Good morning, 'afternoon, 'evening everybody!

I would like you to find the right order of these photos, thinking of a possible beginning and end of a special day, joining two Italian regions, Tuscany and Emilia Romagna. 

Last year I read an article on Mente & Cervello, a scientific magazine, about the Italy womens'  national deaf volleyball team, and I felt enchanted by their bilingualism, since I feel so attracted by the capability of any sign language to communicate. Body always comes first.

I thought of them and willing to share a project, after getting in contact with their technical director, Loredana, I went to Rimini, to film them while playing for the 3rd edition of the Deaf Volleyball Champion League, of the European Deaf Sport Organization. Italy was ranked third place.

The very short video I made had to partecipate in a mute video contest, the perfect way to highlight deafs' silence.

Homework 1: find the right order of the photos, say what you think and know about the sign language, if you have any experience and if you know anything about how deaf children are taught at school. 

In a film, recently released, Snowden, the American sign language is performed for the counter-intelligence.

We warmly invite you to visit an American web site called My smart hands. Tell us what you think of it and compare this experience with the Italian ones you might have.

Homework 2: find the proper translation of these Italian words: bruma, nebbia, foschia, caligine and write them down in an English context or while describing the photos you see here.

When translated with the help of a bilingual (Italian - English) dictionary, use the words found to translate them back into the other language and see if you get the same words you started with!

Homework 3: what is Mintonette? And the hidden secret?

We'll reply. Enjoy your English.

Anna - Coordinator

Last news: the very short film we shot participated in the #50 Secondi Lumière, a contest by the Cineteca di Bologna, and was selected among the twelve best for each cathegory. On Cineteca di Bologna's You Tube channel there are the winning and selected videos.  

Source: Mente & Cervello 2015 plus own source photos taken on November 26th 2016 

Good morning, afternoon, evening,

Ottavia, Anna, Patrizia, Alena, Filippo, Alessandro, Marina,

this is homework for all of you to consolidate what we started speaking and writing about in class, after listening to the article from Speak Up.

All five skills are involved, aural comprenension, i.e.listening, written comprehension, i.e.reading, written production, i.e.writing, oral production, i.e.speaking, and the final comprehensive one, interaction, once more in class.

Try to functionalize the content of the article writing answers to the questions below.

Pay great attention to formal correctness, building up simple sentences: subject, verb, complement.

Present simple

1. What are holy wells?

2. Where can you find them in Ireland?

Past simple

3. What was the reason for celebrating the first of November in pagan times?

4. Why did people go to visit holy wells in pagan times?

5. What did they believe in? Make examples.

Passive form

6. What were these wells believed to cure?

Present perfect

7. Why have scientists validated some ancient people's beliefs?

Passive form and present perfect passive

8. Add any personal comment about the subject given and the work you have been asked to do.

Anyone else who wants to write comments on our page is very, very welcome.

We will reply.

Anna - Coordinator

Source:Speak Up, October 2016 

Gianna: nice job, your comment.

Irish is an adjective, add people; coordinate singular and plural, do not forget indefinite articles; I would  suggest celebrate rites; known around the world, past participle; even after, together after verb and object. Remember to decide when using present simple and past simple to help the comprehension of the subject.

Thank you, continue writing, Anna

Good morning, afternoon, evening,

it is with very great pleasure that we welcome all the new students to our courses.

First in class, then outside, in our "Open Air English Labs".

Start working contributing with personal and group initiatives to our classes!

London has always been a place of interest for English students, and with the new ones of you our talk could start with Carnaby street.

Read the article above and compare the reading at low-intermediate level with the listening in class, advanced level.

You will be asked questions to reply to, with formal correctness, but also creativity according to your personality and style.

Try to prepare questions to ask your classmates and be ready to respond to theirs.

Have you ever been to London?

What is your best memory of your visit?

Who did you go with?

Come to class with photographs and ready to talk about your experience.

