, Marianna, Chiara, Valerio, Francesca, Moundor, Xhuljana, Gabriele, Martina, Chiara, Riccardo, Davide, Eleonora, Francesco, 

we did not spend the night there, but the visit to the "Museo della Città" in Livorno was exciting anyway!

ITI G.Galilei's students participating in  the PON 3504 about Europe, had the chance to spend a few of their English hours discovering Livorno's fascinating origins, to see the so many archaeological finds collected by both Livornesi and foreign collectors and donated to the City of Livorno. 

All the times Livorno distingueshes itself for its generosity.  Giorgio Piovene in his "Viaggio in Italia", 1957 - 1967, when writing about Livorno, says: "Livorno has an extraordinary aspect: in the sense that it is out of the aesthetic rule of our old cities, without being part of the rules of the modern city. It is absolutely different: one cannot look at buildings themselves, but at the Tangle of life from which undoubtely the impulse of life arises".  

Here a few questions for you about Livorno: 

How old is it?

What do you know about its origins?  

And its history?

Do you know any historical figure who gave name to some streets in Livorno and what they did? 

Let us know with a comment. 

Enjoy your English and any possible connection with vitality.

Anna - Coordinator 

Own source photos taken with students' parents' permission 

 

1 comment

Good morning, afternoon, evening

Mirella, Michela, Elisa, Silvia, Giuliana, Federica, Daniele, Loretto, Sergio, 

 

these are pages for you all to read after finding their right order, and speak about when in class together. 

What is the role played by your job in your life? 

Can you employ your skills when working?

Is your work stressful?

Do you adopt any special technique to relax?

Can you focus on a subject and stay focused as long as you need? 

Are you aware of a special state of mind when concentrating? 

What do you do to line up both, thinking and speaking so to express your thoughts accurately?    

What is the origin of mistakes when you know them for having them being corrected previously?

I know we have experts in class, they might tell us how what their opinions about mindfulness is and give us all advice. 

Thank you Federica for your comment. I do think everybody should become aware of their energy, how to produce, to preserve, invest and employ it. Thus conceiving the best strategies to be always lively, motivated and satisfied of any committment to engag us!   

Anna - Coordinator

Source: Speak Up, March 2019 

 

2 comments

Good morning, afternoon, evening,  

Giuliana, Mirella, Silvia, Elisa, Federica, Michela, Loretto, Daniele, 

as you may already know, as far as uploading photographs is concerned, I'm struggling with my new equipment, but now, all the images for this page are uploaded, so that you can enjoy the page and work on it. 

 

"Mirror neurons" is the subject we are going to talk about tomorrow,  that's why I'm inviting you to write here your very short "essays", while reading the article I have been keeping for years, since the time I spent in Bologna, where I was teaching in a bank.

Even then I was as passionate as I am in neurosciences. I read books by Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran owing to whom I felt even more engaged in the subject of mirror neurons, a field that pushes all frontiers of knowledge forward. Evolution has led us to be empathetic.

 

Do you feel part of it?

Do you experience that? 

I do invite you to listen to Vilayanur S. Ramachandran on the Internet, e.g. when speaking in the well known TED Talks, Ideas Worth Spreading, for he is considered one of the greatest neuroscientists of the world. 

In Bologna, I used to spend my spare time beetween trains to go and be back after teaching, going to the library in Piazza Maggiore, Sala Borsa, where  newspapers from all over the world were available to any reader.

Also handling newspapers sometimes is part of the training, like the ones written in Arabic, Hebrew; speaking in English with their readers about the content added "spice" to the experience. So intriguing meeting people in stimulating environments and "interacting"! 

Music via photos suits everything as a proper frame. And you should be able to/might guess where the photographs have been taken. 

See you in class,  

Anna - Coordinator  

Source: own photos 

 

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Good morning, afternoon, evening everybody,

I'd like to provoke you with a subject on this page quite diferent from the previous ones.

It is not April yet, as the articlesays, but we might get prepared to it.

If you had to draw a path making our last subjects connected to each other, which words would you write to make us follow it?

In which regard do you keep the payment of taxes?

Any special angle as a point of view on that?

If not this class, we'll soon have the chance to open our horizons about this topic too.

Federica: crystal clear ideas, Federica, no politicians have any like yours! 

Silvia: you're getting to the point. Less taxes, better services. No waste of money, time, energies, lives, no more!

Michela: thank you for your contribution, Michela. No more taxes on beards, nowadays, but so many others unexpected!

