End of the Academic year: 2ndA

I asked my students of the 2ndA to write an essay on our two years together. I am publishing here some of the most meaningful comments. 

Anny Ballardini

During these two years I’ve learned a lot.

During the first year I learned a lot of grammar. I already knew some of the grammar rules that we did but I didn’t know when we had to use a certain tense or quantifier.

By learning in a more specific way , I had the chance to talk better, without making, quite, any mistakes.

I learned some literature, too. When we had to go to Rome, we studied Caravaggio and that really helped me because I could recognize some paintings and I knew what they represented.

Reading “Frankenstein” and “The Hobbit” in English made me realize how beautiful reading a classic book in its original language is. Reading these books and learning about famous people, like Benjamin Franklin, during the English class, made me realize how beautiful it is to study a culture.

I already loved English but I didn’t know the value of knowing it.

When we went on our school trip in Bournemouth, I was so happy to speak with English people but not just because I love the language, but because they could understand me. I could talk to them without the need to stop  because I didn’t know how to use a tense.

Grammar can be boring but it helps you, it has helped me reach my goal.

In these two years I understood that it was really important to know the culture of a language, its history.

In the English class I realized, that if I study hard, I can get to my goal and set another one, just higher.

Since middle-school I have wanted to speak English fluently and thanks to all the grammar that we did in the English class, I did it. I will always be thankful for this.

© Mirna Vezzali

When I first arrived in Italy two years ago and started to attend this school, English was the language that I could best speak at. It has always been my favorite foreign language and fortunately the one that I have been studying in-depth in Albania. When I started to live here in Italy, I had to dedicate a lot of time to the Italian language as I couldn’t speak fluently and initially I had difficulties to understand properly or entirely the didactic Italian lessons. So, my deep dedication in the Italian, made me have fear that I wouldn’t have the same quantity of time to dedicate to my favorite language and use it also outside school as I used to do in Albania. Fortunately, even though I couldn’t speak in English for a lot of time out of school, my fear of my progress in English is these two years, has disappeared. The English school lesson in this two years period has helped me a lot to strengthen all the grammar rules, not only to learn and repeat theory, but also by putting into practice all these rules and by being continually corrected by the teacher in my spoken mistakes, besides the ones in writing.

      The lessons have been organized in a very interactive way. We have always developed new and very interesting activities in class like : discussions on different topics; presentations; the analysis of documentaries about historical figures or events, together with plenty of other topics. This has enriched a lot not only my English personal vocabulary, but also my personal cultural knowledge in different fields of life. These two years have helped me to develop my self-confidence when I speak in English, and consequently become much more fluent.

     So, in few words, these two years were a really beautiful experience for me , being always immersed in the English world during each English-class and I’m really glad that this experience was concluded in the best way with the beautiful trip to England which will be unforgettable for me.

( C ) RAFAELA ISUFI

These two years were really full of information (written without the “s”) because I learned a lot of things, between grammar rules and new topics… I have to say that my English level was low when I first came here, and now the quality of my spoken English is better. During the first year I studied more, and I was always concentrated on the school; these last months I left the school go where the wind blew, and as the register shows, I received a beautiful 4…

I can say “thank you” to the teacher, because she really helped me to increase my English, even if I have to work still a lot to become better. Apart form this I’m happy to have worked and learned a lot, and I’m sure that this test will be full of mistakes, because I’m like this, I always make errors… Thank you!

© Alex Aufderklamm

When I came to high school I was already able to read and speak in English, but my grammar knowledge was very limited. Since the beginning of past school year I have studied grammar and I realized how important it is, not only to correct writing and speaking, but also to understand the structure of the English language.

In these two years we have followed our grammar course book which particularly focuses on the employment of the time tenses. English grammar isn’t considered too difficult, but the right use of the tenses is fundamental. Thanks to the variety of them and the little differences in meaning we can explain exactly what we intend to say, what may be more difficult for those who learned English from watching films.

We didn’t do a lot of writing in class during our lessons. Instead we learned this out of the summaries we did of a book we read and our teacher corrected. We did many speaking and oral exercises all together in class which improved a lot our pronunciation. We learned to speak more fluently and to express ourselves correctly. This is fundamental in learning a language. Probably some us us might study English at university, but all of us will have to use their speaking skills later in life. Speaking is so important and everybody needs these skills; good writing and reading can be studied more detailed later by interested students. Trough the books we had to read and summarize we improved our reading skills and at the same time we have augmented our vocabulary, without too many efforts.

Now sometimes I read short articles or watch English documentaries and every time I’m impressed by how much I understand and how familiar this language has become to me.

© Jenny Kostner   II A

We have already spent two years together. I think I have learned a lot in this first two-year-period of high school. We have had a lot of discussion in class, read some books and did a lot of exercises. I think the fact of reading entire books has enriched me a lot . It was a completely new experience for me, but I enjoyed it very much, even if I usually don’t love reading. I gained a lot of new vocabulary and could analyze different kinds of writing. A part from this, it was also very helpful for my writing, indeed I could use the new words and memorize them better, by summarizing the chapters. By reading books, having discussions about common themes and doing exercises, I was able to learn without noticing. I think all this has improved me not only as a student, but also as a person. My “culture” has increased and I didn’t really do it on purpose. I didn’t really sit down to start learning. This was what I liked the most: I could learn every day in class. I obviously had some difficulties, because logically it is impossible to learn a language without efforts and all the grammar rules. Fortunately I have had good English teachers in middle-school, who gave me the basis for my English, that I managed to study better during this period. The grammar rules that we learned were much more specific and helped me a lot. It is a success for me, because now I’m able to speak and understand people without having too many problems. This two-year-period of high school has been a positive experience for me.

© Celine Lantschner

This first two-year-period of high school has brought many changes to my life. I think that in this short period of time I have grown up as a person, my mind has developed thanks to the help of my teachers and new experiences. I’ve learned much from every teacher and everyone has given me something that I’ll take with me in my life journey.

In English I’ve learned many new things, not only about grammar, which I studied by heart, but also general information about history, literature and contemporary arts and technology. Thanks to our American English teacher I have enjoyed listening to the little speeches she did in class, and by listening I’ve learned a very good pronunciation. In these two years my vocabulary has been enriched with a lot of words and synonyms that are very helpful in writing a good essay. The lessons we had were sometimes funny and easy-going, because we talked a lot about interesting things and without making too much effort we learned and understood many different things. Personally I think that after these two years I have a good overview of the English-world.

English has been one of my favorite languages since I started studying it at the elementary school. It was never very difficult for me to study this foreign language, and when I had to do some efforts, I did them happily. After this two-years-period and the trip to Bournemouth I think that I understood the importance of this language, being it the language spoken in the entire world. All the efforts I put in the learning of this language have been paid back. The English language is a very valuable personal baggage that I’ll take with me forever. I hope my English studies will be helpful in my future life and that I’ll have the possibility to go on speaking English.

© Chiara Bernardi