9. University of Perugia – Course
As I stated in my previous blog, I could almost forgive the absenteeism, lateness, non-functioning equipment, superficial testing, and invisibility of a controlling hand at the University of Perugia for Foreigners if the course and the teachers were outstanding. Certainly, the conception of the course is excellent, and the university being a larger, government institution, offers the use of facilities not likely to be found in a small commercial school. Nevertheless, however well conceived a course may be, it must be judged by the way that it is realised, that is, by the way it is delivered.
The University of Perugia for Foreigners organises one-month courses in Italian language and culture. These courses are divided into two groups: Basic and Intensive. Each group has 5 levels (elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate, advanced, superior). The intensive courses last a month and are offered from July through September. “They include additional class hours per week and limited enrolment to ensure a small number of students [my Italics] in each class”. Originally 17 students, my class dropped to 15 after the first week, which was much larger than my class at the Scuola Leonardo da Vinci at Siena. Certainly, 15 was too large a number for effective in-class conversation.
The second level intensive course in which I enrolled in September was divided into the following classes: Italian language; exercises in grammar; conversation; and exercises in phonetics for a total of 27 contact hours. The instructor originally scheduled to teach the exercises in grammar was to be the same person who taught the language section. If everything went according to plan, we would be steeped in the language and its usage, work on pronunciation, and we would be drilled in conversation. Even the structure of our timetable showed excellent forethought: 3 hours of language would be followed by 2 hours of grammar. Phonetics came midweek, and conversation at the end of the week, when, presumably, we could practise what we had learnt.
The core of the course was the language and grammar classes, and they were synchronised so that the grammatical points introduced in the language class would be followed by exercises in the grammar class. I assume that this was the reason for having the grammar follow right after the language and the same instructor for both language and grammar lessons. When our language instructor had the schedule changed to suit her, she broke the order of the lessons, and this breakage was exacerbated by having another instructor replace her for the grammar classes. The result was that there was no cohesion between the language and the grammar taught. Besides, the new instructor started after we had missed 6 hours, resulting in a gap between the grammar taught and the language class. I also doubt if there had been any communication between the two instructors as to what should be taught during the grammar lessons. At one point I even had to advise the grammar instructor that we had covered a certain topic in our language class, and so the following class she brought in exercises to cover that subject.
Unlike our original schedule, the new one was not conducive to learning. For example, we now had four consecutive late evenings, and some days we had classes in the late morning followed by a short break, and then back until 7 p.m. On Thursdays, we started at 8 a.m. and finished at 7 p.m. with a 1-hour lunch and a 2-hour break in the afternoon. Although in our original schedule Thursdays was also a long day of classes, it was mitigated by having the other 4 days with either the morning or afternoon off. The problem with the new schedule was that everything was dragged out over the whole day for too many days. By the third week it was hard to attend classes with any enthusiasm. The problem was also compounded by the cavalier attitude of some of the instructors with their persistent late attendance and insouciance with which they would change the time of our classes.
The only class I looked forward to was the phonetics class. It consisted of listening to songs, trying to understand the lyrics, and then singing them back to the instructor. Other times we had to repeat the words, and then listen to our pronunciation. The instructor and her assistant explained words we didn’t know and also gave us synonyms. The class took place in an audio lab, and was certainly enjoyable and helpful. The only hitch was that often more than half the machines were not functioning and we had to play musical chairs to find equipment that worked.
In the conversation class we worked in groups on a project such as explaining our favourite recipe or responding to quiz games. The size of the class precluded the one-to-one debates I had had at the Scuola Leonardo where the class was 10 or even less. Still, the fault was not the instructors but the size and disparate nature of the class. As I had explained in blog 5, the superficial testing given by the school resulted in a class of students with very mixed levels of expertise in Italian.
The University of Perugia offered more in its one-month course than the Scuola Leonardo did, but there were serious drawbacks. The university scored high for its audio exercises, but its conversation class, or even the conversation held in the language class, was hampered by the size of the class and the disparate levels of the individual students as the result of superficial testing. I certainly got more out of the one-to-one debates and the general fact that I had more time to speak at the Scuola. I don’t know what the Scuola does for its intensive course, and so it is unfair to compare the language and grammar offered by the university intensive course with that offered in a standard course at the Scuola. Besides, no matter how well conceived, the University failed miserably in delivering to us a well organised language and grammar section. Perhaps if we had had another instructor to teach both of them to us I might have had a more positive response, but I didn’t. To put it bluntly, my experience at the University of Perugia left me most dissatisfied. I shouldn’t have to attend an institution in trepidation of a crapshoot in which I may or may not have conscientious instructors who keep the schedule they are contracted to teach.
