From Elementary School to College – All in one day

It was like going back to elementary school and then jump to college. Last Monday, February 25, the students of San Pedro High School’s Italian 3 class journeyed across L.A. County to visit the unique and amazing immersion program at Benjamin Franklin International Language Academy in Glendale, CA. A journey that then continued with the participation in the innovative and exciting Italian for Spanish Speakers program at California State University of Long Beach, another ground-breaking curriculum to expand the study of Italian language and culture in California.

 

Mrs. Lanza’s Italian 3 students left San Pedro early in the morning to reach the lovely elementary school of Benjamin Franklin International Language Academy, a public school magnet that teaches children a foreign language starting from kindergarten. Here, parents can choose the language they wish their children to study: Spanish, French, German or Italian. San Pedro students visited Ms. Daniela Pino’s third grade class and participated in a variety of fun educational activities, all in Italian. Each San Pedro student was paired with a third grader, who then interviewed the San Pedro students and reported to the class about their interview.  The visit ended with a quick visit to the 1st graders who were engaged in their math exercises.  

 

The San Pedro students were then off the Cal State Long Beach to visit Ms. Violetta Pasquarelli-Gascon’s Italian 200, a second year Italian class designed for students who are already fluent and literate in Spanish. The course covers in one semester what is normally done in one year. Along with 4 hours of in-class work, students participate in a 2 hour online cooperative seminar. Students also have 4-6 hours of language lab work a week. This recently created program has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to study the effectiveness of these types of cross-language studies.

 

Ms. Violetta Pasquarelli-Gascon taught a lesson on the “trapassato prossimo”, usually quite hard to learn and use for foreign speakers. But her students and the San Pedro used their knowledge of Spanish to understand the Italian grammar point; in collaborative groups, students successfully completed several exercises, and shared out their results.

 

Professor Markus Muller took a few minutes to address the group and praise the innovative work they were doing, and encouraged the San Pedro students to attend college and continue their Italian and Spanish studies. The San Pedro students truly enjoyed the entire day and took back with them a great deal of information to process, after an unforgettable experience.

 

I want to thank the following people who made this memorable field trip possible: Ms. Jeanette Stevens, principal of San Pedro High School, who provided the substitute for the Italian classes and supported the educational aims of the trip; Dr. Richard Vladovic, LAUSD school board member from District 7, who provided the funding for the bus for our visits; Ms.Vickie Atilian-Aviles, principal of Benjamin Franklin Elementary School for allowing us access to her cutting-edge program, Ms. Daniela Pino for planning such a great interactive program for her students and mine;

 

Professor Markus Muller, Chair of the Romance, German, Russian Language and Literature Department, for giving us access to their program and for coming to speak to and encourage our students to continue their education; and finally, Violetta Pasquarelli-Gascon for preparing a very accessible yet challenging lesson that gave our students an example of how their knowledge of Spanish can give them an advantage when studying other Romance Languages.