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Le cinque scuole della "sperimentazione" organizzato dal istituto pedagogico di Bolzano.

In the following notes of our teaching at the Bolzano schools, we have used the same system of description as that which we used in the teacher’s manual that accompanies our Grammar book. To introduce a description of what we have done with a class, I have put "Activity". The description of activities or the response of pupils to them or the didactic implications of the activity lead naturally into observations of a general kind which I have sign posted with the title LLAT (that is - Language Learning And Teaching)

CLASSES 1C, 2, AND 3 PROG

We had great uncertainty in starting - not sure of what real knowledge of English they had.

We didn’t want to bore them - or worse give them anything they thought infantile! We did have difficulty in persuading them that our speaking exercises were worth doing. Often they think that since they can read and understand they know it and therefore what is the point of doing an activity that simply reduplicates in speaking it also.

Class1

Activity. I did the "micro plays" on 18B. "A" uses a past simple and "B" a present perfect. I then filmed them acting the "plays". Adolescents won’t act unless they’ve had some habit of it.

In 2 days we covered 2 of the 5 pages of verbs (260) these are important. Teaching should not ignore adequate vocabulary teaching. - it needs fun activities, quizzes and tests.

Class 1 has ½ the class with little interest in study: study in the sense of concentrated attention to what may not be very important to them

LLAT. A lot of school presumes a certain sort of willing masochism - middle class students are more inclined - they know all about "future prospects"!

There seems little respect for what you could call the school situation - the learning place. They just go on joking and relating to each other and talking among themselves. Nothing nasty or contesting - just no interest in English - whatever the manner of it! So far anyway. Maybe they need time.

LLAT. A language cannot just be "acquired" painlessly at school. The child of L1 has many motives for learning - he NEEDS to communicate and comprehend. A student doesn’t.

LLAT. When does a pupil concentrate? "When he is interested", we are told, but remember the "receptive apparatus" of his mind is often very restricted. To be interested, a student has to have some mental space half open! Consider this case: socialism always took this view - "education is essential to the emancipation of the working class" and the disciplines of study and doing what was not maybe immediately attractive was accepted by all. Students are no longer surrounded by this belief in education unless they are ambitious middles class parents. In England they send them to private schools.

LLAT. Italian schools have an only implicit elitism - Liceo classico is frequented by middle class pupils mostly. There are many types of secondary school. The most influential fact within the classes is that the classes are not streamed. The system I experienced put me in a top stream for Maths and a bottom stream for French. This seems a good system. Otherwise for some its going to be too easy or for others too difficult.

LLAT. At Battisti, I was fighting 30% who were uninterested and 70% frustrated and impeded by the others. There is a minimum disposition to attend necessary before anyone can learn. When I am amazed at Middlesmoor at the limitations of knowledge, the explanation lies in the fact that they have passed so many years in undisturbed peace at the back of the class!

Many of the pupils seem to have no apparent interest in what we could call the adult imposed "school learning project". How have they come to this?

Maybe school has worn them down.

Maybe they have never been stimulated into an interest by school on top of the fact that home/society has never stimulated such an interest either. (this was not so in the days of strong socialist belief in THE FUTURE).

Curiosity or tolerance of difficulty has been pushed out of them. Apathy.

LLAT. One can see why so many exercises are furnished by publishers. All pupils are "working" and there is silence. Sad! I proposed moving about, speaking activities and too much time is wasted in noise, silliness and NOT carrying out the activity.

LLAT. Further problem. Motivation is a downward spiral. If students don’t understand then there is no hold or "appiglio" for their subsequent study.

WEDNESDAY

Activity Did the activity of standing against the wall (to detach them from TEXT! ) I progressed around the circle with the camera as they acted the 2 past tense micro-plays. Naturally those who had acted then began to just make a noise. Such an activity depended on the one phrase having been learnt properly - 1 LINE! Many had not bothered so the activity was necessarily boring. Such free activities with the possible fun of filming and making mistakes, depends on a commitment, disposition and will to improve.

LLAT. PROBLEM. In enforced school, how many pupils can be bothered to not take the easy way. Learning requires some commitment and effort. How do we avoid activities dissolving into indifference and lack of respect to the concept of LEARNING? The adult world (here the Head teacher and then his staff under his clear direction) has to decide that they will enforce a program, "for the pupils benefit". We have to have a lot of confidence for that. Have we got it? Are we sure in ourselves that what we offer is suitable and sympathetic to the present intelligence of the pupils? Through lack of confidence on this we may, in the eyes at least of the old socialist certainty) defraud and deny pupils of what they really need in the long term out of false respect for their present intelligence and interests that have been deformed by the television and consumer values which we as adult world have born them into.

Activity In that situation would listening to English films with English subtitles be better? More would sink in that spending so much time reproving a large number for inattention. If they didn’t attend the film the class could be set to a mass of written exercises. Then the majority in future would "police" the minority during the next film. One feels less secure in enforcing attention for "study"!

Activity.

To practice listening I asked a question or made a statement that required a question as "answer". "Why did you…." etc All pairs were meant to reply among themselves so that 50 % have to speak at the same time. Some non co-operators. This non writing activity depends on student willingness to be challenged by difficulty and to speak. Many will agree in abstract that they need to do more talking than is usual but….. they end chatting and being silly. I pretended to be irritated by their lack of interest and refusal to try. I told them they would soon see that "life was grim, life was earnest"!

MONDAY. Class 3 PROG

LLAT. Difficulty of convincing them that only through "wasting time" in speaking activities that need a little effort and embarrassment will they improve. They are unconsciously loyal to the EXERCISE REGIME!

Nice lively, intelligent 16-7 year olds. But they’re not used to concentrating. In a way they are worn out soldiers of school. Difficult to get through to them that we are a pair of foreigners trying to help but needing a little co-operation. Filmed with difficulty short dialogues.

LLAT. Central problem. Poor English after years: no confidence in speaking or secure knowledge. Too many gaps and above all not used to the necessary mental flexibility needed for speaking. Sentence cohesion and structure is weak. Exercises are only useful together with other activities. Now there is a risk of boring them unless we can get some material that is interesting.

Activity I used Page 1 of verb list. I ad-libbed short "stories" which at the close required them to supply the suitable closing sentence in the past with one verb from the indicated ½ page of verb list.