The University of Perugia for Foreigners organises one-month courses in Italian language and culture. These courses are divided into two groups: Basic and Intensive. Each group has 5 levels (elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate, advanced, superior). The intensive courses last a month and are offered from July through September. “They include additional class hours per week and limited enrolment to ensure a small number of students [my Italics] in each class”. Originally 17 students, my class dropped to 15 after the first week, which was much larger than my class at the Scuola Leonardo da Vinci at Siena. Certainly, 15 was too large a number for effective in-class conversation.
The second level intensive course in which I enrolled in September was divided into the following classes: Italian language; exercises in grammar; conversation; and exercises in phonetics for a total of 27 contact hours. The instructor originally scheduled to teach the exercises in grammar was to be the same person who taught the language section. If everything went according to plan, we would be steeped in the language and its usage, work on pronunciation, and we would be drilled in conversation. Even the structure of our timetable showed excellent forethought: 3 hours of language would be followed by 2 hours of grammar. Phonetics came midweek, and conversation at the end of the week, when, presumably, we could practise what we had learnt.
The core of the course was the language and grammar classes, and they were synchronised so that the grammatical points introduced in the language class would be followed by exercises in the grammar class. I assume that this was the reason for having the grammar follow right after the language and the same instructor for both language and grammar lessons. When our language instructor had the schedule changed to suit her, she broke the order of the lessons, and this breakage was exacerbated by having another instructor replace her for the grammar classes. The result was that there was no cohesion between the language and the grammar taught. Besides, the new instructor started after we had missed 6 hours, resulting in a gap between the grammar taught and the language class. I also doubt if there had been any communication between the two instructors as to what should be taught during the grammar lessons. At one point I even had to advise the grammar instructor that we had covered a certain topic in our language class, and so the following class she brought in exercises to cover that subject.
Unlike our original schedule, the new one was not conducive to learning. For example, we now had four consecutive late evenings, and some days we had classes in the late morning followed by a short break, and then back until 7 p.m. On Thursdays, we started at 8 a.m. and finished at 7 p.m. with a 1-hour lunch and a 2-hour break in the afternoon. Although in our original schedule Thursdays was also a long day of classes, it was mitigated by having the other 4 days with either the morning or afternoon off. The problem with the new schedule was that everything was dragged out over the whole day for too many days. By the third week it was hard to attend classes with any enthusiasm. The problem was also compounded by the cavalier attitude of some of the instructors with their persistent late attendance and insouciance with which they would change the time of our classes.
The only class I looked forward to was the phonetics class. It consisted of listening to songs, trying to understand the lyrics, and then singing them back to the instructor. Other times we had to repeat the words, and then listen to our pronunciation. The instructor and her assistant explained words we didn’t know and also gave us synonyms. The class took place in an audio lab, and was certainly enjoyable and helpful. The only hitch was that often more than half the machines were not functioning and we had to play musical chairs to find equipment that worked.
In the conversation class we worked in groups on a project such as explaining our favourite recipe or responding to quiz games. The size of the class precluded the one-to-one debates I had had at the Scuola Leonardo where the class was 10 or even less. Still, the fault was not the instructors but the size and disparate nature of the class. As I had explained in blog 5, the superficial testing given by the school resulted in a class of students with very mixed levels of expertise in Italian.
The University of Perugia offered more in its one-month course than the Scuola Leonardo did, but there were serious drawbacks. The university scored high for its audio exercises, but its conversation class, or even the conversation held in the language class, was hampered by the size of the class and the disparate levels of the individual students as the result of superficial testing. I certainly got more out of the one-to-one debates and the general fact that I had more time to speak at the Scuola. I don’t know what the Scuola does for its intensive course, and so it is unfair to compare the language and grammar offered by the university intensive course with that offered in a standard course at the Scuola. Besides, no matter how well conceived, the University failed miserably in delivering to us a well organised language and grammar section. Perhaps if we had had another instructor to teach both of them to us I might have had a more positive response, but I didn’t. To put it bluntly, my experience at the University of Perugia left me most dissatisfied. I shouldn’t have to attend an institution in trepidation of a crapshoot in which I may or may not have conscientious instructors who keep the schedule they are contracted to teach.
posted by Toby1939 at 11:28 AM
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