See you there,

Anna - Coordinator

Source: Speak Up, October 2016 Issue

Gianna: it is a city you miss after visiting it, London, isn't it? Like any other place where you feel at home because of the language. Continue enjoying English Gianna!

Good morning

David, Giorgio, Letizia, Irene, Gabriele, Ilaria, Robin, Saverio, Matteo,

Alessio, Elisa, Davide, Kevin, Alyssia, Ilaria, Matteo,

week two then of our Summer English that's going to be soon in the open air.

Let's get ready to meet cruise passengers knowing something about their cruise ships, where the passengers embarked, where they are from, what their journey to come to Livorno was like.

Form pairs, search on the Internet and write the news you find, onto the papers on the walls. 

These are the names of the ships on Mediterranean cruise arriving in Livorno on July 27 and 28, whose passengers we are going to meet in Piazza del Municipio.

Arethusa, Brilliance of the Seas, Thomson Discovery, Carnival Vista, Sea Dream 1, Norwegian Epic, Celebrity Constellation, Oceana, Sovereign. 

Find enough news to write three formally correct sentences and inform consistently your mates about them. Try to look for curiosities, unusual news to strike your mates; we'll all give marks to your reports. 

Upload your comments so to let other people partecipate in voting including your families. 

Thank you all, continue working, our English will be soon "Open Air" after this first training in class!

Anna - Coordinator

Source: all photos taken in class and in the open air with students' parents' permission

Week three: let's learn how to give directions in Livorno and how to ask for drinks in a bar. 

This is Livorno's map.

Week four: studying Livorno before the boat tour. News from the Internet to form sentences in pairs onto the walls and tell them to classmates, interacting with questions and answers. 

Boat tour in English and Spanish to appreciate our city from the water and know how tourist guides work. While touring, the task is writing at least five words to form sentences when back in class, onto the papers on the walls, with the map of Livorno, the ideal city drawn by Lorenzo de' Medici as a pentagon.

After the boat tour, English laboratory at Bar Duomo, where English is "home", like being in England. 

Asking for drinks and having them offered by the teacher at only one condition: great English performance.

Week five: welcoming Meditteranean cruise passengers in Piazza del Municipio after training in class. Exciting!

Cruise passengers from all over the world happy to be welcomed by students and to help them in practicing the language. generous, helpful people from all the states of USA, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, North Europe, but also India, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, so many different accents and approaches to the idea of spending a few minutes with students. 

Hundreds of Livorno's maps distributed with information ablout how to get to the station, where doing shopping, which cities visit in Tuscany, how to manage with trains and coming back to the ship. Embodied language, with all the possible nuances of mood, personality, good will to spread a common international code to communicate.

Week six: back in class to write in pairs dialogues as a comment about the entire course onto the papers on the walls and play them without reading any more.

Whoever wants to write a comment will be welcome, we did like working this way, we enjoyed any single moment. 

Join us? Soon, sure!

Anna - Coordinator

Source: all the photos taken with students' parents' authorization. 

Hi everybody, 

our Summer English Classes are going to start this year too! 

In addition to meeting cruise passengers, we are going to practice the language also in places where tourists usually get together like bars, cafés.

Come to class ready to behave in English. After the first activity, having breakfast, we will write dialogues in pairs onto papers on the walls and we will role play them. 

We will have a look at last year's students' productions, stories on cardboards based on photos from magazines.  We will ask them to tell us about their previous experience, how they got their inspiration and working with fun and committment, we will be ready to meet Mediterranean cruise passengers this year too, on July 27 and 28, two days on which so many English speaking passengers are disembarking in Livorno to set up their trips and visit Tuscan cities. 

We will also visit Livorno from the water, going on a boat trip along the canals, in the beautiful Venezia neighbourhood and invite you all to come with us to welcome English speaking people and practice the language, thus enriching both, ourselves and our city. 

Anna - Coordinator

Source: photos taken last year with the kind students' parents' permission.

Good morning, afternoon, evening,

our last class with Cecina's students was a long walk between two farmhouses owned by two of them in Castagneto.

