Home - Connecting the Dots

The “Open Education for Young Europeans through History, Art and Cultural Learning” project (Open EYE) focuses on creating an open learning methodology based on History, Arts and Cultural Learning, as well as the necessary implementation tools, that will enable teachers of primary education in Europe (formal and non-formal) to support their students in language learning and integration in their school and community.

Livorno, our city, in Tuscany, Italy, hosts the final international conference at the Natural History Museum of the Mediterranean on September 28 - 29/2022.

Partners of the project

Our association, Eurocontact Plus APS, contributes to the final international conference with a speech on Multilingualism and Lessons of Vitality, how any child either refugee or immigrant and their mother tongue, can enrich our communities offering opportunities to rewire our designing of methodologies, methods, techniques, approaches to learning and teaching learning.

Anna . Coordinator

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Good morning, afternoon, evening,

this is an invitation to visit the site of the FestivalFilosofia, so rich in keynotes lectures like this one we chose delivered by Prof. Sini, for he spoke about language. mentioning Hegel, " knowledge makes us lose life, but with no words there is no life". Language is a direct connection with forms of life. Wittgenstein, "It is the context that brings the words to life". We too are forms of life like words, fundamental for the community, we experience figures of truth, conneted to how we are.

Let's continue thinking, that's what philosophy is for, and that's why we love it.

Anna - Coordinator

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Good morning, afternoon, evening

Nicola, Denise, Giulia, Alberto, Samuele, Luca, Lorenzo, Elisa, Giorgio, Luca, Tommaso, Francesco, Federico, Manuel, Federico, Andrea, Matteo, Giacomo, Fabrizio and Diego ,

this is a page for you to work on.

First, form groups of three and among the so many pictures you have on this page, choose a minimum of three to tell your mates and the guests we’ll have very soon what happened with this English for Life.

You have papers onto the easels in the park to write on your names, a name for the group and both the answers to the questions and your narration linking the protographs chosen. Before speaking, you’ll have appointed a student per group as the speaker.

The students of the other groups will have to ask a minimum of one question each one to the mates of the speaker, who will be able to help.

You will be recorded as a podcast will be edited with all the material of these laboratories, to be broadcasted by Radio Uni Pop, partner of Media Literacy Network.

Those who want to partecipate in this and other podcasts and want to offer their help, will be very, very welcome.

You have worksheets with precise instructions to follow in order to partecipate in the competition "English for Life", that will be rewarded with prizes.

Start with worksheet n° 1, questions to answer, then go to worksheet n° 2, paragraphs to put in the right order, and after doing this latter, compare the result with the original text, worksheet n° 3. Then there is worksheet n° 4, with missing words, to consolidate what done before. If you need to consult the points of reference given at the very beginnning of our course, go to worksheet n° 0.

In order to describe photos, you might find useful these expressions:

at the top, in the background, in the distance, in the middle, in the foreground next to me, in the bottom right-hand corner, in the top left-hand corner, on the right, on the left.

But more than that, enjoy your English and be creative with your group (and the others)!

Anna - Coordinator Source: our own photos - I will upload your written productions, while you can diretly do it with your comments

21 comments

Good morning, afternoon, evening everybody,

it's three tales, written after listening to stories about experiencing the pandemic. Very soon they will be podcasts, with Radio Uni Pop, one of the partners of Media Literacy Network.

When wondering about a title to give to the three tales together, I thought of this marvelous novel, by Amos Oz, because it is love that made the protagonists of the three tales join life again after experiencing death. The same for Amoz Oz, the child in the photograph.

I had the chance to listen to three doctors, each one chief of different departments at the first European hospital completely devoted to Covid 19 patients, in Castel San Giovanni, Piacenza Italy. I wrote about the day when one of them had the intuition of using heparine at high dosage to treat the pulmonary inflammation because of covid and it was the beginning of a new perspective for so many patients who, thanks to these courageous doctors, could have their life saved. Determined professionals, they understood that acting looking for solutions was the only hope when they had none left. Love for their profession and for all their patients. Thank you Daniela, Cristina, Marco.

Then it was a patient who found in the lucid strong desire to rejoin his wife and son the strenght to survive long intensive care. A wife whose voice is what he misses most, since the only possibility to talk with her is via computer, due to her illness. A young son who became an adult helping both parents. Again love from darkness. Thank you Piero and family.

The last tale is the story of a doctor who became a patient experiencing solitude and death next to him. He thought it was time to reunite with his late wife after three years, with no fear, just a renovated deep feeling that he brought back to his patients when he recovered and went back to work. Again love from darkness. Thank you Doctor X because I don't know his first name.

