Thursday, May 8th

Good morning dear students, welcome to our last lesson.

I have decided to come to you in voice even if I can't be there in person. Instead of adding written comments to the work you have done in your learner diaries (Alessandro, Anna Maria, Gianna, and Rossella), I have provided you with audio feedback. So today you have a challenge ;-)

Please read my instructions below carefully and follow them carefully.

Group 1

1. One person go to the computer I used in the IT room. Log on and make sure that the audio is working.
2. Open the blog. Click on Rossella's learner diary. Scroll down to the bottom.
3. Open another window. Copy and paste this url: https://kaizena.com/doc/hd06izx You should see image 1 below.
4. Click on the highlighted 'Hello' and listen to my message (see image 2 below).
5. Follow the instructions in image 1 to listen to my corrections to Rossella's text.
6. Go back to May 7th ('audio tasks for all of you' in image 1) and complete the activities there.
7. Write an entry in your learner diary providing sincere, honest feedback about what you liked about the course, what you didn't like, and what you think you learned or didn't learn. You can do this in Italian if you want to.

IMAGE 1

IMAGE 2

Group 2

1. Follow steps 1-4 for Group 1 above.
2. Listen to the feeback for Alessandro, Anna Maria, and Gianna. (I have put links but you can find these links in the Comment section of your learner diaries on the upper right hand corner). Please do this together and try to understand my feedback. Write comments to this post about any feedback you do not understand.
3. Follow steps 6-7 above. Listen to my story about Easter and try to complete the Spelling exercise.

I look forward to seeing you all soon.

Best,

Sarah

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Hello all and welcome back!

For today's lesson, I'm going to ask you all to do a written task. I can't be available this morning, but I am going to be available during our last classes on Thursday where I hope to discuss what I am asking you to do today.

We have skipped two weeks of class for three main Italian holidays:

• Easter 
• April 25th
• May 1st

These are not necessarily commonly celebrated holidays in other parts of the world. Therefore, I would like to ask each of you to write a text (200-400 words) in your learner diaries on Google Docs on one of these holidays. Here are the types of things you could write about:

• Easter: Why it's an important holiday in Italy and what the traditions are (using lots of present simple); what you did during the Easter holidays (using lots of simple past).
• April 25th and May 1st: Why are these national holidays in Italy? What do they symbolize? (using a mix of the general, factual present simple and simple past to talk about the history) or What did you do for these holidays and how is this part of Italian tradition? (again a mix of the present simple and simple past)

Please pay close attention to:

• sentence structure: Subject + Verb + Object + ...
• vocabulary (use word reference)
• verb tenses (make reference to the work we've done and to Learning Links)
• (and if you are in the classroom together, please help one another!)

I will correct your texts on Wednesday and then we can discuss them together on Thursday.

I will be online later in the day tomorrow so please don't hesitate to write me an email or make a comment to the blog if you have questions or are confused.

I look forward to reading your texts!

Sarah