Nice kids. No trouble. Well usual trouble of 3 boys having fun together, a group of girls and one couple, busily "relating"

Activity. We worked on a paragraph on "Wampum" from the 2 pages of culture pages on Money. Translated any difficult word. Told them to prepare to give a short talk on the paragraph. Tried to "connect" by talking of the Social Forum and No Global in Florence in these days. They have no idea of what is at issue either from "Greens" or right wing despisers of useless demonstration and possible mayhem. One student offered that the people at Florence were against "Globalisation" No one could flesh out the concept so I used one or two things from the grammar’s culture pages on Globalisation and motives of anti Americanism. There was a certain arousal in the eyes.

I told them to practice in pairs their talk on Wampum. Hopeless! I then told them to prepare a scheme of their talk. This worked better. I gave them a demonstration. Pointed out the need to keep their English simple: S V O

It is frustrating. I know I could help them improve. I know that I have material that could interest them if only they would give attention. They are so distracted - in the nicest possible way. Nice kids, no doubt about it. The students then continued to practice their "Wampum" talks. One or two are quite good. However what they need is a lesson or two on connecting syntax. Vocabulary of argument, sequencing, contradiction, or description. I told them that I would film their talk in the next lesson.

To try and awake their interest in the argument over globalisation I spoke in Italian and English. Asked them questions. Mostly no reply. Not much curiosity about the outside world. Is this their ghetto?

LLAT. Question. Is this a fault of

their prior schooling not giving them any sufficient conceptual coordinates?

their ghettoised youth culture that doesn’t want any "fastidio"? Yet who are the young in Florence for the social forum? How have they come to their impegno - justified or not as may be - at least commitment to the world in larger sense than the normal youth culture coordinates?

their parents who haven’t passed on a larger interest?

A week is too short a time. With such students you need at least 1-2 months. Waking their interest or disposition to be interested(!) would take time. What we want to do depends on a surrounding context of consensus. In the present society, school is a promontory of hardly marked values. The kids have to live this schizophrenic attitude. They see school as something vaguely old fashioned - irrelevant in its values. A teacher can’t just hit them from on high. I think the defect of Italian curriculum in Literature and History is that it starts from the notion and chronology. These kids aren’t used to thinking strenuously. You have to start from where they are: now; their vague picture of the world and work out from that. Besides, their "culture" is intolerant and excluding of the adult and school has for the most part played the adult cards wrong - puts them off. For example, think how Dante might be taught - worked at, slowly built up rather than be dumped on them in all the majesty of a cultural tradition that these kids don’t know and when they are "told", don’t respect because its force fed to them and anyway too abstract.

Very flat, dull class. 15 girls, 1 boy. Vague air of exhaustion. Difficut to wake them up. As with class 1 it seems that there are very few who are actually motivated to improve their English. They are co-operatively ¼ present! No trouble, just seem deaf - a few exceptions but they get dragged down by local vibes! A typical school situation!

A student may be interested to learn and put up with some degree of boredom or difficulty.

Maybe totally uninterested in subject or exams. He has been forced by society to be there.

He behaves for fear of bad end year marks or some other "punishment".

Such discipline can sometimes be the only viable pre condition either for him, or more importantly, the other members of the class to be able to learn anything. Discipline may also give the unmotivated enough pressure to find that after all they can find a subject interesting if pushed out of their idle habits. A school in England that is judged to be failing by inspectors or by exam results will have a super head and staff parachuted in. Sometimes these changes have extraordinary effects. One of the key terms in school governors reports is "ethos" This stands for all that complex of attitudes, aims and behaviour that can bring a school’s pupils to good exam results and to a connected view of their place in society. Though in itself intangible, ethos is the sum of many very concrete decisions.

The students at Battisti seem to be habituated to a certain sort of slackness.

3 hours. I used the Middlesmoor phrases as a kind of revision of basic English. I explained some of their uncertainties. Stopped at if/when.. Two girls at the back were obviously well taught at Media. One even asked for explanation of "if". Amazing. Two other girls as usual in continual confabulation. Probably never hear a word of a lesson. I played them Eurythmics "Love is a stranger".

LLAT. PROBLEM. Music/ songs +English. Yes, potentially a useful combination - but what if the music is just an occasion for licensed inattention. The song was accompanied with text and all difficult words translated. But suppose even this pleasurable presentation of English was not enough to catch their attention and they continue in their distractions? What is school? What is it for? Why do kids with no interest for certain subjects have to study. At least ½ of all students here are not prepared to make a minimum effort. What was done with pleasure and benefit by Media pupils here has little response or is misused as another piece of misused liberty. (At the Liceo in the following week, this was not so. It turns out that Battisti has it own special problems).

Activity. After the pop song we did a dictation. They filled in the blanks of the song as they listened again. Even the effort of this was beyond some. They are too far out of the system. Filling in a blanked page too artifical and in a sense "silly". "What’s the point"?

LLAT. Question Is this detachment from learning my fault or can a school, by letting things slip, and by not hounding the lazy pupils, itself create the detachment? Is education a matter too extraneous to many pupils? Too different to the way they spend their free time?

Over time could one by bludgeoning and stimulus wake up such a class?

Even with pleasant enough and intelligent 3 prog, talking about climate/ money/ no global/ was a case where such matters, which outside their immediate experience, fall on stony ground. That is not where they are at.

Activity. They seemed more lively today: seemed to enjoy the Eurythmics. Words and then a dictation version. The songs need more prior work and recycling afterwards - as Valentina noted too.

Activity I used the verb sheet for quick verbal completion of my mini stories with a past tense verb that fitted my story.

Class 3

Difficult and deaf today. Busy with their chat, not letting me get started. I told them some facts behind world migration taken from a newspaper article.I tried to carry this over to the Wampum story which is an illustration of the Publius Syrius saying that "Money sets the world in motion". They were uninterested and uninformed.

Their Wampum "talks" were not very logical - as if they couldn’t find the bones of the argument. That money is eyeless. That money can transform a society by changing everything into a money equivalent; the way that money turned the Indians into traders and forced them by its mechanisms to hunt out all the fur animals in their environment. What are the lessons for us etc etc.