These tales are stories to listen to and see what happens thanks to the generosity of those who accepted to share their experience and encourage us to think a little more about what and life can be when and after being on the verge of loosing it, Love from Darkness.

Thank you, Amos.

Anna - Coordinator

Photo of my copy of the novel by Amos Oz, whose picture with is parents is one of the mesmerizing pages the book is made of.

9 comments

Good morning, afternoon, evening,

we would like to thank you Brenda, Francesco, Claudio, Simone and the entire Essere Animali Italian Association, for your efforts to claim animal rights, showing us what the reality is, because animals are a part of us, and what happens to them will soon happen to us too.

We are all given this great opportunity: to understand that only by living in mutual respect as sentient beings we can save the planet. Whenever suffering is caused, we must stop, think and change what we do. We may stop this war towards animals, as a first step to avoid any other.

Humans and humans, humans and animals are the same family, all things are connected. Anything can work as a starting point for a change, better each one of us first.

Anna - Coordinator

Source: Essere Animali's and our own photographs

3 comments

A friend to me

Freedom is a friend to me.

She gave me fairy tales

to get to know her,

the conscience to understand her,

the sentiment for loving her,

the truth to look for her,

the will to create her,

the generosity to offer her.

You are dear to me deep down, freedom.

Think of freedom

Think of freedom, the oceans,

the heavens, the vast estuaries,

the immense snowfields

that make you feel

sick of nostalgia, the wings

of those who fly, the love for life.

Think of freedom, the universes,

the journey of the man who carries them

within himself, the suns, the words

that like the exstinguished stars

continue their light

with life within us.

Good morning, afternoon, evening everybody,

we thought that our way to "fight" war from here, is to make feelings of freedom grow within us, share and offer them.

Anna - Coordinator - Own source

1 comment

¤ The Lakota Sioux meet Florence. ¤

On October 4th, 2021, Wolakota started in Florence, an annual meeting event between Italian institutions and the official delegates of the Lakota Sicangu Nation of Rosebud, South Dakota. It lasted one month, with meetings, conferences, events and an exhibition at Palazzo Medici Riccardi. Organized by the cultural association Wambli Gleska, Wolakota is an event of peace and spirituality, in the name of friendship with Native Americans. The city of Florence welcomed an official delegation of the Lakota Sioux to renew the friendship protocol that binds them. An opportunity to get to know the profound spirituality of the people of Turtle Island, to share moments of cultural exchange, traditional ceremonies and conviviality. The delegation and the city celebrated also be an unprecedented moment: the Remembrance Day, a march by foot and horseback on Sunday, October 10th, to commemorate the victims of the extermination of Native Americans. This gesture definitively breaks the taboo of another American story, different from the one recounted by the West for over 500 years.

¤ SIGNATURE OF THE PROTOCOL ¤

The Regione Toscana has enjoyed an official relationship with Native Americans since 1998, particularly with the Lakota. Together they have developed educational, cultural, scientific and anthropological projects. The University of Florence and the University of Pisa have also been involved in collaborations. On Monday, October 4th, 2021, the Friendship Protocol between the city of Florence and the Lakota Sicangu Nation of Rosebud was renewed. This opening event took place in Giordano Hall of Palazzo Medici Riccardi, in via Cavour 1. Among those present there was Letizia Perini, municipal Councillor for Culture in Florence, the Italian representative of UNESCO Vittorio Gasparrini, the Lakota Sioux delegation and the cultural association Wambli Gleska, which represents the Lakota Sioux Nation in Italy and promoted this event.

¤ REMEMBRANCE DAY ¤

The Lakota delegation, together with the City, officially celebrated Remembrance Day in Florence for all Native American peoples and the Lakota, on Sunday, October 10th at 9am. The Lakota, on horseback, escorted by Tuscan knights and the Knights of the Ordine di Parte Guelfa of Florence, accompanied by the Florentine Falconers, marched from Cascine Park to Piazza della Signoria where they were received by the Mayor for the final celebration of the Day of Remembrance, with traditional Lakota songs. After the horseback march, the equestrian center La Baita hosted a Lakota ceremony with traditional prayer and a memory plaque was placed for the Native people of Turtle’s Island. The ceremony was followed by a lunch at the equestrian center.

