Let me give you some background. So the program I work for divides the students English levels based on their year in school and proficiency (but mostly their year in school) and divides the classes by color. So the last 2 camps, I had the blue book which were the 10, 11 and 12 year olds. We have manuals that include notes and ideas for all of the books except for one: the black book. The black book is not included because they are high schoolers and during orientation they told us that very few people would work with that age group. It would be based on if you were a returner and your age, and since I am older than the average person, I had a shot.
Well, it turns out they remembered me and I am working with high schoolers. The problem is that, I was never trained and have no manual to fall back on. My fellow tutor this week is this 21 year old from Georgia named Edward. I was hoping he was a returner but he was not. So yesterday, (Sunday) we met and decided that we both would just wing it and try our best and forget the fact that we were nervous. Walking into that school today, was nerve racking. High schoolers, in school during the summer when they don't need to be there...are you joking? Despite my worry, my winning personality won them over.
I gave Edward the chance to pick if he wanted the 13, 14 and 15 year olds or the 16, 17 and 18 year olds. He chose the younger group so I got 3 girls and 9 boys to work with. At first, some only knew a few and so on. My materials for my planned icebreaker had not arrived so I just went in with the introducing myself. I also asked them some questions to get to know them. What is your favorite food, music, movie? What do you do for fun, where do you go with your friends etc? I then asked them, what do you want to be? What do you want to do when you grow up? And after the 4th, I don't know, I started to get frustrated. And then I remembered where I was. I asked them, "does no one ask you these questions?" And one of them told me "no, we don't have a lot of options, so no one asks." And I got so sad. I started to tell them about the " American Dream" and how in the United States, you can be anything you want to be. And the reason that the Italian education system is pushing the youth to speak English is to make them more viable, more apt to getting a job outside of Italy. And I said "maybe because I'm American, I think this way, but if you want to do something bad enough, you'll make it happen." And I think that was the turning point that connected us. They started asking me more questions, and I think let their guard down.
After the break, we decided to start talking about our final show. We are going to do a parody of Lord of the Rings. Apparently there is an Italian version and we are going to translate it and I am going to work on trying to film it because they are all apprehensive on acting in front of their parents. We also played charades this week with the group "Pizza Mafia Mandolino" winning today. We also kind of made a schedule for the week and decided that we will translate English songs to Italian and then interpret them so they all know what they are singing. I have a list of 16 songs so we are going to do 4 a day in groups. Tomorrow's songs will be Payphone, Party Rock Anthem, Yellow and Sweet Home Alabama. They chose the songs, all I am is the teacher. But to prep for tomorrow, I went ahead and looked at them and did some research. Payphone and Party Rock Anthem are pretty self-explanatory. But Sweet Home Alabama is good for some American history which I am excited about and Yellow by Coldplay is just depressing based on all the interpretations of it: scared to share his feelings, being devoted to them not necessarily romantically, suicide, the death of someone you love, or anorexia. Can we say depressing?
The day ended with us doing Olympics where the groups have to come up with a name, a chant and then create a flag. It took a while for them to get into it, but by the end of the day they all left with a smile and the guys that look to be "too cool for school" were the ones that were the most engaged which left me feeling good. OH and let me mention that one of them looks like Chris Pine from Star Trek the movie. He looks so much like Chris Pine, I found pictures online and showed the class, they ALL agreed and said they could be twins. The guy was like, yeah, we for sure look alike. I just want to stare at him and pretend he is Chris Pine but an Italian version. Even better maybe?
Anyway, tomorrow is my birthday. I can't believe I'll be spending it in Italy. I look forward to tomorrow. Peace and love.
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