48 ARCA, Bologna – A School for Conversation
Well, I finally found it: a school in Italy that really focuses on conversation. The proper, technical term would be “Communication”. If you have been following this Blog you will already know that I have been desperately seeking a school that emphasises speaking rather than grammar. Not that grammar was not taught, but that it was always and only the handmaiden to our oral use of the language.
Located in the centre of Bologna, ARCA is a small school whose roots are to be found in the teaching of English to Italians. Hence its original name: Modern English School. The Italian side followed later. With its English origin and practice, the school not surprisingly approaches the teaching of Italian based on a philosophy used in teaching English as a Second Language [ESL]. In this approach the emphasis is placed on communication and not on the study of grammar.
Being a small school, ARCA has a small corps of permanent teachers who are all Italian natives and have all trained in the ESL approach to language teaching. This itself is revolutionary, because the method runs contrary to all their training as teachers of Italian. The advantage for the students is that there should be a homogeneous approach at the school. So my experience should be found [within reason] in any of the other classes.
The first thing that strikes an incoming student is the relaxed, friendly atmosphere – everyone is a member of one extended family. Now, other schools, in fact, I would think all commercial schools, try to generate a friendly atmosphere, but at ARCA you sense that it is genuine. Everyone knows each other, and during the break called the pausa, everyone [students and teachers] wander down to the coffee shop at the nearby piazza Santo Stefano, where we sit around a set of tables and chat for an hour or more. It’s all very relaxed.
This casual, relaxed atmosphere pervades the classroom, but don’t be fooled. My teacher wants this casualness for a very specific purpose. As she explained to me, one can’t speak a foreign language when one is all tensed up. Worry about the grammar when trying to speak and one won’t speak. Instead, be like children at the playground: they just talk and let loose. From time to time she would nudge one along the right path with a correction or by some grammatical exercise, but being relaxed and just speaking was the goal. For me this apparently simple lesson was the hardest to learn, and I set it down to the fact that for too many years I was trying too hard and being obsessed with grammatical correctness. My epiphany came when I made the analogy to tennis: learning the theory of a backhand and being conscious of the mechanics when you strike the ball won’t help you in a game. But going out on the courts and just hitting the ball back and forth and eventually, with guidance, you will develop a good backhand that is second nature. Remaining relaxed and not fretting over the “correctness” of one’s speech was the big and important lesson I learnt from ARCA.
In my next blog I will discuss a typical lesson at ARCA
Located in the centre of Bologna, ARCA is a small school whose roots are to be found in the teaching of English to Italians. Hence its original name: Modern English School. The Italian side followed later. With its English origin and practice, the school not surprisingly approaches the teaching of Italian based on a philosophy used in teaching English as a Second Language [ESL]. In this approach the emphasis is placed on communication and not on the study of grammar.
Being a small school, ARCA has a small corps of permanent teachers who are all Italian natives and have all trained in the ESL approach to language teaching. This itself is revolutionary, because the method runs contrary to all their training as teachers of Italian. The advantage for the students is that there should be a homogeneous approach at the school. So my experience should be found [within reason] in any of the other classes.
The first thing that strikes an incoming student is the relaxed, friendly atmosphere – everyone is a member of one extended family. Now, other schools, in fact, I would think all commercial schools, try to generate a friendly atmosphere, but at ARCA you sense that it is genuine. Everyone knows each other, and during the break called the pausa, everyone [students and teachers] wander down to the coffee shop at the nearby piazza Santo Stefano, where we sit around a set of tables and chat for an hour or more. It’s all very relaxed.
This casual, relaxed atmosphere pervades the classroom, but don’t be fooled. My teacher wants this casualness for a very specific purpose. As she explained to me, one can’t speak a foreign language when one is all tensed up. Worry about the grammar when trying to speak and one won’t speak. Instead, be like children at the playground: they just talk and let loose. From time to time she would nudge one along the right path with a correction or by some grammatical exercise, but being relaxed and just speaking was the goal. For me this apparently simple lesson was the hardest to learn, and I set it down to the fact that for too many years I was trying too hard and being obsessed with grammatical correctness. My epiphany came when I made the analogy to tennis: learning the theory of a backhand and being conscious of the mechanics when you strike the ball won’t help you in a game. But going out on the courts and just hitting the ball back and forth and eventually, with guidance, you will develop a good backhand that is second nature. Remaining relaxed and not fretting over the “correctness” of one’s speech was the big and important lesson I learnt from ARCA.
In my next blog I will discuss a typical lesson at ARCA
posted by Toby1939 at 7:56 PM
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