Description of the Experience
Italy
To Italy as one of the most attractive tourist destination of the world and Europe students were looking forward for a long time. Since they know that for every class we present the country which we currently learn about they have been already asking well ahead when it will be the Italy time. They asked me if they could bring their own made presentations, because before at the Italian language class they each performed a presentation about one region of Italy. It pleased me quite a lot because I found out that they have an interest in this country. They have had not much previous experience with making their own power point shows so I was glad that they will get to try it also by themselves.
Their presentations were interesting, but immediately after the first one I gave them instructions on what to change and how they should do it. I wanted them to role play a tourist guide in Italy. I did not want them to read only what they have prepared in the presentation but tried to talk about the pictures and really present their prepared information. In an industry they study, the tourism services, this is how it should be. I explained to them that reading the text of the presentation has two negative points: the target group to which the text is being read feels undervalued- these people are not illiterate, they can read and get to know the information also by themselves. The second one is that they may think that the tourist guide does not know anything about the presented topic when he or she only reads from the prepared presentation.
And then there was a big change in the class. Students began to compete among themselves as to who manages to introduce to the others his or her region in a more interesting and more beautiful way with his or her own words. The class somehow took on energy, students listened carefully, they tried to notice and learn from the presentations and ways of others. It can be said that with each presentation they got better and better. They learned a lot of new information on the country- even facts that were not so important in terms of tourism. I let them talk on their own so they could give a try to presenting and talking in front of a bigger group, in front of the whole class.
I wanted to verify whether the lower grades (students in their second year of studying) will positively receive information from direct participants, who lived in the country. In the beginning of the next class, my students had the opportunity to talk with a student from Slovakia, who previously studied in Italy. The positive experience with this form of information sharing was also proven in this class and students really enjoyed the lesson. I was also happy because students remembered even such small details that they would certainly not remember during the conventional studies. They have learned much more than during the traditional class, which I verified when I checked the written work on Italy they wrote as an exam. By the way, they were looking forward to this written test. They have enjoyed writing an essay and did very well on it. Both of the classes related to the topic as well as the exam part turned out to a great satisfaction of both sides.
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