Ecco La Vita

I've been really into posting my photos and have lost track of the real purpose of this blog: to share my thoughts on my teaching experience. Here are some things that have been going through my head:

• the meaning of the word "stupid": I have had at least two teachers call one of the students stupid. At first I was a little shocked, but then remembered that "stupido" does not mean the same thing in Italian as it does in English. Stupido in Italian is more like foolish, and is not necessarily a criticism of intelligence, but more how you act. However, I would still hesitate to use the word. Annoying and rowdy, yes. Stupid, definitely not.
• Student/Teacher boundary: On Friday afternoon, one of my students gave me a ride to the train station in his car. I wouldn't have gone willingly, but it was suggested by another Prof. At first it was a little weird, but it saved me a bus ride, so I got over it pretty quickly.
• The Trinity Exam - one of my main tasks is preparing the students for the Trinity Exam, an oral exam in English. I teach this test prep class on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons; Tuesday is prep for Level 7 and Thursday is prep for Level 6. I have some preparation manuals, but the students are still extremely hesitant to speak up, which is problematic, it being an oral exam and all. Finally, I had to start my lesson this past Thursday by writing three rules on the board:

1. This is an ORAL EXAM. You must participate.
2. If you do not understand, tell me. It is a waste of time for me to constantly ask if you understand or not.
3. If I ask you a question, you answer. You do not tell your friend to answer for you.

I stated these rules out of absolute necessity. Sometimes I break them up into groups of two to have discussions, and they decide to write everything down instead of speaking about it. Then there are times when I ask a question, and they stare at me or at their notebook and don't answer. Finally I ask them if they understood, and they say "no". And yes, it happens every day that I call on someone to answer a question and the student answers, "No, lui", indicating that their friend will answer instead. It makes me crazy.
There are a couple of students that I know will pass the exam, because they are very comfortable speaking. I ask a question, they can respond, and ad lib accordingly when they need to kill time while trying to figure out how to answer a question. This is 75% of the exam. Then there are others that know very little English, and I think are only taking the exam because their parents are making them. And then there are a couple of students who really just do not care, which is interesting, since the course isn't mandatory ...
However, as much as I complain, it is incredibly interesting to see the difference between teaching conversational English and teaching literature and grammar from a textbook. There are some prime expressions that I know they have translated right from Italian. For example, if they are don't speaking, they say "and stop" ("e basta"). Instead of "right now", they begin with "in this moment/period" ("in questo momento/periodo"). It's actually adorable.

Off subject, but one thing I love about having alone time is being able to listen to lots of music on my iPod, especially when I'm out walking around by myself. I've been favoring Arcade Fire recently.