Halloween Party for Kids

Our annual Halloween Party is this Friday, October 28, from 6 -8pm.
 Associazione Italo Americana, Via Roma 15, Trieste
There will be games, candy and best costume awards.
Come get spooked with us and tell your students about the party.

Please call for reservations at 040630301 and a €5 donation per family is requested.

Halloween Culture Lesson

Want to know more about the Halloween culture lesson?  Ask a student from Corsi Middle School.  We spooked them last year and had a ghoulish good time!.  Check out the visit here.
For more information on how you can request a visit to your school and all the school programs in English available for your students, contact Janine at 3297883810 or call the AIA office 040630301.

English Classes Still Open!

The Associazione Italo Americana offers English classes for adults and kids.  Annual courses start this week, but there is still time to sign up.  So please, tell your students about us and check out the annual schedule here.  

Our classes are small and conversation based.  Come have fun and improve your English with us!

Out Loud Word Study Proven Effective

A recent study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, supported the idea that saying words aloud can help you remember them. So go ahead, encourage your students to study aloud, it will help them recall the information later.

Here is another article that suggests some memory techniques to improve students learning of new vocabulary.

                                                       Happy Teaching!

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TESOL-Italy 2011

This year the TESOL-ITALY convention looks particularly interesting. Words and Worlds will be held on November 18th and 19th in Rome.  Some of the themes are:
    Content Through Language
     Identity and Diversity
     Primary Language Education
     Motivation in Language Learning

Pre-registartion only costs €55, and that includes 2012 TESOL-Italy membership, 5 issues of the newsletter via e-mail, and 2 of the academic journal Perspectives.

Not to mention a weekend in Rome. I hope you can make it!

Be the Best Teacher You Can Be!

September always revives my passion for teaching.  I often ask myself, How can I improve this year? What new research is out there that will inform my teaching?  Then I start looking for answers to my questions.

This year I will share the answers I find with you.  I will blog about and provide links to professional development opportunities for language teachers, when I find out about them myself.   I will also let you know about research articles I find particularly helpflul and informative.

So check out my next post about TESOL-ITALY 2011.

EFL Teachers Website!

I stumbled upon this GREAT website for EFL teachers today. It's called EFL Classroom 2.0.

It is free to sign up and you can access thousands of resources for teaching. Everything from lessons to music videos with cloze lyrics, all free to download!

I can see this becoming a useful addition to my arsenal of teaching websites.

I hope you find it valuable too.

Culture Lessons
One great way to add dimension to language learning is to explore the cultures in which the language is spoken.  That's where we come in!
 We've got a great selection of culture lessons to offer your students.  Just take a look at this list:

Culture Lessons 2011-2012

*American Families

American Holidays Series

*Famous Americans Series

*American Road Trip

The Scripps National Spelling Bee

American Slang

American Sports

American Prom

American Architecture and Famous Buildings

*American Food

*Religion in America.  

*Native Americans

*All-American Cookies.

*Civil Rights Movement

*New lessons!

So sign your students up today.  We haven't raised our prices, so it still costs just €3 per student..

For more details stop by the Association and pick up our School Programs 2011-2012 brochure and a full description of all the lessons.

Welcome Back Teachers!

It’s hard to believe it’s that time of year again – the beginning of a new school year.   I hope you had a relaxing and enjoyable summer.

We've got lots to offer YOU and YOUR STUDENTS this year, so take a look!

For Students:

In-class films: includes film rental, lesson plan and follow-up lesson

      American Culture lessons: includes lesson about American culture or history

      NEW! Story hour: includes story, English language learning activities, and library visit

      NEW! Exam Preparation: Students preparing for a formal exam? Let us help prepare them

      *All lessons are taught in English by a AIA native English speaker

For Teachers:

Discounted AIA Membership of €25 for 2011-2012

      English language courses, for improving your personal level of English

           Conferences and cultural events in English

For more details about our school programs, pick up an AIA School Programs 2011-2012 brochure at our office and join us for a presentation:

AIA School Programs Presentation

Thursday, September 15, at 18:00

AIA,  Via Roma 15

We hope to see you there.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

On September 15, 2011 at 6pm at Via Roma, 15, there will be a presentation of this year's programs for you and your students!

Join us!!

Prom Culture Lesson Makes me feel OLD!

Today I did a culture lesson on the Prom. I LOVE this lesson because I use a documentary called "The World's Best Prom." This film takes place in my home town, Racine, Wisconsin, and follows 3 teenagers for 24 hours as they get ready for THE BIG NIGHT. It is all about THE HAIR, THE PRINCESS DRESS, THE TRANSPORTATION (in Racine it's all about being ORIGINAL, especially with your wheels as the arrival and entrance to the Rotary Post Prom is televised-- yes, red carpet and all!)

The Racine prom, as the film makers found out after moving to New York, is not your ordinary Prom dance...As part of our lesson, I show what the Prom looked like in 1953, and footage from the year 2000. We talk about what has changed, and what is still the same. Now, 2000 sounds pretty recent to me. In fact, I know the kids in the film because they're the siblings of friends of mine, who seemed so LITTLE when I was in high school. But, 2000, well for the kids who watched it today, that was a LONG TIME AGO, since they were only 2 when it was filmed.
Hmmm. I'm old.

But then again, it's never too old to elect yourself Prom Queen. And that's what I did today (I let the kids be Prom Kings and Queens too).
It was fun. Pictures soon!

New Culture Lesson

Want to meet the president of the United States?
Become a finalist in the the National American Spelling Bee.  
Spelling bees  are conducted at school, state, and national levels, where lucrative and prestigious prizes are given to the winners.  
Find out more about the history of this traditional American competition and how its popularity has grown.  On your mark, get set, SPELL!

For more information on having this lesson presented  to your class, contact us at info@aia-fvg.org or call us at 0404.630301

Story Hour School Visits

It's official! On February 10th we inaugurated the Children's Corner at our office in Via Roma 15.
The Children's Corner includes a children's library, entertainment and educational videos, board games, and computer software, all for kids!

We would love to have you visit. Story Hour lessons are going on now.  If you would like to bring your class to visit the children's library and participate in a free, one hour English lesson connected to a story, please contact us.

English Programs

The U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultutral Affairs has a very informative and useful website for teachers of English.
Go to www.englishprograms.state.gov for information about:
* ELT materials
*Academic exchange programs
*Distance education for teachers
*Scholarships available for high school students to study english.

It is also the home of the on-line journal English Teaching FORUM, a quarterly magazine for teachers of English as a foreign or second language.  Check out this dynamic webiste to keep up with the latest trends in English teaching and for opportunities in your field.