spongeblog » Learning Italian

Italian Lessons 6, 7 and 8

acljane — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 11:05:03 +0000

I have been bad at keeping up this blog! Where does the time go? To be continued ….

Lesson 6 took place on 18 July. I think we had SL sound problems again so we went onto Skype. I think we met in the Italian cafe again, in the piazza. We talked about the weather (as it had been raining so much in the UK and been really hot in Italy) and exchanged weather websites.

Lesson 7

Italian Lesson 5

acljane — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 15:20:27 +0000

This lesson was a bit of a disaster as we couldn’t get any of the sound systems to work! And we both had to download the client AGAIN before starting, which delayed us too. I’d also been in SL with earphones on for about two hours in a meeting with other work colleagues, so my head was buzzing a little.

We started off going over food but the sound problem disrupted us too much and we gave up. One of the problems of learning with a new technology. But I’m not put off, we will do it again and it will be fine. I think it’s just ironing out a few minor bugs.

I’m finding it hard having three lessons in three days too! I’ve barely had time to look at what we have already done and to put it into some kind of order. I also have the chats in Notepad (text files) as well a paper copies and some scribbled notes of my own.

As someone who used to learn languages in a very methodical way, with the language being broken up into different lessons (eg language, literature, grammar, conversation), this is everything together, which presumably is kind of holiday Italian type class. I’m not sure, I’ll have to talk to my language tutor friends.

So, am I learning? Yes, I believe I am. Am I enjoying it? Yes, I love learning in this kind of environment. However, I am having one to one tuition. It may be quite different learning in a class situation – for the better or for worse!

Italian Lesson 4

acljane — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 14:38:13 +0000

Started with a few technical hitches with the sound- switching from SL Voice to Skype and vice versa a couple of times.

Talked about what we eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner. Then learnt the days of the week and some numbers. Followed by months of the year.

The Italian team have obviously spent some time setting up this cafe area. You can touch objects on the tables and an audio clip gives you the pronunciation. There are different poses in the chairs. I’m sure there are more things I haven’t yet discovered.

These sessions are quite intensive. I am listening to the Italian, trying to repeat it back, reading the written Italian, moving my avatar around etc etc. When Vaniglia brings her two colleagues with her, there are even more places to be looking and observing what is going on.

But it’s fantastic to think I have 3 Italians talking to me (at times) in Italian which has to be good as part of the learning process.

I do need to find more time to revise what I have learnt in between lessons.

Italian Lesson 3

acljane — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:50:22 +0000

In Lesson 3, instead of using Skype with Second Life, we used the in-world Voice Viewer which worked well. I did get a bit of an echo, but it wasn’t too distracting and at least it gave me a chance to hear how badly I pronounce the Italian! Vaniglia Oh had invited two other people along, StevieRay Vaughan and Florestan Schumann who participated – except the one had a problem with his computer and so couldn’t talk. But it was fine. StevieRay had made most of the objects in the Cafe where we were talking; we were in a typical Italian piazza.

Again we got through a lot of vocabulary. It was a good session and I think actually being in an almost real environment should help me to remember things! I also need to do some homework.

I copied and pasted the text at the end – Vaniglia always types up what she says. Or if I ask a question, she will type in the words as well as talk to me.

About to have my next lesson.

Italian Lesson 2

acljane — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 15:48:57 +0000

I have just had my second lesson in Italian in Second Life. We also used Skype today which is great for pronunciation. We went to the Sistine Chapel – which is a fantastic replica of the real thing. A great resource to use in language learning (or art history or religion.) I must have been in there for about an hour – and it passed really quickly. I seemed to get through so much vocabulary! And I could remember things I’d learnt the day before. It was a little weird to start with as I have never spoken to Vaniglia before. She spoke only Italian and if an English translation was needed, she typed it in the text chat. She also wrote in the text the new words I was learning, so I could copy and paste into notepad. I forgot to record the audio, but perhaps it is just as well, for the first time at least!

I can’t decide if it is because I speak languages and have done a little Italian or because I am in Second Life, but it felt like a very rich experience and I seemed to be absorbing a lot. Of course, it might be down to Vaniglia’s excellent teaching practice!

Ciao!

Learning Italian in Second Life

acljane — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 15:22:03 +0000

Vaniglia Oh invited people to join an Italian class in Second Life. Loving languages as I do, and having done a crash course many, many years ago, I contacted Vaniglia Oh. I had an ‘interview’ with this very gorgeous looking Italian woman avatar in an office and then she took me to an Italian cafe. She works for an national institute in Florence – ‘Indire’. Unfortunately she has been unable to find enough people to join but I asked if I could still do the course and she said yes.

I had my first lesson yesterday. We met in Itland and exchanged a few pleasantries. We just used SL text chat but will use Skype in our lesson. We went into a shop that sells necklaces and boots. On reflection we got through a fair amount of vocabulary. Of course, how to pronounce words is missing, but I’m OK with that at the moment. She also got another Italian avatar to join us for some of the lesson. I had to keep copying and pasting the text into Word so maybe a notecard with the vocab covered or an email with a word document might be helpful. Although note-taking in any lesson helps me remember. Perhaps I can try and record our Skype conversations (although my colleague tells me that with the free version of ‘Pamela’ you only get about 10 -15 mins of free recording.)

I’m looking forward to my next lesson – which is in half an hour.

A dopo!