Extra Lessons

Today is the first day of my extra lessons, and I am so excited.  However, I first had my regular day ahead of me, and I LOVE Thursdays and Fridays...sooo

It started with Valeria's class and her substitute who is, unfortunately, not a very good substitute.  First, she barely speaks English, and then she doesn't let me start class...she confuses all of the students...she chooses to test half of them in my hour of class...it's really frustrating.  The students do not understand what she is trying to do, and she cannot explain it to them.  Thus I am even more confused than they are.  It is really frustrating, and now I am not sure that this project will work with this group.  I was able to take a few of them to the lab and start the idea of them doing some research. I think I am going to have to talk to Valeria.  

Patrizia's class was great.  We did the song, "Southern Comfort Zone" by Brad Paisley.  Patrizia was really excited for this activity, and she even did it WITH the students and was singing along!  This made me happy!  The students did a FABULOUS job of catching all of the words that I had taken out of the lyrics!  They were brilliant!  We listened to the song once without their papers in front of them.  Then I passed out the lyrics and we listened again while stopping after each stanza or so!  Then after we finished the words, we listened again.  Then, on the back of the paper they had to write some of the words that they recognized from my lesson about "The South" (e.g. cotton, sweet tea, etc.).  This was their homework, along with some words/people from the song that they had to search for to talk about tomorrow!  They seemed to get the meaning of the song as well!  I was so proud of them...beyond words! 

For my break I talked to Patrizia a bit about the New York project and she seemed really excited. THen I made a trip to the bank to get money for Lila and Ernesto. Then I went to the main building to make copies and then to the bar for a cappuccino and cornetto.  It was definitely a splurge in calories, but I was hungry!  


Linda's class was next.  We did the "Southern Comfort Zone" activity, and I'm not going to lie, the more I listened to the song, the more I wanted to cry!   It was a GREAT lesson.  They were all so excited to see me and kept telling me how much they missed me!  They were really engaged in the lesson, and the hour seemed to end too soon.  Therefore, we will have to continue it tomorrow, but they had homework to look at the assignment on the back.  The weird thing about this lesson was that someone came from downstairs to get me, saying that someone wanted to talk to me!  I was so confused for a minute, but then Linda explained that Brigida was downstairs.  I ran downstairs, but could not find her.  I was so confused.  Finally, I figured out that she was on the phone.  She was wanting to give me a few last minute instructions about the afternoon lesson! 


So, after a wonderful class with Linda's students, I headed home.  I got some turkey from the Macelleria, and made a delicious salad for lunch.  I talked to Nick most of the time, but I was also able to talk to my momma! I did not have much time at home because I had to be back at school by 2:30 for the extra lesson.

I received a register for the students, so I felt all official and stuff, and then I found most of them waiting in an upstairs classroom for me.

So the extra lessons are with students from the second year, but they do not all know each other.  It started with me telling them a little bit about myself, and I had them guess where I was from.  THeir only hint?  I speak English.  Their first guess?  London.  I asked if I had a British accent and they said "kind of!"  What?!?!? First, no.  Second, NEVER let Francesca hear you say that!  She will SEVERELY disagree with them I am sure!  So then I told them a little bit about where I am from and such. Then I had them answer some questions.  I had them write them down, then they had to answer them.  They were things about themselves...about school...where do they want to travel to?....what do they want to do in this class...etc.  They answered them, then chose a partner that they did not know, and interviewed that partner.  THEN, they had to close their notebooks and tell me a few things about their partner.  This whole process was great because they were thinking, writing, speaking, and presenting in English!  Then we talked about what they wanted to do in these lessons.  It was a great class! These students are all smart, engaged, kind, driven, and I think it is going to be FABULOUS!!! 

When it was over I went home and did some random things, worked on blogs, was stressed a little bit about random stuff.  I talked to Nick quite a bit and had a late dinner.  One really exciting thing that happened tonight was that my momma was able to get in contact with Delta and they changed my flight to July 14th, and because I had to make this reservation so long ago, they worked it out where they waved the fees and the flight change only ended up costing me $125!  WHAAA???  An extra 2 weeks in Italy with my Nick for only $125! I was so so so so so so so so so so so so excited!!  I have the best momma who worked really hard to get this for me; waiting on the phone multiple times for many, many minutes on hold.