LLAT. I was aware that this is too detached from them. Curiosity about the world has left them Maybe school has driven it out. Is education habitually unsympathetic to their minds? Do we just bomb them? They would chorus "yes". QUESTION Must we get to them through their interests? Fashion?! Football! Computer games? That can be a defeatist idea. Since if that’s the case we have to assume that they can’t learn anything new and that they are already adequate masters of knowledge and consciousness to be able to choose.

Activity. I prepared facts taken from 4 newspapers on IMF and World Bank. I gave them 2 web addresses to research. Guardian newspaper on Florence and World bank. A number of examples given of that which can explain anti Americanism. Illustrated some causes behind violent Islam.

Scant interest even in reading the prepared sheet. Made a tactical retreat. I made them underline certain grammar structures.

Activity I gave them 4-5 situations eg "Parents return from holiday. House in a mess. Daughter has had a party there. Play to be written around her explanation!

They did this fairly well. They continued into the next lesson with Valentina as I wanted them to have time to visit the 2 websites www.guardian.co.uk and www.worldbank to find material on Globalisation and so to rescue the previous activity. I told them to just copy/paste onto their own file and to limit this pasting to very small sections.

LLAT. They were not very good at doing this extraction. As usual there is the fundamental problem that the mind is a subordinate servant to the mind already existing. What is striking about the students is the air of intelligent street wise confidence - nice kids too, but their inability to make intelligent choices in such an activity. I expect their essay writing is bad. It’s the problem "Aiuto mio figlio e’ cretinio" They lack a conceptual framework with which to navigate either the net or their own experience. Cristina was present. She seemed more disappointedly frustrated with them than I. They are all likeable though cut off from me. Maybe I need more time. Is teaching a matter of the right techniques or must they also trust/respect you? Old problem. I’m a sort of gnat come to make annoying noises about their heads. Maybe a week is too short a time to make them see that they might benefit from this or that. There is also the general problem that I am detached. I am on the other side. I am another distant generation: a non young. I inhabit another world. Youth culture and all its rites (as that mother complained in Repubblica) separates in a stronger way than was the case in the past. We can’t count on a well worn mental framework of ideas, concepts, perceptions which might have proceeded from a surrounding close knit community nor does "education" anymore confidently supply this framework. Many reforms of the curricula with all its testing, drives teaching into "delivering" a lorry load of stuff.

The students are less convinced by our menu and values and maybe so are we. The culture pages of the grammar are an attempt to give them a relatively light weight and therefore manoeuvrable concept system with which to understand and which they can slowly extend and make their own. This is what they principally lack.

LLAT. There is besides the question of their "debito formative" in the technical skills of English. They possess an very un-manoeuvrable English but it is difficult to get them to condescend to do the speaking activities that I suggest. Learning English - improving on all their imperfections does not seem at all a priority with them. They don’t seem to want to make that sort of effort. They have other concerns. Of course the adult world usually gets round this by short cutting and by simply imposing what we "know" is good for them. To some extent this is justified - after all they can’t know what they need. They are often ".. as wanton boys, who weak in knowledge, pawn the future good to the present pleasure".

However, I can’t help also half respecting their refusal/indifference. I wish we could have a system that allowed a more informed autonomy to the students to make themselves more responsible - the double sense: directing themselves and being sensible of larger issues. If you have to cross the road on your own you have perforce to keep your wits about you. If you cross holding someone else’s hand you are free to look anywhere else, but also risk being run over by another’s negligence.

In education, a debito formativo is often much more than what is meant by that technical sounding phrase. It is often the fault of the "formazione" to remedy the larger deficit that students have brought with them from family/society. How do we help - push adolescents to be responsible for themselves? How do we best arm them to survive. Must we also have the confidence of our profession that we do know what they need and we will DEMAND their acquiescence if they are weak in knowledge and wish to "pawn the future good to the present pleasure". We have to tread on their heels! At Battisti I don’t see much of this.

Gave page 3 and 4 of the verb sheets.

Activity. I gave them a coloured card with 7 Middlesmoor phrases. They study the card in pairs and then student A holds the card with the back towards pupil B. On the back are written cue words from the phrases. Student A calls out a cue word and student B has to give the whole phrase which he can’t see. If he can’t, student A briefly shows him the 7 sentences. Student B is not allowed to read aloud his reply. As soon as he starts to open his mouth to reply, student A twists the face of the card away from student B who therefore has to say the whole phrase as a "chunk". They worked relatively well on this.

At the beginning of this lesson 6 or 7 were slow to return to class.I told them all of and wrote their names down as a threat of future action.

Activity. We also played the fit-together Middlesmoor phrases that have been cut into 2 halves. They have to recompose the sentences looking at the original they all have. It is played as a race and I offered a 1 euro prize to the first pair.

Activity. They had to look at their ½ phrases from the previous game. I recounted a story that they had to complete with a suitable ½ phrase. Most co-operated but 4-6 are still refusing.

LLAT. I asked two girls from a scuola media that had both taught them and NOT put them off the whole "education project" for their judgement about how Battisti differed to their media. They said at Media they were always followed and checked on. Nobody could get out of anything. Everything mattered! A careless school makes careless pupils.

LLAT. What is school? What are we passing on? Are we sure (we adults and our society) that it does matter? Are we only ½ convinced? How do we enforce the content of schooling? Has the surrounding society made it difficult for schools to enforce the school content? We may talk of discipline - making sure that pupils know that we care that they take pains and are not self wounding by not learning - but to what end? We have to believe in our program. Then we can be severe in our demands - for their benefit. We can be severe in stopping disaffected students from ruining the motivation of say those 2 girls from the good Media.

Now a days, school is much more in conflict with the surrounding society’s values which get passed on via the copmmercial blandishments of "youth". If school is to in some way set itself against certain "street" values, then it must be sure that the educational program and methods are really pupil friendly and that we are not just enforcing boredom.

Adolescent "cool" pushes the adult world away yet many adolescents are desperate for guidance or perhaps better, to be sustained. Adolescents can be bone headed, obstinate, careless, arrogant, lazy, indifferent, selfish. They have been conceded so much autonomy and yet we have to spoil the fun and say now listen. Difficult!

