Welcome to Kindergarden

We’ve all made comments about how we long for the days of kindergarten. The precious memories of snack time, naptime, and recess. Well, I am currently in kindergarten Italian. Each days begins as follows:
Good Morning Class:
My perky and energetic professoressa Elisa enters the room with a bounce and in a loud voice says, “ciao ragazzi!” Then she sits down and stares intently and asks each individual person: “che cosa hai fatto este fine settimane?” (what did you do this weekend). Each sentence we construct is an opportunity for learning. If we struggle with a word and have to look it up, not only does she wait patiently for us to use our dictionary. (She has such patience, sometime its take several minutes to form one complete correct sentence. She won’t hurry us along and give us the answer she just sits there until we use the right article and corresponding ending and have looked up the words we need). A word we struggle with or verb gets written on the board and we all learn the new word. Sometimes if you pick a good word you get this comment “Bravissima Allison, e un bell’adgettivo!!” (Way to go Allison, that is a good adjective!) My classmates and I even get into the praising and often offer high-fives, and applause. We’re like an AA support network.
Story time:
I mentioned earlier that our theme this month is fairytales and that we were reading children’s novels. We have progressed from 2 page stories to 10 page stories. The authors are famous Italian children’s authors. Its like me coming from college and saying, today mom I read Green Eggs and Ham! Tomorrow we are reading One Fish Two Fish. Everyday we go home and read a story and then come back to discuss as a group what happened. The thing about these fairytales is that they aren’t predictable so you cant fake if you read it or not. For example, one story is about a nose that runs away from his owner and floats in a cloak down a river. He gets caught by a fisherman and sold at market. There are still many instances where nobody is quite sure what’s going on. Yesterday I had to write a synopsis of one of the stories and I literally wrote a sentence that translates into “and then Paolo’s mother came to the king’s house with a basket and a rooster but I have no idea why.”
Charades and Pictionary:
This is happens throughout class when we don’t understand a word in Italian. At first Elisa asks someone who does understand the word to explain it to the rest of us…in Italian. Sometimes this is easy. The word is “robber” and you might say in Italian “someone who takes things that belong to others.” Sometimes its much harder, like “already.” But sometimes we fail at explaining things we don’t understand in Italian with more Italian and so Elisa begins using giant hand gestures and scribbles on the board.
Show and Tell:
After reading the fairytales we each get to pick a word that we had to look up at home and introduce it to the class. It goes on the board and everyone gets to learn it too. Then everyone gets to use it in their own sentence. Then we talk about other words we know that mean the same thing. (robber = thief = buglar)

Funny thing about all of this is that this class is harder than it sounds. Speaking Italian constantly is exhausting and trying to learn concepts in Italian can be ridiculous. After two hours of class I want to nap. I poke fun cause it is a bit silly but it’s a double edge sword. On one hand sometimes I feel ridiculous. But sometimes its great having a personal cheerleader. I am pleased when I can express myself in another language and its nice to have someone who also takes note of when I conjugate the verb correctly and use a big word. I can’t tell you how many times in class Elisa has looked at one of us and said “non preoccuparti, prova!” (don’t worry, try!). For me its in response to when I have no idea what she is saying or asking me or when my brain has reached its Italian understanding capacity for the day and shuts down. Also, she brings us into her office to go over our quizzes individually. Its not about the grade she tells us, what’s important is that we understand the concept and can eventually speak Italian. I cracked up today when she pulled me into her office and praised my improvement on this second quiz. “I can tell you studied extra hard” she told me. It was true, but my C had only turned into a C +. All in all, the class is good for the morale and for now I take solace in the fact that im only transferring back credits and not grades.