La Scuola Media G. Cavalcanti

On tuesday, I started volunteering at Sesto's middle school. I am helping out in an 8th grade English class to give them more exposure to the language. These kids have been taking English since elementary school and are actually quite good.

My day began with the 20 minute walk to the school, and when I arrived a woman in the lobby immediately came up to me and said "Sei americana?", to which I responded "Si, sono americana." (I've got that phrase down). She grabbed me by the arm and whisked me over to another lady, who turned out to be the English teacher. We walked up to the classroom, where 25 8th grade students were giggling and talking amongst each other.

The teacher started off the lesson by having the students write down things they thought about me. How old I am, where I'm from, what kind of house I live in, what kind of music I like, etc. After a few minutes of writing things down, the kids told me what they thought. Among other things, they believed I was about 20 or so (yay! at least I don't look 16 to the Italian 13 year olds), live in a big house, enjoyed pop music, (when the teacher asked what band, they insisted on Coldplay), liked to go to the cinema (for some reason they don't say movie theater), had two cats (one boy said their names would be Snow and Charcoal), and had no siblings. Once they were done, I told them what was right and a little more about myself.

For homework the kids had prepared things to say to me about Sesto. They told me about the cinema in town, the town square (or the piazza), the restaurants, parks, etc. I then told them about Birmingham, and Ann Arbor.

I will be volunteering every tuesday morning, so I'll keep you updated on more fun experiences! Next week we will be talking about foods.