Possible connections with Europe, better with the European Union, refer to the fiscal system, so different from country to country, and the quality of services  too.  Shall we ask for a better union ruling? Better numbers then?

In the meantime, what might make the difference, might be working better, each one of us. Working well means building the future for everybody, "throwing" lights ahead of us. Our single square meter, the one we live in, day by day, moment by moment can be the light due to us. Everything in it well done. So simple to be respected as a principle, so simple to be shared, without waiting for someone else to start, but just doing it.

Behavior is more important than any words, makes all people acquire positive habits, able to multiply themselves spontaneously. 

Enjoy your English!

Anna - Coordinator

Source: Speak Up - April 2008

8 comments

Good morning, afternoon, evening

 

this is homework for our next class as we agreed: studying the origin of the name Europe and its meaning.

 

My contribution is offering you some material you can compare with that you can find on the Internet. 

The following questions are for you to reply:

1. What was originally Europe?

2. According to mythology, Europa was the daughter of Agenore, King of Tire. What did she do in the myth? 

3. In which part of the world did this myth originate?

4. What is the role played by Europe's brothers in the myth?

5. How can the Taurus constellation and the myth of Europe be connected?


Up to you to continue, everybody's pleasure reading

Federica: kind of you your appreciation. What a trainer has to do is making perceptions develop.

How would you do that?

How many perceptions do you know exist?

Federica: how interesting your comments! There is so much more to say about perceptions, it will be stimulating comparing our ideas in class.

Other comments are very, very welcome.

Daniele: what a fast connections between past and present! Mythology and economy! It might be an invitation to keep memories of the past even when doing the simplest gestures every day. Have a look at your writing again checking accuracy. We'll see to it in class.

Silvia: there is so much to know about so interesting subjects! Which identity might it be/is it the one of being European? Belonging to what? 

Enjoy your English

Anna - Coordinator

Source: own source worksheets, ITIS Galilei Livorno's students' photograph taken with parents' permission; the cake made by them to celebrate the Feast of Europe and a paperboard with Taurus constellation drawn by them.     

18 comments

Good morning, afternoon, evening, 

 

Federica, Silvia, Luca, Daniele, Loretto, Mirella, Marco, Sara, Elisa,

after speaking for so long in class about Israeli writers, we thought about reading Palestinian authors too.

While trying to fill this lack of ours, I'm offering you the origin of numbers to think about. 

It was February 2008  when we had a drink in a bar, Larbi and I. This gentleman, of Moroccan origin, lived and worked here, his family in Florence, all their children attending an international school. He met his wife from Algeria in Belgium, then they moved to other European countries, and after being in Italy for a few years, they went to Egypt. I do not know where he is now.

He came to our class asking for Italian lessons, even if his Italian was already quite good. I thought he might be an English speaker too, and as a class we invited him to visit us whenever he had a little free time, so to to make us listen to the languages he spoke. Interaction with students in Italian and English with all possible connections to the very different realities the languages spoken referred to, was highlighting what a resource in a class multilingualism can be.

That day, on a napkin, in a bar, he drew the numbers you see, asking me for the reason why they were written that way.

I'm asking you the very same question.

What can you figure out from numbers written like this? Why?

What do you know about the origin of numbers? Let us know.

Which role do numbers play in your life?

I was far from understanding then, but I felt so fascinated by the idea of the origin of numbers that I tried to. 

This gentleman told me that his name, in Arabic, his first language, means Arab. Then, moving when he was still very young, he multiplied his identities due to the so different cultures and languages he coped with, all of them so fruitful, connected by a very humble and affable personality.

The following writing is about numbers, to help you find the answer to the questions above.

Once / In the mind of someone / Dawn after dawn / Sunset after sunset / It came to life, took body / The idea, the thought / Of a day after another / Of one thing after another / That time existed / That we are into it / and we became aware of it / How could this someone make it happen? / Will he have spoken? / He drew these signs /And who did he spoke to? / It's a voice that continues speaking / Can you hear it? / It whispers of life, of conscience / It reveals what’s real / Asking to be understood / To hold out one hand / Each one and all of us / For life, for conscience / And you, can you hear it ?

There are a few films about mathematicians, Alan Turing, John Nash and ஸ்ரீனிவாஸ ஐயங்கார் ராமானுஜன், Srinivasa Ramanujan. Which ones did you see?

Enjoy English, enjoy curiosity, develop perceptions and imagination

Come to class with ideas to share

Federica: yes definetely we are continuing speaking about the subject in class. As far as we can, sure. I  asked so many maths teachers if they knew  about the origin of numbers, but they hadn't ever asked anybody or themselves the question, they didn't know at all.