As I found with my now adult children, adult authority only derives from moral authority not from power. Humans van be terrorised into acquiescence - but as Communist regimes showed, even Terror can be undermined by passive non accordance which is itself subversive.

Modern society blandishes the young; flatters and gives a view of life reduced to pleasure beauty, enjoyment, wish- fullfillment and then schools are expected to be the guasta festa. To bring the strenuous news that life out there is "grim and earnest"! And besides that teachers are meant to communicate ( modern schizophrenia!) the values (often derided) that make life worth living and makes good citizens!

In this complex of contradictions, authority and school content have to be, to some degree negotiated with students while yet not conceding to the idiotic permissive belief in the wisdom of the young. We have to help them to a VALID autonomy. The authority of a school and its power of enforcing its "culture", derive from a congery of things. In England a holy-grael word for those factors is "ethos". It is interestingly the word most passed about in school prospectus. Of course the PR men soon ruin a good word with false use!

MONDAY.

Activity . Quick summary of 2 pasts. Gave them the 5 drawings on the board and the 5 sentences. They learnt a micro play. One line each. They came out and acted it. Repeated and then exchanged roles. Good for quick on the feet mental flexibility.

Activity. I did my quick lesson on "a few principals of pronunciation".

In English, no up and down "mountains" as in Italian. English is by contrast flat. The Stanley Olio effect!

They must move their jaw much more in English.

They must be more agile with the tongue forwards and backwards because English has none of the pretty languor of Italian where every word ends in a vowel that is nor strictly essential for sense.

The musicality of English is different to that of Italian which rises and falls on each word. English resembles musical phrasing - the whole sentence hurries to the important word. The length of sound for each word depends partly on its relative importance. Variation in pitch occurs at the important word or at the end as sign of conclusion of a packet of meaning.

I make them speak in front of the others. We note how much mouth gymnastics there is.

I do a reverse Stanley Olio tease of how Italians speak English: "Ia wanta toa goa mowa". Some children just can’t cut the English consonantal word endings sharp.

It is surprising how much these simple things improve their pronunciation.

Activity. I put 4 of the different colour coded 7 sentence cards of phrases that we use in the summer in Middlesmoor in 4 corners of the room. 2-3 of the same cards in each corner to avoid crowd crush during the game. There are a total therefore of 7 X 4 phrases. I sometimes offer a small money prize. The game is played in pairs (how boring and discrediting is a lot of text book pair work!). One person is messenger and the other secretary. The messangers all go to the coners and memorise a phrase and return to dictate it to their secretary. Half way through they change roles.

Activity. A teacher came in to announce a talk in Bolzano that afternoon. "La figura di Prometeo nella modernita’". I thought I would help push the talk. Asked who was Prometheus. One person remembered that he was "chained to a rock". That’s all. A pity. After a brief fill out of the story I asked them why such a figure might be taken as representative "nella modernita’" . Nothing. I wrote up a few things. French Revolution, Youth rebellion, No global, ecology groups. They knew very little about the French Revolution.

LLAT. They found this symbolic, representative thinking foreign. They seem to be without any knowledge that is transposable. It is all stuck solid as a school subjects.

Activity . I gave them some brief notes from an article on next generation computers. Too difficult. Abandoned it. Next day I gave them my translation of a few of the interesting facts. We went through the vocabulary. They seemed only fairly interested. I myself found the information from the business section of the Repubblica, fascinating. At present, computer power consumes 8% of USA energy consumption and this consumption by computers will rise to 50% using present technology. So new technologies such as Molecular cascading need to be explored. .etc etc.

LLAT. Has school bombed out their minds?

LLAT. We have this idea that a school can be judged from its Bidelli. Here they are very nice, friendly and helpful. Staff say hello to us. They see to know who we are. Classes are well behaved - within the limits of what is humanly possible for groups of the captured young! Some boys as usual need a sedative!

Activity. We used the "play" from the grammar books culture pages. "Fear and Anarchy" They recited the play with expression, standing up, doing one line each. They then swapped their line with a friend and we refilmed the acting. In this way, in a short time we could do a whole play that had it been divided into just 2 parts would have needed more time. Besides they are terrified at the effort of learning anything by heart!

LLAT. They are well behaved and motivated at the school. They also know that they are not invisible and that someone will follow up any silly behaviour. Boys as usual noisy but they do participate. Kids need to know that adults in a school take the whole thing seriously! Elemenatry!

LLAT. Why in Italy no streaming?

LLAT The only criticism here is, as usual, the cultural, intellectual one. They don’t seem familiar with symbolic or abstract thinking: one thing standing for another. Even when told about Prometheus and given a list of possible "Prometheus" instances in modern society they couldn’t unpack the significance behind the myth being put beside some modern instance of "Prometheus". The way one thing that is seemingly different, can be used to illustrate some other phenomena.

Activity. I gave class C2 a sheet on Metaphor in Shakespeare as preparation to learning parts and acting Macbeth murder scene. -my cut version with difficult words given in the margin. (see web site for 12 other Shakespeare scenes.) I gave them the uncut Italian translation from my testa a fronte CD. (Garzanti). Recited a few lines without text to reassure them how intelligible it can be. It’s not all difficult - especially my cut versions. They then learnt first 5 lines of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.

"Go bid my Mistress, when my drink is ready

She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed."

LLAT. To stop their complaining I learnt 9 lines of a German text that they had with them. I told them I was old and my brain rusty. Sometimes it pays to put yourself on the line too. With another group I put myself out as I was asking them, by learning a 15 line Goethe poem. I made one mistake in my recitation which itself was a useful didactic method!

Activity. I gave C2 their parts of the Macbeth murder scene. They all have 10 lines at the beginning and then I’ve divided the parts in to sections of about 7 -10 lines each.

Activity. Both classes listened to "Love is a stranger" and enjoyed singing with the tape more than the weary Battisti students.

Activity. I gave out the ready made Tent cards of verbs. Paper folded over like a tent -Italian and English on the tent sides and the 2 past tense forms on the inside. I needed them numbering so as to fit on with the numbers on their 5 pages of verbs. This means I will be able to give them verb tent cards in sets.

