To enrich my stay I undertook the following activities:

 

Italian 101

The one thing that I have been told but that I could also clearly see it that at Dickinson the students and professors have a really special relation. I could really see that the professors care about their students. I experienced  that in my Italian class too. Professor Dragani really connected with us and taught us that in order to learn a language one must accept to make mistakes and that we should never be ashamed of them. As we were a very small class of only five people we were able to create a community and we supported each other in order to progress as a group. Also the fact that the lessons were so interactive and diversified made me forget about the time that passes by and I can tell that it is very rare for me to not look at the clock during a lesson. Experiencing a class at Dickinson College has taught me valuable things that I can apply on my school life back home.

 

The language tables

During my stay visited three different language tables (French, German and Italian) and due to the fact that I didn’t know anybody it was a great opportunity to meet knew people. I was surprised that the students would only talk to each other in the “allowed” language and would really try to improve themselves. As I can speak French and German I was happy that I could help the students with the language by pointing out their mistakes and having conversations with them. I also think that this kind of events truly help students to dare to speak in the language their learning and to become more confident when it comes to speaking. It also helps to realize how important it is to interact with others during the process of studying a new language.