¤ THE VISITING DELEGATION ¤

Among the delegates visiting Florence during the celebrations we would like to mention RoYal Yellow Hawk, Presidents’ delegate; Marla Bull Bear, Charles Bull Bear and Wayne Weston from the Lakota Youth Development in Rosebud; then Moses Brings Plenty, one of the most important spokespersons of the American Indian Nation of the Lakota Sioux, as well as very famous Hollywood celebrity, together with his wife Sara Ann. Finally, Steve Laravie jr will represent the Nation Santee Dakota. The person who works as a bridge between the Italian culture and the Native one is Alessandro Martire, honorary member of the Nation Lakota Sicangu in Rosebud. He’s their representative in Italy, president of Wabmli Gleska and international lawyer at the High Commission of Human Rights in Geneva for the Lakota Sicangu Nation of Sicangu.

¤ WAMBLI GLESKA ¤

Wambli Gleska is a non-profit cultural association, officially recognized by the UN as an NGO (International Non-Governmental Organization) officially established by the express will of the Lakota Tribal Council of Rosebud (South Dakota), the President and the Council of Elders. The purpose of the association is to bring the traditional testimony of the Lakota Sioux to Italy and to spread, in our country and in Europe, the traditional culture of the Lakota people, as well as to promote international recognition and relations with the various local governments and with the Italian central government, for the human rights of the Lakota Sioux Nation.

Source: Wolakota, Città Metropolitana di Firenze Press Release 20 September 2021

Photographs. own source

Anna - web site, Eurocontact Plus APS coordinator, Radio UNI POP Editorial Staff member

15 comments

Good morning, afternoon, evening everybody,

while very busy designing our activities in the open air for students and any other type of public, we would like to invite you to focus on a subject that deserves new and fresh interest.

The animals. This book is the story of a bond with the environment and the animals, that we betrayed. Our planet needs to have its balance restored. It seems the human beings are almost of no support at all, but in their assembly, the animals decide to give them a new chance.

Our laboratories in the open air are such a chance, re-establish a significant bond with our roots, experiencing nature and animals, the background from which we began to perceive, think and develop our human traits.

There is a page on Facebook, named "Recinti Aperti", open fences, where you can see our very first guests, three cows that enjoy the company of human beings.

It will become a park, where to be trained in English and Italian, immersed in the pure enjoyment of a beautiful environment, stimulated by colors, shapes, sounds, walks, story-telling, music, food, good company by two and four-legged animals including humans.

See you there, then?

Anna - Coordinator

L'Assemblea degli Animali, Filelfo, Einaudi 2020

20 comments

Good morning, afternoon, evening,

we thought we could wish everybody a happy new year with images referring to our new projects.

You might already know how much we love the open air as the proper environment to perform activities, laboratories, to share meaningful experiences. If you visit the blog you can verify by yourselves that, as English teachers, we love staying outside and encourage students to practice the language meeting English speakers, like Mediterranean Cruise Passengers, the way it used to happen in the past.

Due to the significant transformations occurred to our habits because of the pandemic, we thought auspicious in the meantime organizing laboratories in places where it can be allowed to attend activities, namely the open air, in the charming Tuscan countryside.

That's why the property with plenty of land where our association, Eurocontact Plus APS, has its headquarters, is being greatly reorganized, since laboratories for whoever likes being entartained outdoor while improving their linguistic skills are going to be offered to spend time with amiable animals, learning to respect what makes all of us part of the same environment, this very little planet that first needs to be better known in order to be protected.

We'll offer hospitality, including refreshments with local food, pleasant walks following stimulating itineraries, the possibility to spend also the night in a welcoming environment, but mainly the chance to be fascinated the way we are, by the surroundings with their inhabitants, both two and four legged, including the so many that fly.

As you can see from the photos on the first of January there was an enchanting rainbow, we like thinking as auspicious for our new projects. In the distance you can see the stable where three days after, they found their first shelter three young calves, our very dear new friends, that will populate this land and give us the opportunity to enjoy their company for as long as they live. A new little lamb was born just two hours before we visited some friends, who live nearby and own so many other animals, on the very first day of the year.

We are deeply convinced that animals and humans are the same community able to share balanced environments supporting each other.

It's time for a new start, up to us to decide what comes first. We chose these living beings that we feel close to us to create a new lively environment for new experiences and welcome those who want to share them with us, restarting from common origins with very little and authentic things as a new beginning.

Will you join us? We'll keep you informed about any development we are working on.

Any questions? Do not hesitate to ask, it will be a pleasure to respond.

Anna - Coordinator

Photos: own source

10 comments

Good morning, afternoon, evening everybody,

hard times to live, good way starting any single day from very little things, those we have to take care of for us and the others.

We thought bread can be both, food and figurative meaning, inviting all of us to go back and find out why we started eating it and if we can find nowadays some similar reasons to start again something as valuable as it was and still is.

Read the article and practice your English, make an advantage of these hard times to train and improve yourselves. We'll see how we'll be allowed to spend new skills to make them rise environment, lifestyles, behaviour, feelings.

