Fra Noi Embrace Your Inner Italian
Being born in Palermo and growing up in Sicily, Monica Valenti Niespodziany used to gather her friends and play “pretend school,” putting herself in the role of the teacher.
When she decided to become a teacher, her family wasn’t the least bit surprised, she says.
Valenti Niespodziany has taught Italian at St. Joseph Catholic Academy in Kenosha since 2016. There, she has grown the Italian language program by starting an Italian Honor Society, launching an AP Italian course, and partnering with a school in Rome through the Italian Consulate in Chicago. She is also the world language department lead at the school.
“St. Joseph is not only my workplace, but I feel it’s my second home,” she says. “I found a family in my colleagues.”
Before landing at St. Joseph, she taught for three years at Bradford High School, also in Kenosha, where her “wonderful mentor,” Lee Belanger, taught her strategies to teach Italian as a second language, she says.
Valenti Niespodziany moved to the U.S. after marrying her husband, Anthony, a U.S. Navy sailor who’d been stationed in Sigonella, Sicily. The couple have two children: Martina, 18, and Beatrice, 13.
Having grown up moving across Italy due to her father’s work for a train company, she had already learned to appreciate what new places have to offer, and be open to different ways of living and traditions, she says.
Back home, Valenti Niespodziany attended a liceo classico, a high school that focuses on humanities, such as Latin, classical Greek, philosophy and art history. “It gave me a strong foundation in classical education, and analyzing language structures and process word roots. I can see the benefits of my classical education in my teaching. But I also kept up with my world language studies on my own time.”
By the time she started studying modern literature at the University of Catania, she’d decided to become a language arts teacher. She wrote her thesis on Greek literature, and translated and analyzed a short novel never before translated in Italian. “One of the mandatory classes was a foreign language,” she explains. “I chose modern Greek and had a chance to go to Greece for the first time with the Erasmus Project. I fell in love with the country, I was taken aback by its beauty and history.”
Prior to moving to Illinois, Valenti Niespodziany taught Italian at the University of Southern Florida, and Latin and modern Greek courses for adults at Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland.
Teaching is a dynamic profession, with the constant need to adapt teaching content to the students one is serving, she says. Her approach to teaching Italian is to bring into the classroom a little bit of her native country and its lifestyle through songs, articles about current events, holidays and, of course, food. Last year, she took her senior class to an Andrea Bocelli concert.
“I strive to have a personal connection with my students and make sure that they have a chance to talk about themselves, their preferences, how they see the world and what they are passionate about, all in the target language,” she says. “I want my students to consider my classroom as a safe space, where they are free to express themselves and also make mistakes.”
Her classroom follows a “golden rule” of not laughing at classmates who say the wrong word or pronounce something incorrectly. “Mutual respect is key to feeling comfortable,” she explains.
The best part of being a teacher is seeing students’ growth, both in their confidence in mastering the language, and as human beings, she says. “It’s very rewarding when I see students succeeding after putting a lot of effort and dedication, and overcoming their struggles. Some decided to keep studying Italian in college because they enjoyed my class and were inspired by Italian culture.”
The challenge of the job is finding “perfect” activities and lesson plans that balances writing, speaking, listening and reading skills. Also challenging is finding authentic materials that are appropriate and engaging for each level, and devising teaching strategies to help struggling students.
“I think the turning point of my career is when I started calling my students ‘my kids,’” she says. “I try to create personal relationships with my students, and I am still in contact with former students as well.”
Valenti Niespodziany is currently studying for a master’s degree in teaching Italian as a second language through the University of Perugia. “Most of the classes are asynchronous, but it happens that I have a synchronous class, which means I am up at 2:30 a.m., have lessons until 5 a.m., and then get ready to teach all day,” she says. “Challenging, but definitely worth it!”
She is also active in her parish (“my faith is very important to me,” she says), and loves reading books and going to plays.