LLAT. I had not explained myself properly to Saveria so all the 60 pages of "talkable" material that I had made into a separate book was photocopied. This was in some ways convenient because when in need we could ask the students to return to a suitable page. However it also falls into what you could call the "Text book syndrome". Once text books are given, with their particular and predictable page by page format, the book soon becomes boring. Page after page. Week after week. In our case, having all 70 pages of photocopies was dulling. If you give them 1 or 2 pages a day, and they have to stick them in their A4 notebooks, then it is more personal.

Activity. Explained to C2 how metaphor is important in Shakespeare. Apart from that we started straight into the Macbeth. They read the Italian version without cuts. They then all learnt in class 5 + lines to show how easy it was.

Class C1 for the first time.

We used the Middlesmoor phrases. I explained all the grammar up to 1^st conditionals. Wrote quite a lot of abbreviated grammar on the board.

2 presents

2 pasts

some/any +where /body etc and the problem of double negative.

Must have to

To finish we used the colour cards to play Secretary/messenger. As I won’t see them very much I thought to run throught these basics from the Middlesmoor phrases (page 66/7) Hope to do something more fun next time.

Gave out the uncut version in Italian translation of Macbeth - Murder scene. Asked some comprehension questions about why lady Macbeth is in this state just judging from this text. What words show th state of mind of Macbeth or Lady Macbeth

"I scorn to wear a heart so white".

" How is it with me that every sound appals me".

We practiced. They are quite good. The predictable people hadn’t learnt anything.

LLAT At such a point do we have confidence to make the offenders pay a price for deciding that they know better than our request?

Activity. Filmed the whole class practicing. First doing A and B in pairs, then asking all As and all Bs to speak their lines at the same time. What I call the effect "manicomio" This increases speaking time".

LLAT. Whether Shakespeare or any spoken work, what is important is to make them move their tongues with English words. All such speaking is useful - never mind if Shakespeare is supposed to be difficult. I have anyway made a cut version that avoids complexity.. I told them that tomorrow will be the last chance to film them.

I recited Um Mitternacht which I said I would learn to show my commitment to learning by heart. I translated it as I recited it. Teachers ned to set an example. Example has much more authority than power! What a poem!

Activity. For the last hour we looked at a ¾ page of statistics on "Molecular cascading". I asked them to write a 5 line mini essay on it. I told them to use simple structure of S V O. Few of them seem even in Italian to have the ability to debone a short article and set it out logically.

THURSDAY.

Class A1, (1.2 hours) C1 ( 3 and 4 hours) A2 ( 5 and 6 hours) In fact for hour 6 I went back to film C2.

Activity. I filmed C2‘s Murder of Duncan. Too many hadn’t bothered to learn properly. Compare A2 who were very good.

Activity. Explained to A1 the principal of past continuous (no imperfect in English) so you have to chose either past simple or continuous.

Activity. We used game "Dream sequence" with its frequent use of past cont. This game is made of little drawings which in the original rather dull activity were supposed to be put in a sequence as if in a dream. Of course that soon becomes, then… suddenly… then. Next with very little logical connection (it is of course a dream!) I use the pictures with a sheet I have prepared in which each drawing has an accompanying sentence that describes the drawing. After we have studied the material (reading for vocabulary) I then ofer a small prize and I read out a random sentence. The game is that the first pair to find the correct drawing holds it up. 2 points for the first and 1 for the second pair. Variant. I say a word and it is the first pair to read out the whole phrase in which the word occurs.

Activity. We used the Middlesmoor phrases which are cut into 2. They race each other to recompose the sentence.

Class A2 Lady Macbeth

Activity. They read the Italian uncut. I explained the story. We learnt two lines together

"Here’s the smell of the blood.

All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh,oh.

"What a sigh is there. The heart is sorely charged.

You can see them switch on as they get these words coming out with a little acting. Shakespeare’s powerful JU JU magic!

LLAT How fine literature is murdered in Italy: either on the altar of "Learning English through literature" or by the mausoleum weight of big guns "background". Oh, oh,oh The text is sorely charged!

Filming C2’s Murder of Duncan.

I had prepared costumes of black plastic dustbin liners. Decorated and joined with white paper tape and then decorated with gold and silver pens. Considring that the pupils had had only 2 ays, they were quite good. It was certainly worth doing - there were the usual "passengers". This may seem a waste of precious learning time, but it bears fruit in better motivation.

I gave C1 a play. The angry farmer. Everyone was given a line and then filmed in a row. This way we could get some work out of everyone quickly. Some tongues trip over themselves with the unfamiliarity of the words.

LLAT We must get them saying English even if not yet speaking it. Even exercises can be made into oral practice.

Activity. I gave them composites of some/ any/ no.

Activity. We did the Middlesmoor phrases on cards. Quick learning game. See page ….

LLAT. This morning I felt strongly convinced that we are on the right track with our methods of speaking + tightly focussed grammar. Lots of word production/ trying to break out of text dependence/ speaking "chunks"/ keeping the English in the head- quick semi-memorising / verb work/non boring treatment of Literature/games/ fun listening (eg.Dream sequence")

LLAT. There is no need of text books. Or rather text books as they are now made under the "communicative approach and under functional division, make the wrong kind of teaching most likely. The text books have so much redundancy that the students ignore all. The format of the text books derive from the idea that you "acquire" a language rather than learn it - in the natutal setting. I’m not sure whether that is even a valid distinction for the young L1 learner. It certainly is unhelpful in the very artificial setting of the classroom. The young learner of L1 has such a will to know and understand. This amounts to a will to LEARN. A young child concentrates on language to an extraordinary degree. He doesn’t just let it stick to him like burrs or as we say "pick up" (ie. = casually) language. The acquiring idea shows up in the text books in the sheer mass of material that supposedly has the look of "reality" and is therefore supposed to be absorbed painlessly!

Students at school need an artificial focus so that the dispersive context of school can be held together. What is presented must be of 2 sorts. One that is part of a continual process of reinforcement and other parts judged essential and to be properly learnt/practiced there and then.

A text book like Christmas presents is soon old. A photo copy can be full of interest simply by virtue of having been purposely chosen for tha particular class and day. Individual photocopies can be much more various than a text book with its single publishers /authors /typographer’s style.

