Language

  I believe that commonly used phrases are the key for how we can all build fluency in any language in a short time. If we learn how to incorporate commonly used phrases when we speak Italian, we will be able to express important feelings — like our hopes — just as we do in our native language! This will help us with our “email Italian” as well. Read below and you will see what I mean. This post is the 15th in a series of Italian phrases we have been trying out in our Conversational Italian! Facebook group. If …

  Guerin Prep held its 34th annual World Language Induction ceremony for its Italian, French and Spanish Language Honor Societies on May 14. La Società Onoraria Italica (Italian Honor Society), Socie’te’ Honoraire de Francais (French Honor Society) and Sociedad Honoraria Hispa’nica (Spanish Honor Society) are national organizations, sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of Italian, French and Spanish, the purpose of which is to recognize outstanding and highly motivated students of each language and culture. Its mission is to help honorary members deepen their knowledge of each language and culture. Mrs. Carmelina Maione, Guerin Prep’s Italian teacher and society …

Ramona Elementary School in Wilmette showcases the food, music and culture of countries around the world at its annual International Festival. Representing Italy at this year’s festival was assistant principal Elena Ryan, daughter of local Joseph and Martha Monastero of Monastero’s Ristorante & Banquets fame. Ryan wore a traditional Italian folk costume, provided by the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans, and sang “Santa Lucia.” “With all of the conflict and challenges occurring around the world, it is important that we teach children to celebrate the differences of others,” Ryan says. “There was a wonderful connection among students and faculty …

  This year, IC Catholic Prep held its first ever induction ceremony for its Italian Honors Society. La Società Onoraria Italica (Italian Honor Society) is a national organization, sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of Italian, whose purpose is to recognize outstanding and highly motivated students of Italian language and culture. Its mission is to help honorary members deepen their knowledge of Italian language and culture. Six upperclassmen were inducted into IC Catholic chapter this year including Seniors Vincenzo Cerasuolo, Joshua De La Cruz, Anna Gendusa, Casey Kristie, and Juniors Demitri Davlantes, and Payton James. The inductees lit their …

The American Association of Teachers of Italian-Midwest hosted a symposium based on the current “Made in Italy” trend sweeping World Languages. With enrollments diminishing, programs closing, and the lack of teachers to replace retiring teachers and long-term leaves, we need to come together! It is important to begin to look towards the future and to move our classes into a more hands on, career pathway type of methodology, or at least a unit lesson to expose our students to the reality of “life in Italian beyond high school and not just for credit”. That isn’t enough anymore. In this way, …

“Unforgettable”, “exciting”, “informative” and “fun” are several adjectives Maine East Italian 1-4 students used to describe their field trip to Barilla (the number one pasta company in America) at their North American Headquarters in Northbrook. As an Italian teacher, I wanted to provide students with an opportunity that would highlight how knowing and using Italian can help them in the professional world. So, I contacted Mrs. Wilkens, one of our Career Pathways coordinators, to help me plan this trip and she helped establish the relationship and organize the field trip with our class goals in mind. Immediately upon arriving on …

It only seems like Casa Italia’s popular language and cuisine instructor, Giovanna “Jackie” Dimetros, is leading a double life. Some people know her as Giovanna and others as Jackie, she has inexplicably English and Greek surnames, and people aren’t certain whether she’s a cooking or Italian teacher or both. But she is in fact one delightful Italian-born Chicagoan who integrates all these identities. The story begins during World War II. An American Army officer, Major Jack Spears, a Chicago native stationed in Tuscany, fell in love with his future wife Miranda in the town of Livorno. After they married, they …

When Gianluca Butticè moved from his native Sicily to the U.S., he faced the challenges of learning English and American culture. Surmounting that learning curve inspired him to make the journey easier for others. So after spending the past several years teaching Italian, he is branching out into offering tours of Italy that encompass language and culture in a mutually enhancing way. “I know the doors that are opened when you learn a new language,” he says, explaining that traveling, learning the culture of a country and learning the language can all reinforce each other. Butticè, 41, believes everything he …

At a recent awards banquet, Judie Vitiritti-Lynch was so engaged in talking to her former students that she didn’t hear the emcee announce her name. A colleague prompted her to walk up to the podium, because she had won the Italian Consulate in Chicago’s first-ever Midwest Award for Leadership in the Teaching of the Italian Language and Culture. “I was stunned, because I was up against some very good people, and everyone was so deserving,” recalls Vitiritti-Lynch, who became Addison Trail High School’s first Italian language teacher in the early 1990s and pioneered the program. In her first year, she …

Growing up in an Italian-American family, Kathryn Occhipinti experienced the Italian food, the emphasis on togetherness and the practicing of the Catholic faith. But she felt one piece of her heritage was missing: the language. Her grandparents and parents would converse in Italian, making it even more of a mysterious to her. After completing her medical training, she spent years studying the language, writing books and teaching classes in conversational Italian. She gears her efforts toward adult learners with a desire to travel to Italy. “Today, people are trying to understand where they came from, and the language was really …