ITALIAN CULTURE IS WHERE NETWORKING IS COMBINED ALSO WITH FOOD.
Siamo a Boston dove ci sono centri formativi di straordinario livello come il Mit, Harvard, Boston University frequentati da tanti italiani, che però trovano il tempo per sfidarsi tra loro in cucina. Il tutto nella sede della Dante Alighieri.
Click on the picture to watch the RAI ITALIA video, by journalist Stefano Salimbeni
Dear Italian Student, and Italophile…
We at the Dante Alighieri Society in Cambridge are conducting research in order to improve our courses of Italian language and culture. We would love to hear from you.
Your answers to this five-minute survey will help us make improvements to the existing level of teaching as well as helping us prioritize new course offerings and cultural activities. Please answer each question thoroughly, and do not forget to include information about all of the classes that you have taken at the Dante School, even if they were one year ago.
As our current or former student, your opinion matters, and we continue to review and consider each and every comment.
We are diligently working on enhancements based on your suggestions, so please provide us with additional feedback and tell us what you would like to learn and experience at the Dante School.
If you complete this survey you will receive an Italian language or culture book as an expression of appreciation for your time and collaboration.
Please download this survey at this link http://italianclasses.dantemass.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/SONDAGGIODANTE.doc . Once you have completed it, send it as a word document to Flavia Laviosa, Chair of the Education Committee, at flaviosa@wellesley.edu
Thank you for participating in this survey. Very kind regards.
EMANUELE CAPOANO
Plida Language Instructor and School Organizer
Dante Alighieri Society of Massachusetts
41 Hampshire st
Cambridge, MA
school@dantemass.org
Thank you all for the “splendida” Spring Session. Now it’s time for Summer Session: l’ESTATE! This video is the last roleplay that our students presented in class, it was very helpful for them to watch videoclips in advance about Italian society through cinema scenarios, and we think it’s a best and authentic way of learning Italian in a Intermediate Class, Level B1.
We already know that the Fall session will starts on September 10th until November 14th, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. The Winter session on 2014 will starts on January around the 7th until March 13th in same days. The Spring session in 2014 will starts on March 26th until May 29th. Though, dates can be changed.. so stay tuned on our Facebook’s page https://www.facebook.com/DanteSocietyMA for the updates
We knew it! Bostoniano.info had already written here about the fact that this fall Allison Longley could be the first of a long series of Dante Alighieri School fellows.
Click to watch this video (30 seconds long) to see what Longley said when she won one month of intensive Italian language courses offered in November by Scuola Dante Alighieri di Camerino
Now Dante Alighieri of Camerino in the Marche region of Italy donated another grant to allow a student to have a wonderful Italian language and culture experience. Her name is Jennifer Luoma, another one of our students. Congratulations!!!
The fellowship is awarded to a student who has shown special interest in Italian language and has successfully completed level A1 by November 2011.
Allison Longley completed class 106 for level A2 and passed the PLIDA examination. Allison works now, but she attended BU and during her college courses she studied at Universita’ of Padova, Italy, for a summer project. Our teacher Maria Cristiano said this about her: “Allison is a very motivated student and it was a pleasure to have her in class”.
Jennifer Luoma won a grant at 50%, after Allison. Jennifer has followed our Plida courses since they have started. She wants to study Italian language until PLIDA level C2, the most advanced. During her time in the Army, she was in Italy for a couple of years. Last year she retired, but now she wants to continue her studies at Lassell Colloge in MA. All of her teachers said that Jennifer is a student with a lot of vitality.
A lot of students asked me which podcast they should listen to in order to practice their listening skills. I always suggest our terrific Italian public radio, since it has a lot of programs available.
First, IL COMUNICATTIVO: a program that talks about communication in society in a cynical way, and also warns how communication problems can result in confusion and mistakes (In fact, “cattivo” means “bad”). The speaker spells every word so it is very clear.
ALCATRAZ: A deejay on death row. This is a program about how society can be changed by rebellion against hypocrisy. It sounds very serious, but it is actually a fun program followed by many Italian radio fans. The host also dubs Italian for actors such as Jim Carrey, Kevin Spacey, Javier Bardem in American movies shown in Italy.
TRA IL DIRE E IL MARE: This is a new program about what happens in a lighthouse (“Faro”). It’s really fun – it’s all about a man who lives in a “faro” and what he sees. The title is a play on the proverb is “tra il dire e il fare c’è di mezzo il mare” that means literally “Between saying and acting there is the sea.” Figuratively it means “All talk and no action”.
COSÌ PARLÒ ZAP MANGUSTA: In this program Nietsche’s book Thus spoke Zarathustra is changed into a funny situation: a man tries to explain a philosophical theory of a philosopher in each episode, in only 10 minutes. Unfortunately there are always language misunderstandings with modern politics. The speaker speaks very fast in this one.
MEDITERRONI: This is a new entry in Radio RAI’s programming. We know “Mediterraneo”, the sea. But who does it know the word “terroni”? It is an offensive term for people from Southern Italy, because they love their land, the “terra”. This program is a pretext to talk about emigration and immigration.
OGGETTI DEL 2000: The famous journalist Beppe Severgnini talks about objects that Italians love in each episode.
Here the complete list of podcasts available on Radio RAI. There are sport and news programs, religious and cultural ones and so on. You can also check out games and news reports… like DECANTER or CATERPILLAR (“sono molto divertenti“), and stories about RIFIUTI (trash and the environment) in the show CHIODO FISSO… but in the meantime we can start with the ones I listed above: they could be a good challenge for your listening practice.
BUON ASCOLTO!
We won the last soccer match ITALIA vs ENGLAND, but now ITALIA vs GERMANY is a historic match that reminds us of how many Italians have emigrated to Germany
For this reason, our word of the day is ACCETTATO: past participle of ACCETTARE (TO ACCEPT, TO ADMIT). In this case BE ACCEPTED BY… society.
In fact, in this great old movie, famous actor Nino Manfredi played a brilliant role as an Immigrant in Switzerland with a lot of job problems in the Seventies.
FORZA ITALIA!
Buongiorno Estate!
We are starting our blog at the beginning of summer 2012! What a nice occasion to interact with our students and share our passion for teaching Italian.
Italian is the language of music, art, cinema, fashion, cuisine, literature, poetry and philosophy, and it is also the language of 60 million residents of the Bel Paese and Italians all over the world.
Stay tuned to this blog to learn about our lessons. And if you are planning a trip to Italy you can learn about also what to say when you get there. We hope that all of our readers will contribute your thoughts and comments about Italian culture in this space.
Ci vediamo a lezione!