FRIDAY

Class A2 (2 hours) C1 ( 2 hours) A2 (2 hours)

Activity . I filmed A2’s Lady Macbeth sleep walking scene. They had prepared so well. Really surprisingly well; and all in one afternoon and evening to learn the 10-15 line parts. I used the plastic dustbin liners as used for the murder scene with C2. I forgot to bring a candle for Lady Macbeth and a cloth to cover the blackboard.

As at Middlesmoor with some performances of Shakespeare, it is extraordinary how moving foreign children can be, even with so little preparation. It’s as if the genuine theatricality and the directness of the language convinced them and called forth their sincerity.

"Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of

Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh".

We divided the scene into 3 parts. (see www.middlesmoor.com for this and other Shakespeare). We had

3 pairs of Doctor + gentle woman for the first part before the entrance of Lady Macbeth.

2 trios of Doctor + Gentlewoman + Lady Macbeth

4 single boys for Doctors final 9 lines. =16 pupils

This cut version shows the efficacy and FEASABILITY of doing Shakespeare.

They also had the sheet on Metaphor in Shakespeare, though little time to do much.

Activity I gave them a test on Middlesmoor phrases. Each of the rows was numbered according to that of the original Middlesmoor phrase. They had to invent a new phrase around one or two words, using the original phrase as pattern. A more open ended sort of writing task than an exercise.

Activity. We used the coloured card sets of Middlesmoor phrases. 6 or 7 per card, each dealing with just one grammar area.

LLAT These Middlesmoor phrases are endlessly recycled so as to become as familiar as those "Chunks" and "institutional utterances" that young children pick up by repetition.

Activity. I gave everyone a verb card. They had to invent a did sentence. (aim to simply get to learn these 260 verbs I have given them. Too often they learn no vocabulary because it isn’t taught - Supposedly kids "acquire" the in their natural- artifical text books!

I asked them to walk about the room repeating aloud their sentence. I made them stand in a circle and timed them to see how quickly they could recite. 25 seconds the best time.

I got them to again walk about repeating and to listen to everyone else’s sentence. Then I told them to sit down and in pairs write all the sentences they could remember.

Activity. I did the dream sequence game. It was very successful with them. They were willing to enter into the spirit of the game. After all, they had plenty of shouting and excitement. I had offered 60 cents prize for the pair with most points. "for the first to respond and 1 for the second pair.

LLAT. At the beginning of the class, there was trouble over an insulting scribble in another’s diary. I quickly photocopied the grammar book culture page on Hierarchy. The page includes concepts of mobbing, hen pecking, whistle blowing, peer pressure, alpha males, and the question of what makes the good society. I think it proves how worthwhile it was to insist on this wider material in the grammar book. After all if I don’t believe in text books I have to find something else. Their teacher took 3 out of the class. It’s right that children know that certain things matter and the school won’t allow a kind of sub culture to grow parallel to the education aims. Rightly because such bullying along with the indifference to it, can subvert a whole school and make teaching more difficult. (see some of my thoughts on a certain laxness at Battisti).

GALILEO

MONDAY

class 1D

Andrea’s class. Well motivated and responded well to all the activities. I had 3 hours. We covered a lot of ground. 2 pasts which many had not done. Games of the sort already described with Middlesmoor phrases.

Activity We used the 2 "battute" micro plays on the pasts. We used illustrated verb cards. This was a Liceo Scientifico class. Compare next experience!

Class 1C.

LLAT. Here was a different story. This was an ITC class. Hopelessly de-motivated and uninterested. Valentina had trouble with them.. Non cooperative, noisy. Usual story. All boys. Not unpleasant. They’ve had enough and they’re only 14. They’ll be trouble if they aren’t offered a bit of red meat!

With such a class one has the feeling that they have no intention of disposing themselves to learn; of making their minds available! They are at school from system inertia.

In the meantime to keep themselves sane, they invent ways of passing the time which has nothing to do with listening to a teacher. I have sympathy for them. There isn’t one who is unpleasant or anti adult. You just have to play them on a long line, be patient to their distraction, make fun of them in a friendly way as possible and hole that by extreme coherence and male dominance you can ….well not exactly teach, but manoeuvre them towards a gradual disposition to listen! How do kids come to this? They have detached from what you could call the school project - LEARNING. They are parked there. They are detached for various reasons.

They are not very academically inclined.

They are too much "boy" to put up easily with the unnatural regime of bench siting. They’ve had enough. They are very restive. Their intelligence has been bored into hibernation.

They have lost motivation over along period of "suffering".

They have been badly taught. Badly is not necessarily a condemnation of teachers but of common methods and text book unrealism.

I hardly remember what I did with them.

TUESDAY 2D 1B

Neither of the 2 classes was difficult. 1B boys only was a continual struggle to get/hold their attention, Many of them detached from the education aim. Endless joking and talking. School is boring and that helps them to survive.

LLAT. I have to be on continual form to dominate - domare their dispersiveness. This isn’t teaching to be judged for good or bad technique. This is me having to WIN their attention and this attention is purely human. You have to be worth their interest. This rewuires you to become partly like them - in the sense of reading their language and speaking to them. They have to become curious about you. To get their attention to have to first get their attention!

LLAT. In this arena of circus animals you try and introduce the subject which probably doesn’t interest them. You have to entertain them into tasting information. This is not just you teaching badly that makes them indifferent. It’s a habit! I’ve had the idea with 1C to play Rugby with them. 1C and 1B today are almost unreachable. !B know very little. You could easily teach them in 2 weeks what they’ve learnt in 3+ years - if they gave you their attention!

LLAT. I suppose a regime of real fear and threat might get them to make an effort. One can see the importance of a system. A system that they realise cares and follows them up; doesn’t let them get away with slackness, day after day.

At times I felt I’d aroused their curiosity- as a person and the things I said - having done that I had a brief chance to teach. This rather wasteful of effort.

Activity. With 2D I gave Middlesmoor phrases explained the embedded grammar of first page.

I gave them the 6 drawings of the 2 past tenses.

Activity. With both groups gave them a taste of Shakespeare - 4 Lines from Lady Macbeth

There’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes

Of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh oh oh.

They seemed to savour it - especially the oh.

Activity. With both groups with did "semi learnt" plays. Learning by heart is good fro them, but a possible criticism is that it’s too fixed. So we semi learnt a play to encourage a need to half invent where they half forgot.