Questions to reply

What is role played by bread in your daily life?

Does bread play a different role at people's home these days?

Are you familiar with making it?

Any special types as your favourite ones?

Any special bakery you want to describe?

Enjoy your English and anything else that can be helpful to make you "rise".

Anna - Coordinator - Source: Speak Up October 2020

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Good morning, afternoon, evening,

this emergency made us face such a new reality that we won't ever be the same as before. There are uncountable stories that could be told.

I chose a collective one.

On February 29 Castelsangiovanni Hospital in Piacenza became the first to be wholly dedicated to patients with Coronavirus.

Using heparin at high doses, they could have both effects: reduce inflammation of the lungs and avoid intravasal coagulation of pulmonary capillaries. With just the oxigen, there is no chance to have it into the blood. Administering heparin, the pulmonary circulation is less thrombotic and the damage is reduced.

After a first hospital so many others started the same treatment with due authorizations, and mortality decreased. In South America too the success of the treatment has been very remarkable.

After meeting so many years ago with the common interest for the English language as a professional tool to be used in conferences, I recently had the chance to be helpful translating the study protocol written by the doctor who perceived by intuition how heparin could be useful with his patients at Castelsangiovanni Hospital in such an emergency.

It's due to the dedication of so many doctors and healthcare professionals, that so many patients could survive, experiences worth being listened to.

Now we are going to collect them, in order to publish on-line graded ebooks for students of English, to combine, share and spread language and experience and entirely improve, as students paying attention to the special time we are living, as human beings to what this special time is asking us to learn and do, for possible future advantages, having in loving memory those who didn't make it.

If you have any stories, we will welcome them here, replying with interest.

Anna - Coordinator

Source: photographs available on the Internet, received by the protagonists themselves as documentation and updating.

7 comments

Good morning, afternoon, evening,

obliged to stay home, to prevent the spread of Covid-19 infection, these days we certainly miss nature.

Maybe we can catch this opportunity to think about how important nature is in our life and if it is not the case to establish a new relationship with it, with the whole environment actually.

Those who survived the intensive care for Covid-19, when describing the experience between life and death, speak of a perception of time that narrows to the moment you feel you are hydrated and infused oxygen, with nothing else existing. When you recover, everything is new, as for a child, you focus on very little things.

Let's begin a new life then, let's establish all of us a new relationship with nature and people, everything will be easier if we start from the small things, each one of us.

These poems are dedicated to those who did not survive. We won't know what they thought, what they felt. We owe so much to all of them.

WARBLE OF COLORS

There is a whirl of flowers

on the branches of cherry trees.

Turned to heaven,

they laugh with their open throat

enjoying the sun.

Swarms of soft petals

like clouds laying on the meadows.

Grass is delighted.

Water symmetries

softened by the mist, meet eyes

nourished on beauty and colors.

THE COURAGE OF FLOWERS

I want to take you into the courage

of the dance of pure flowers,

inside trees floating with spring;

rejoice with you in the colors

and moved, betray

feelings with love.

PETALS

It is rustic snow

which rests on hawthorns;

whitens arid branches

which then bud leaves and

small thoughts, free to fall

along with the petals of the flowers.

CARESSES

If I should die this very moment,

I would like my words too

to go into the wind,

to continue in a whisper

the caresses that I too

have received. Voices

for the encounters of the lovers,

for the games of the children,

for the looks of the mothers,

for the repose of the old.

Voices and caresses to listen to

the silence of those who die.

Anna - Coordinator

Source: Botticelli, La Primavera, 1482, Elemond Arte Milan, 1992; Poems by Coordinator

1 comment

Good morning, afternoon, evening

Rita, Rossella, Antonella, Laura, Denise, Monica, Lorenzo, Massimo, Rossella, Lorenzo, Sergio, Marco, Alessia, Monica,

we can say that this article is connected with the special days we are living because being helpful is a behaviour that today we appreciate even more than usual.

While staying at home, respecting all the rules we are asked to, you can keep up with your English trying to dedicate a few minutes every day to this useful task.

This article is very easy, and you have here two exercises.

The first is replying to four questions after reading the article:

1. What are charity shops?

2. What can you buy in these shops?

3. Who works in charity shops?

4. How much money do people in London give to charity every year?

The second exercise is to find only one word with the same meaning of the following sentences:

1. Give money or things to help a charity organization.

2. Someone who works to help people without getting paid.

3. Heat water so that it becomes gas.

4. Give money to support someone, an organization or an event.

Write your answers as a comment below, I will reply.

You can also try to describe your days, using present simple for habits.