I do think that wex should feel attracted by something and become one of those who wondered about reality trying to understand it, to find explanations and give order to comprehension so to make others access any new knowledge.

Zero and the other numbers had different origin and motivations to be drawn. 

Daniele: the idea of angles is very smart, that's why numbers are written like that. Think of the figurative language too. How clever is a person who can see from different angles, thus having more perspectives, becoming more open minded.   

 

Anna - Coordinator - Source: Van Gogh Iris May 1889; Starry night, June 1889; Almond branches in bloom February 1890;

5 comments

Good morning, afternoon, evening, 

 

mesmerizing novels the ones I read by the Israeli writers Grossman and Oz.

Last week in class Federica added a few names to them, since she had read books by Etgar Keret and Abraham Yehoshua. 

It has to be said that those writers, whose book I've read,  do have a very special, delicate and clever sensitivity, so to mesmerize with the stories they write. The perception of time and its quality changes when you're immersed in this type of novelry. And then you surface from your immersion far different from before.

I felt struck reading "Someone to run with" when I found on page 153 of my copy the name of Marianne Faithfull, a singer whose songs I made my students listen to in a mental health department, thinking that her music had something special particularly from the period after the drugs.

If she recovered, I thought, with her music and voice my students too might. And actually they did, surprising so many, but not me, since it is so important to find and strike very deep chords so to make them vibrate and produce the energy you need and you might not even know you have. 

In addition, on page 243, one more surprise: the protagonist sings the very same song that so many times I've made my students listen to, thinking of it as capable of stimulating a vision, since art is involved: "Starry Starry Night".

"I want to sing "Starry Starry Night", Tamar said quietly. It is a song about Vincent van Gogh"........."Why make us suffer?" whispered a lapsed yeshiva boy, and a few boys giggled."Shhhhh!" said Pesach, overflowing with kindness. "Let the girl sing."

I also remember how impressed I was by the photo of Amos Oz's family when he was a child in the novel whose cover you can see here. I thought so long of the feeling of his that made him decide to publish the photo too, after so long, and partecipating personally in the film that Nathalie Portman made of this novel.

The world is a better place when you know these people exist. And they are everywhere, it's up to us to find them and enjoy any possible connections.

Federica, thanks for the jacket you sent me. Now it's your turn to write about the Israeli authors you love.

Whoever wants to, is very very welcome.

Thank you for your comments, Federica. These passages made me think that narration can highlight how children are perceptive, and that so many times listening to them would teach us so much about life and ourselves too.

Life Robust joy / healthy childhood / strength of the sky./ Heroes are the children / who mitigate the evil./ They grow of wealth / offered to those who live./ The words of the children / tell us the fate

Anna - Coordinator

4 comments

Good morning, afternoon, evening,

what a nice occasion having Silvia and her husband Massimo playing the Celtic harp and the electronic piano to celebrate Christmas, the end of the year and the beginning of a new one!

I leave it to her writing about

the instrument she plays,

why she chose it

and what is the role played by music and this specific instrument in her life.

If she likes sharing with us on this site these "angles" of her life.

We truly appreciate that people find their own way to make their potential surface, making their identity a multiple issue, facets of the same diamond, so many unexpected, a surprise so generously offered.

Thank you Silvia and Massimo

see you in class!

Anna - Coordinator

Own photos taken and puplished with the permission of the Artist.

 

 

4 comments

Good morning, afternoon, evening everybody, 

 

shall we go with our English to visit chill places?

Thinking about protecting the environment, we can connect Antarctica and Tuscany. If you read you will see how it's possible.

In addition to answering the questions on the second page, try to find your own connection between your personal interests and the content of the two pages. Come to class with questions for your mates.

Write as a comment what you know about Larderello, if you've ever visited the place of the first geothermal powwer station of the world. In case you did, write down which experience you made.  

When together - speaking time - we'll correct anything you've written.

See you there

 

Anna - Coordinator

Silvia: always a pleasure reading you, Silvia, including your homework. Appreciated the cohesive organization of your subjects, both in replying and in speaking on your own initiative. 

Thank you on behalf of everybody partecipating in the beautiful concert yesterday, with you playing the Celtic Harp and your husband Massimo the electric piano.

I will see if I have photographs suitable for a page on the blog about your unique performance. 

Enjoy holidays and English

Anna

 

Source: Cult 2 DeA Scuola 2015

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