Activity. I got them to reason in pairs as to which of the tense drawings fitted witht the dialogue past tenses. This type of analysis is very good for them. They have to make the connections. I then corrected them together.

LLAT. 1B has this very scrambled fuzzy knowledge. I kept reciting: tick, tock, tick tock to mark the passing of more wasted time to add to their 3+ years. They have been taught without rigour or focus and they have been also chronically bored. Any correct answer is a sort of Russian roulette hit or miss.

WEDNESDAY.

1C. According to the program, I was supposed to teach !C. However today there was an "autogestione".I had had the rather extreme solution for 1C, aince they are all boys, to teach them Rugby in the Talvera. Two hours English and then 11/2 Rugby. They are quite uninterested in English - as explained on Monday. It’s a vicious circle - no understanding/ boring lessons = no understanding = even less motivated. Any didactics at this point will be boring - certainly at the beginning. This group needs a male teacher with patience to make no progress for quite some time. If such a teacher had good methods then he would also need to be coherently demanding ("strict"!) so as to give his good methods a chance of make a flame.

These kids have been very badly taught at Media. They have a teacher now who said "Hello" when we parted! She is quiet and shy and these kids will eat her for breakfast. Absolute "stallo". I wanted to play Rugby because I had found a blank wall in front of me. This is an extreme case. A class a Batisti was difficult but this is special! The kids are nice enough - you could do something with them - eventually - and in the right institutional set up. Schools suffer here from an absence of that corporate sense which is the strength of English schools with their strong involvement of the parents and local community. In England the "Governors" even appoint the Head! This is real power and the parent representatives are on the committee. Not only that but there is a strong Parent body too. Parents are the real "customers". I ask myself what they would say if they saw the typical transactions in this school or the chaos of the "autogestione". ‘m not against it. I’m a "sessantottino"!I’m still loyal to the idea of giving some autonomy to students - to make them more responsible and to make them realise that reality is more difficult to manage than words. But if it is to work it has to be tough minded and NOT slack.

The attitude and the non treatment of this attitude among 1C and 1B constitutes a potential school cancer. Yes, they certainly need "discipline" but not simply the discipline demanded by the nostalgic barman "a stick as big as this"! They need coherent care. If they get the present teacher it will be disastrous. If I was apparent I would be thoroughly discontented.

This morning the occupation took 50% of the class. We went over the very basic English - 2 presents/ wh questions. Incredibly vague or ignorant.

These kids are the very epitomy of the effects of the standard dependence on textbooks. Bits and pieces of tepid "conversations", little bits og "grammar" and "vocabulary" all put together in bland pinks and blues and illustrated by fascinating "young people"! A boring desert that they have to drag themselves through! God, how patient they are and WE complain about THEM! They should be breaking the furniture up! Meanwhile, I and the rest go on preaching nd complaining! We are at fault. We with our false curriculum have brought them to this; bored apathy.

You could win them back but this school needs what the American military call a "surgical strike"! 1C and 1B need attention: a mass attack! If the school is indifferent to them (and they are not atypical) the cancer will spread and discredit the authority of the school. The school cannot afford to insist with lessons as usual. They could become a bad influence. At the moment they are recoverable. These kids cannot be given a mild not very capable woman who has little personal charisma. It would be irresponsible of the school and the effects will be all their responsibility. Is a school doing this knowingly? Whoever is Head must consider this. Heads are there to keep an eye on all the MICRO FACTORS which make up good or bad schools. These kids are undisciplined because of boredom and incomprehension as well as because they are not decisively disciplined.

In the end the Rugby idea was abandoned. Typical of such a class; they couldn’t be bothered to put themselves to the trouble and effort! When the second head told them to leave their false autogestione they cam in proposing to do Rugby- too late! I told them to take out pens and paper and I gave them a series of Italian sentences in the presnt to correctly translate. I have hammered away trying to patch the holes of their knowledge and running about playacting and tom foolery to catch back their ever drifting attention. By dint of such "performance" and expenditure of much energy, I got their attention more or less. (what on earth is the stratagem of the mild teacher?). By the end they were beginning to understand the use of the 2 presents and then use of the 2 pasts. (I had given them a sheet collating the mechanisms of do and did.

I gave them the 2 presents short plays which some had seen in the first lesson. I asked them to write NOW/HABIT/FUTURE alongside the lines of the plays according to what type of present tense they found there.

1C needs such a good teacher to go SLOW REPEAT and be CONSTANT.

THURSDAY.

2d 1B

LLAT. 2^nd day of "self government" (autogestione!) What bad education it constitutes. If I was a Head, I would meet all the other Heads to persuade them to be coherent as well as "democratic" and allow students their "rights". The students, or their representatives have their politics and so should the Heads. These days of protest are I hear, annual and de rigeur. Maybe over Afganistan or Morati or Iraq. A pity such protest is never about such things as the "caretti del mare" such as the one we read of in newspapers today, contaminating the Spanish beaches for lack of European enforcement of legislation.

If students ask for "autogestione" then the Heads should demand that that is what happens. I have seen groups of boys doing nothing other than treating class rooms and furniture badly. Students shouldn’t be allowed to misuse autogestione for rabble practice. The school is effected by such days. Properly used student days can be educative but not rabble days. I couldn’t see any "gestione". It would be better and more honest to just call it "strike" and not come. It would be less damaging to the seriousness and authority of the school. Where were the groups explaining Moratti reforms?

What do Heads think of such days? Heads should make the permission conditional on real autogestione. Teachers should be present in some fashion. Students leaders should seriously ORGANISE the day.

This is already a school with serious problems of control and what seems a lack of clearly communicated limits and aims. If a school is engaged in the "education project" as one can call it, it has to believe in what it is doing. Kids have to know that the school means business, otherwise a cancer spreads of indifference, insubordination, carelessness, laziness, unpunctuality, selfish interruption of others, constant inattention. Such situations are an education in anti education. And what would parents think? Suppose I were a parent!

Activity. With 2 D I made a mistake with the first activity. This was partly to do with the way there are two distinct levels there. What one can do the other can’t. I gave them the 4 pages of verbs.

Activity. I gave the Lady Macbeth sleep walking to the better ones. The other group had the play The Rats, divided into 2 parts. (2 past tenses). The boys of this group are very distracted.