The perfect way to be enchanted  by charming Tuscan landscapes, vineyards producing some of the best wines well renowned all over the world. We learned a lot listening to Stefania while walking and smelling perfumes. The history of the places, how vines are grown and wine is made. 

After a very nice lunch at Stefania's premises, Podere S. Maria, we went to Colle Donatucci, where Francesco had a surprise for us: a friend of his, a retired University Professor from Scotland, William, came to visit us so to give everybody the great opportunity to listen to a native speaker of English and practice the language among swallows flying under the porches from nest to nest.

First a little uncertain, after a little they became confident we were there only to enjoy the whole environment, including their darting flights.

Bolgheri and Castagneto  Carducci are among the 70 remarkable places all over the world that the New York Times invites not to miss. We wouldn't like to. 

On July 16, on occasion of the feast of the Madonna del Carmine, we have read on the Internet Castiglioncello di Bolgheri is open to the public. We called the owners and understood it is a pilgrimage; pilgrims walk up to the church after the opening of the gate early in the morning, and after the service they leave the place.

Some news about the castle.

It is first mentioned in the 780 AD. It is on top of a hill overlooking Castagneto and Bolgheri, solitary and almost inaccesible, quite striking. From it the eye can range from the vineyards below going down to the sea and the islands of Elba and Corsica. 

Inside the castle there is the armory where the stone coats of all the families who have had the property are kept, Gherardesca's, Pannocchieschi's, Soderini's, Incontri's, Gherardesca's again.

Unfortunately we did not take good photos of our Walk & Talk Class in Castagneto's surroundings, we mainly have memories to be kept and shared with you at any possible occasion.

Anna - Coordinator

Eleonora: thanks for your comment. Quite likely the pilgrimage is only for residents, and at the castle they do not like having strangers with them, even if interested in religious celebratiuons.

Android hack games: it is a topic close to so many hearts, I believe, like yours, yours like ours? Both? 

Gianna:   just something to change. Thet the whole world, article - were born in this countryside, past - visit cellars and, no singular indefinite article - I have so many memories of beloved people (more common than persons), there. Great job! 

Anna - Coordinator

Good morning. afternoon, evening,

four years ago, as high school pupils, we started a program intended to welcome Mediterranean cruise passengers to practice English. Go back on the blog's pages to find photographs and articles of students meeting them in the open air.

Due to relevant results on all participants, this year the Province of Livorno has given the project its patronage together with the Municipality. Also the Education Provincial Office supports it, joined by the Chamber of Commerce. 

We founded Eurocontact Plus NPO to promote bi/multilingualism and any connected issue. With Livorno Port Authority and Porto Livorno 2000, the company  created by Port Authority to manage the Passenger Port, the Cruise Ship and Ferry Terminals, our NPO is meeting these days all the schools interested in partecipating in the project.

In addition to Livorno, Laboratories of English In The Open Air are going to be spread also on Elba Island,  with the partecipation of schools of the Tyrrhenian cost.

We would like to contribute to change our Italy with young people skilled in this second Language as a world-wide mean of communication, able to feel at home and offer one wherever English is spoken. 

A Language is a skill; do it, live it, use it, enjoy it, join us. 

That's how you become good at it.

Leave a comment and come to practice the Language with us. You too, will be welcome!

Anna - Coordinator

Source: Il Tirreno Newspaper - 5th August 2015, 8th August 2014; Corriere della Sera Newspaper 8th February 2016; Qui Livorno On-Line Newspaper 3rd August 2015 

Thank you USA Website Traffic

Let us, speakers of English as a second language, appreciate your English. Write more, keep up the good work! Anna   

Good morning, afternoon evening,

this is graded homework  for different students. If ex-beginner or false beginners, complete the interview with Angela Franklin.

If you want to echo Charles Dickens, read about Joss and Claire with their cities.

