From Time Magazine Dec 1 Dec 8 2014:

"I think I do connect to people who could be written off as wild or dark, or who are just full of fire and looking for a place to put that fire. It's an important lesson to learn, and it's something I did learn: you live on behalf of others and you're happier and you have purpose. And you have a great excuse to have all that fire". 

Get through the article to the very core of it and write a comment. 

Maybe we are starting to like this woman, definetely we like this man. 

Anna - Coordinator

Good morning, afternoon evening, 

something about Canada. 

1. Why do people in Canada go on vacation in January instead of August the way we do? 

2. When is the first snowfall? 

3. What is "ice time" for Canadian people who like hockey? 

4. What's the range in temperature in winter time? 

5. Related to cars, what's an electrical outlet for? 

6. Do we need to use remote car starters? What are they for? 

7. What do you think of the shopping mall Stefanie Guillard mention in her interview? 

8. Any other American English words you know in addition to the ones in the article about Canada? 

 Enjoy your English

Anna - Coordinator

Source: Speak Up, November 2014 

Hello

Caterina, Isabella, Monica, Valentina, Francesco, Maurizio, Fabio, Alessio, Emanuele,  Alenia, Paola, Giuseppe, 

and whoever wants to contribute to our English project partecipating in our blog, 

what type of relationship do you usually estabilish with people you meet?

Is there a pattern?

Are there differences according to the context, what do you usually perceive about people?

Are you interested in comprehending what sort of person they are? 

Let us know your experiences and what makes you feel involved in relationships with human beings. without revealing too much of you and your counterpart, of course, but giving your impressions and opinions about the subject in a comment, referring to the content of the article. 

Anyway, do you feel being a Coconut or a Peach, if you like this figurative language?

In case you want to continue reading the second article, go on with the small picture.

Anna - Coordinator 

Source: Speak Up, November 2014  

Good morning, afternoon, evening,

this is one more identity London can have. It is a city that offers people a different life, since so many live on a boat.

1. Would you like to?

2.What do you think can be attractive and positive about this type of life?

3. What do you think of what Melanie says:

"Being on the water, where you move up and down with the tide, you have a different view all the time, you're not always in the same place. You have that feeling of connecting with the way the world is turning".

Let us know, we'll be very pleased to talk about that in class.

Anna - Coordinator

Source: Speak Up November 2014  

Good morning, afternoon, evening

Caterina, Monica, Isabella, Valentina, Matteo, Alessio, Francesco, Fabio, Maurizio, Samuele,  

have you ever listened to the TED Talks on the Internet? Read this article and find your own subject of interest among the so many available on the web.  

Tell us in a comment what Talks you are interested in and us too, we will listen to them, so to be able to speak about them in class together. 

Anna - Coordinator

Source: Speak Up October 2014 

Good morning, afternoon, evening, 

quite often we can face the subject of talented teenagers in our text books, finding out later that they have become professionals, artists, capable of designing their own extraordinary lives.

Malala is not only a name to bear in mind, but also a pattern to follow.

She didn't mean to show any special talent, she was just doing what she believed in.

Malala started a blog to promote girls'education when she was only thirteen, choosing the side of life she wanted to stay on.

She chose education to change everyone's destiny, to open that view on the entire world that takes into account everyone's interest. 

1. Is it just a matter of choices waiting to be done? 2. Or decisions to take? 

3. Is there any important choice  we can do of a similar importance? 4. When? 

5. What role do you think education can play in a child's life? 

6. What do you think of such a girl? 

Listen to her speaking English on the Internet, when she delivered a speech at the United Nations on the day of her sixteenth birthday, on July 12th, 2013, after recovering in Great Britain for being so severely injured in Pakistan by the Taliban. 

She talks about the importance of education, the only way for us as human beings to live as equals, both women and men.

"Let's join her, let's all do our part to help unlock the extraordinary talents and potential of all our children."  

There might be so many other talented children among us like Malala or different from her, all of them capable of contributing to a better world for everybody.    

Anna - Coordinator 

Source: Time, October 27 2014 

Good morning, afternoon, evening Matteo, Fabio, Emanuele, Francesco, Maurizio, 

and whoever wants to join us acquiring English as a second language; 

this is the article for you for our next class. Plus films to watch, summaries and comments to write and when together opportunities to speak. 

Again Ireland  

1. Is there anything in common between this and the previous article? 

2. What does the Irish Landmarks Trust do? 

3. If you had the chance, which lighthouse would you like to visit among the ones described?

4. Is the one proposed in All Island Lighthouse Tourism Trail a type of vacation you would choose? 

Visit also other pages of our website and enjoy practicing your English  

Maria Luisa: very good job. I'm sure you can find the very few mistakes you made, just reading again your writing. 

To deliver your speech before your class, give everybody the "big picture", I mean try to contextualize the lighthouses in Ireland as part  of a project intended to preserve and utilize historical buildings. 

See you in class

Anna - Coordinator 

Source: Speak Up September 2014 

Good morning, afternoon, evening, Caterina, Monica, Rocio, 

nice welcoming you and anyone else who likes partecipating in this job of ours to make our English improve.

This article is for you to read and then write your comments.

We can continue talking about Cat Cafés in class among the so many other subjects that usually we like talking about. 

1. What is the aim of these cafés with cats that are spreading from Taiwan?  

2. Do you think they would be successful in our country? 

3. Have you visited the web site whose address is in mentioned in the article? If so, tell us what is the core of it and how it works. 

Anna - Coordinator

Source: Speak Up September 2014 

                                  'morning, afternoon, evening to everybody,  

Natalia came to class with The Illusionist, John brought us Finding Nemo, and we watched them. The Illusionist has no English subtitles on this DVD, that's why we watched the film with the Italian ones.

Here you have questions  to answer: do your own research on the Internet to find more accurate information about the film, so to pay great attention to formal correctness when you answer.    

  1. Where does The Illusionist begin?

  2. Why did Eisenheim start to be interested in magic tricks?

  3. Who did Eisenheim fall in love with?

  4. Was she of his same social class?

  5. Were they allowed to see each other?

  6. What happened? 

_________________

  7. When do they meet again?

  8. Who is she engaged with?

  9. Does the Crown Prince Leopold kill her?

10. Where is she found?

11. Who does the Illusionist summon in his next show?

12. Is the end of the film what you expected?

13. Can you summarize it? 

You can also say if you think that watching films is profitable and why, it will be interesting to compare ideas.

Anna - Coordinator

Source: Italian version of The Illusionist DVD 

Good morning, afternoon evening,  

with great pleasure next week we are going to meet English speaking cruise passengers, to welcome them to our town.

It will be an occasion for the whole town to practice English, since whoever likes the idea can join us.

In addition to all of you students who are coming to our Open Lessons, I would like to thank all the managers and employees of our Municipality and Province for being so supportive.  

We would like to contribute to a change: becoming bilingual or multilingual means being more open minded, mature and both feeling and offering home to whoever speaks the same language, i.e. communicating. 

See you there

Anna - Coordinator

Source: Alitalia "Arrivederci" 1997 Special Issue about Livorno