Activity. I played the song, "Love is a stranger". They did the follow up fill in dictation.

LLAT. Students who are de-motivated tend to shut down the mind. It must be a sort of defence. They then need incredibly persistent teaching as well as great variety and unboredom! They require more attention. In such a mixed ability class, that might mean neglecting the better ones. Maybe with such classes, since Italy insists on the political correctness of a "non elitist" refusal to "stream", perhaps the better students should be slowly habituated to a greater degree of "autogestione"!!

The days of this student autogestione has been very destabilising and I think, bad for the future education commitment. Valentina and I have not been able to demonstrate to them much that is motivating because 5 days is not enough to break into such a serious and rooted situation.

Activity. With the ½ of 1B present, (then others were being politically noisy next door) I persisted with the 2 presents. I gave them lots of Italian examples of the confusing sort. "Guarda chi arriva, Ciao vado, Lui viene domain, lui non viene mai etc. I also asked them to recognise HABIT or NOW or FUTURE in

Activity. I did the same with 2 pasts, using the micro plays that they already have.

Activity. I gave them a photo copy from our grammar of the THE problem for Andrea’s use. LLAT. This school has the same problem as Battisti. There are students in particular classes that are not interested in education - at least as they are habituated to receive it. This is partly a matter of style of teaching, partly of content of the program and how that partly determines the style of teaching, partly a lack of coherent control and belief on the part of the school or Head, partly a lack of over all CONTROL.

You can have good teachers but they exist inside an institutional system. Such a system has 2 aspects - one the curriculum in its good and bad aspects and the other in the quality and coherence of the institution as an organisation. What is the quality of the managerial input? What micro initiatives are there which aim to improve over all well being, satisfaction and belief that "everything matters". In what resides "ethos"? A school Head may also have large scale ambitions such as "Trilinguism" or "Teaching a subject in a foreign language" etc, but these must not be just window dressing; gaining false prestige while neglecting the real foundations on which such schemes must be built if it is not to lead to yet more demotivation.

In relation to these questions of ethos and attitude, it was clear to us that Andrea’s classes have benefited from an accumulation of small but significant acts of caring. Even the detail of finding me a Rugby ball for my "strange" initiative was touching in its "impegno". Our thanks to him.

1C. The Italian teacher Rosella was present. No nonsense from the kids; she has a firm hand and severe meravigliato tone if they talk or are silly. She is also consistent and lets nothing slip by. Kids recognise that.

LLAT. A fairly good 2 hours, but what a struggle, even with the Italian teacher present. Endless distraction, no desire for any effort, or to understand. Is this just a recent bad habit or does it go right back. If this is schooling then the sooner it collapses completely the better. We have to think up something better!

ACTIVITY. I drew the5 diagrams again of the 2 pasts and we looked at the 2 line plays illustrating the problem. They learnt and acted them and then had to identify which drawing fitted which dialogue part. I gave them orally a verb (in Italian/English) and asked them to write down the answer - ie. an expression to fit my action. First it was for something happening now (I’d look out of the window as if something was happening. Then they had to give a version as if it had happened yesterday - so past simple.

LLAT. This may seem too grammar based but it was within the context of the 21 2 line "lays both of which contained the 2 pasts. It would be a subject to take 2 weeks over in which at various moments some other language aspect would be tied in - such as verbs or vocabulary and in many different types of activity. What was apparent all week was that for the 3 years plus they have learnt, LEARNT, nothing - nothing solid enough - all very washed out remnants. They have had no FOCUS or coherence.

Activity. Played the split Middlesmoor phrases. Then I called out a ½ phrase and the game was that the first pair to hold up the phrase won a point. To make it a little worth while I offered 50 Euros per game as prize. Worth the expense! Still some 6 of them showing no interest. In that case my attempted fun strikes them as even more foolish and desperate than the normal teaching. No listening, participating, writing. REFUSAL! However looked at from a certain viewpoint not an unsuccessful lesson!

LLAT. I have been rather disgusted by the days of "protest". This too seems another form of window dressing (like lessons!). The students demand from the Head the "right" to democratically (I suppose is the word) the aims of Moratti’s "reform". Whoever are the student leaders we can compliment that the school furniture wasn’t harmed but the student organisation did nothing that I could see to use the "autogestione" to educate the mass of students to what was involved. I questioned several classes of older students and they were as ignorant of issues as my classes. All I saw was idle groups lolling about or being rowdy. Perfectly pleasantly, but it was not autogestione if "gestione" means anything.

At the end of the morning I told the head what I thought were serious problems in the future if !c continued to be taught by the English teacher that I had met. He assured me there was absolutely nothing that he could do. I have subsequently heard that only violent rebellion on the part of a group of parents determined to cause political embarrassment in the press and TV can move a teacher. If that is so then an institution has no excuse: it exists to serve parents and children. A school and teachers are in that sense employees of the parents.

1B and 1C are at present the example of how school is not adequate to their real situation. We have to have a different approach.

LLAT. The problem is that the so called "debito formative" is not just in English, it is in everything. I would like to know what a test of the other "subjects" might reveal to an outsider. Not the school testing, but testing that would test to what degree the students could manipulate and recycle in other contexts what they had supposedly learnt.

I suspect that these students are unable to think because school has not helped them to do so. I would throw out all "subjects" until I was sure they had learnt to use Italian. To learn to use their own language I would have a program, not of Italian grammar and Literature, nor of History or any other "citizen" preaching system. They need to learn to discuss and then write about the real world they live in. This would need the support of real life experiences - maybe 2 week sessions working at particular jobs and having evening lessons. It would mean not "gita di classe" which is often just mob tourism, but planned short visits integrated to the "understanding and speaking project" along with work experience.

At the moment these young people seem just "consumers" Their horizons are those of animal needs + those desires stimulated by continual commercial pressure to conform in their purchases and peer pressure to conform in all their choices.

The stuff of lessons seems like an irrelevant lava that they see threatening to engulf them - and they defend themselves.

Generally, Italian text books and the approach of teachers who are conditioned by those books, addresses students as if they were already university students. Only 5% can respond to the general teaching level and approach. They do not genuinely come into the possession of concepts, fact and ideas that they can recycle for themselves. They memorise for short "interrogge" and then forget: usa e getta!

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