So we went to Italy for the academic year 2005/6. We lived in Lupompesi, a village of 60 inhabitants, where Annalisa had lived all her life until she met me. The children went to the state school in Vescovado, 1 km away, which has a population of a couple of thousand.
And I went there too. I offered to assist with English lessons in the Scuola Elementare (6 – 11 years) and Scuola Media (11 – 14). There was some bureaucracy to go through before I could start, of course. But not, as here, for child protection. No, they wanted me to sign a form to make sure that I was not going to turn round and say that I had taught a certain number of hours and now demanded to be paid! Just one example of the cultural difference.
They started me off with the oldest ones. I was quite scared at first, to be put in front of a dozen or so 13-year-olds. They were meant to be practising conversation, but it soon became clear that their English wasn’t really good enough to let them talk. I spent a few lessons talking about English life, London, and whatever came into my head. They were very interested to know where I had been when the July 2005 bombs went off. (At work in the City).
To get them talking more and me less, I started writing down some dialog for them. This developed over the months into a little playlet which I used with all the classes. It gave them the chance to practice everyday expressions, and I put in some jokes to keep myself interested. By the end of the year I knew that I had enjoyed myself and learnt a lot, and I hope they learnt something useful too.
Coming back to England, I started thinking about teaching here, and teaching my own subject, maths. The government is crying out for maths teachers, and, to cut a long story short, I enrolled to do Secondary PGCE at the Institute of Education, starting last September.