It will be a pleasure reading anything you want to write.

Anna - Coordinator

Source: Speak Up, March 2020 Issue

3 comments

Good morning, afternoon, evening

Ludovica, Federico, Cristiano, Lapo, Linda, Oswaldo, Giacomo, Ginevra, Matteo, Simone, Giulia, Gabriele, Geraldine, Vittorio, Fiorisa and everybody,

on February 14 we started this new course, Freedom with English, you as ITIS Livorno's students at school, this year too before the Open Air English Labs.

What is the point of connecting Freedom with English? Each one might find a different answer, one is to aknowledge that speaking languages makes you more perceptive, capable of stating what you believe in, what you want to share and spread, allows you to be connected with open issues.

But as you readers for sure already know, all teaching activities in Italy have been suspended, schools are closed because of the necessity to interrupt the so far spreading of the Coronavirus infection. No contact among people, no assembling anywhere, Italian people are obliged to stay at home and willingly or not, to re-set up all their life and time.

Quite paradoxically, we could try to find a positive angle to consider this time unexpectedely given to us and to be exploited in order to find ourselves improved when it's time to restart working, going to school, attending all our activities.

That is to say that you're warmly invitated to practice languages, and I use the plural because you can write your comments here in all the languages you know, including Italian. Nowadays there are so many students in Italian schools coming from abroad, who do need to get command of their new country's language. The country that will be theirs, with full nationality.

That's why our teaching classes recently have often turned into bilingual classes, two intertwinning languages, English and Italian, keeping alive the interest for both of them also for those who are Italian. Ours is a language to master, that reveals itself so rich expecially when aimed at making another language comprehended.

These days we might find insights useful to be adopted later in continuing improving everyone's job, since what we know for sure is that improving is what our lives have to tend to.

Questions:

What are your days like in this emergency?

What's happening as new experiences?

How can you manage organizing yourselves with your studies?

What about the use of technology with your teachers?

And with your friends?

Let us know, it will be a pleasure reading you. We'll reply.

Anna - Coordinator

Photos taken with all students' parents' permission.

5 comments

Hello

Muskan, Tommaso, Alessandro, Alessio, Catalin, Florin, Haroun, Gianluca, Matteo, Oswaldo, Geraldine, Andre, Nicola, Fiorisa,

first we started welcoming everybody with all the possible languages spoken by students that is Arabic, Russian, Spanish, French, Albanian, Hurdu, Chinese, Italian and we tried to employ all of them to communicate.

We wrote large papers to share expressions and translate them in English. Beautiful writings, to be trusted since comprehension is possible only by those who know the language.

That's why something different from usual happened: no matter how difficult or unknown the languages were, we started to act, behave, so to share common goals.

Sure, that of these classes at ITIS G. Galilei Livorno was to acquire English, but how can you do that with students having such a variety of knowledge, being in Italy for a very short time with the whole communicative hardware to be reset including Italian?

Wondering how they will be able to become tomorrow's citizens, the point of common languages to share is fundamental. Instead of being a problem, it might be transformed in the opportunity to widen our horizons, and exploiting these opportunities, becoming all of us citizens of the world, so improving us too who welcome them.

Definetly, the point of offering these students, who are becoming more and more numerous every day in our schools due to immigration, a proper place in our schools, is a priority. You can't spend mornings at school, attending classes, being taught subjects in a language you don't know. So Italian and English can be strictly intertwinned, emphasising and reinforcing each other.

We tried to optimize the occasion given to all of us with such a PON 1953 Program, focusing on general comprehension, involving visitors to listen to to speak about welcoming people, either cruise passengers or any other, creating a bond with Livorno, highlighting the role of music and cinema.

The photographs show Christian, Federico, Jordan, David sharing activities with students, all invited through fresh and dynamic English to produce ideas and play roles such as talking with tourists, singing songs, inventing and writing screen-plays.

Worksheets were given and returned corrected. The exibition with paintings by Modigliani was visited, two questionnaires given to both students and families, experiences shared, first that one of communicating from the bottom of our intelligent hearths.

We also had breaks with food; students engaged themselves in producing their favourite dishes, and as a happy ending of this demanding committment, we watched astimjulating film, to encourage students to take decisions all the times waiting to be taken, to improve the quality of everybody's life. Take the lead, meaning this is what you can do every day, involving the others with determination and care.

Muskan, Tommaso, Alessandro, Alessio, Catalin, Florin, Haroun, Gianluca, Matteo, Oswaldo, Geraldine, Andre, Nicola, Fiorisa, write your comment about this adventure. Did you like it, and if so, why?

Anna - Coordinator

Photos taken with all students' parents' written permission