Come to class ready to speak about them, do the exercises, compare their lives with someone's you know in a comment, pay attention to formal correctness.

Enjoy your English, see you in class, continue writing on our What's App group.  

And here, just two photos of you in class.

Anna - Coordinator

Thank you Alberto for your comment.
Do not forget that punctuation is important in defining a few criteria for writing. After period you need a capital letter, as for people's names and I subject pronoun. Continue writing!

Giancarlo: 5, I subject pronoun capital letter; 6, Which is  your husband's name? 8,9,10,13, Doi you have etc, Yes I do in the answer, since to have is a full verb like any othey using the auxiliary, and these are yes/no questions with short answer. Of course you can do differently if you want to reply with more information, this is the essential to be formally correct. 14, What do you like doing in ytour free time?  Remember capital letters at the beginning of a sentence. 

Giada: 3, I'm from, no other prepositions.

Very good work, continue both in class and here!

Stuart, Julie: thank you for appreciating our work. Continue writing and posting comments!

Madden Mobile Review: Continue to follow us, we are about to start new initiatives, e.g. welcoming Mediterreanean cruise passengers in the open air to practice English and performing a matinée for them at the railway station with very talented pupils. Very soon a page with them.

Anna

Source : New Headway Pre-Intermediate, Student's Book, OUP, 2010  

'Morning, Afternoon, 'Evening, 

Benedetta, Ilaria, Christian, Filippo, Matteo, Robin, Vincenzo, 

this is homework for you before our next class and for whoever wants to practice their English at elementary level.

Write short sentences, subject, verb, complement, and present your best friend. When in class, your mates will ask you about him/her. Is that fine?  Use the page from the text book as a guide to reply to questions and write your text. 

There are so many songs about friendship, this one I invite you to listen to and sing is called You've Got a Friend, and connects generations  - that is you and me - as you can see looking at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHhjKQ8L_iU.

We'll sing it in class, after studying the text. I'm expecting you to come to class ready to speak and interact with your mates! See you there

Anna - Coordinator

Source: New Headway Pre Intermediate OUP 2006

Benedetta: you're doing very well at school, feeling so committed to the task of practicing English we encourage with activities. Continue working so to consolidate the language and get all the possible occasions to practice it. 

Vincenzo: English is a language you can acquire the way you did with Italian. Patience, practice, interest, motivation and commitment. You've got the right approach, continue this way, thinking a little more before writing and speaking so to avoid mistakes and build your own phrases to convey what you wish.   

Good morning, afternoon, evening,

a very important English translation of the Divine Comedy is the one by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882), an American poet, author of classics like Evangeline.

After the tragic death of his wife, who died of burns due to a domestic accident, Longfellow sought solace in translating into English Dante's masterpiece.

A significant coincidence with the painful authobiographical circumstances Luzzi speaks about in this interview.

Here you have a few questions about the article you can reply to as English practice.

1. Is Joseph Luzzi an American or Italian author and teacher?

2. The book he wrote was recently published in Italy or in the US?

3. Does he believe that Dante in the US is videly or rarely read outside of an academic context?

4. In the interview, does he say that modern or medieval Tuscan is very precise and musical?

5. Did he first discover dante or Shakespeare while in Italy?

6. Where did his illiterate uncle quoted Dante's Divina Commedia?

7. Is Dark Wood the title of one of his lectures or books?

8. What does the selva oscura refer to, in Luzzi's opinion?

9. According to Luzzi, which one between the Divine Comedy and De Vulgari Eloquentia is about landing in crisis and finding your way out? 

Liliana: thank you for your comment. So nice reading about your experience. Dante is one of the pillars we can bear on all the times we need to understand the human nature, the way only classics can let it happen. 

Also I remember illiterate elderly people capable of quoting entire passages from classic authors. Also their lives and constant advice were inspired by classics, since everybody knew about them, either they had had the chance to go to school or not. Just and wise people, our ancestors. What about us? 

See you in class,

Anna - Coordinator

Source: Speak Up, January 2016