'TALKING SESSIONS': committing to practicing first and correcting mistakes after, in a relaxed way! :)

Über den Unterricht

Hello to you, dear reader! Thank you for deciding to open my profile and welcome.

My name is Serena, I am 25 and I have lived in Italy for the first 23 years of my life. Languages and communication are my thing: my passion, my profession (I graduated in interpreting and translation in Bologna, Italy) and also my strongest trait, because I care a lot about the way words, structures and contents are used and get mixed in daily life or meaningful conversations. I love my country, but my heart belongs to Germany, so that’s why I’ve been living here since January ´19. I do not live in Berlin anymore, but since what I offer is extremely personalised (in all means), it would be possible for me to move around the following areas - considering of course that the time schedules and prices will also change based on that: Falkensee/Schönwalde-Glien/Hennigsdorf/Brieselang/Potsdam/Berlin Spandau.

What I offer is something that I decided to call ‘talking session’, two words that should already suggest how this is different from a typical lesson. But don’t worry, I know that you’re here to learn! Keep on reading and you’ll understand how I’m planning to make you and – even more important - if what I’m offering is also what you’re looking for.

Here's what I have in mind ↯

What I’m offering, as a native speaker to any kind of learner, is what I like to call ‘TALKING SESSION’: a spontaneous share of thoughts, opinions, facts or experiences in Italian (plus English or German explanations when you’re lacking the words in the target language – even though my German is still quite limited) or a themed talk, with topics of your interest or needs (meaning you’re totally free to choose what suits you best), to improve the use of the language in a specific situation. What I have in mind is both spontaneous and personalised: I will make sure it stays a relaxed situation, so you can feel as if you’re meeting somebody for a coffee and actually improve and learn better without the pressure of having to follow rules or fixed schemes. No matter if you pick a topic or decide to keep the conversation spontaneous and more personal, each ‘session’ will help me understand better what you need to work on linguistically. I would record the conversations we have (if you allow it) and pay attention to the vocabulary and the grammatical or linguistic mistakes that come up during the session. Starting from that, after every session I’ll be able to prepare a ‘personalised file’ for you, with a glossary of useful words (both coming from the previous session and new words for the next one, especially if you pick a specific topic), a set of ‘personalised and targeted’ grammar exercises, with a quick explanation of the theory (based on the mistakes that you make and the weak grammar points you show) and, when needed, a quick evaluation with some suggestions that would help you improve your Italian in a way that you can make appropriate and intuitive choices when using the language.

Important: the reason why I chose the word ‘session’ instead of ‘lesson’ lies in the intention to keep the learning hours relaxed, for the both of us. I am a native speaker with a particular interest in languages and a liking for communication (talking and listening). I was not trained to be a teacher, so this would not be a professional lesson that teaches you grammar and makes you exercise for hours. I would meet you, talk and listen, ask questions, correct you or help you to find the words (possibly explaining to you why an Italian would pick one word better than the other, following different contexts), but without stopping the whole flow of thoughts as it often is during lessons. I care that this is perceived by your learning brain as a relaxed situation, while it’s still happening, because that’s how we learn better. My share of ‘teaching’ will always take place when we meet the second time, after I’ve prepared some material for you based on what I’ve known from the previous meeting. That gives me the opportunity to help you with reasoned grounds, in a targeted way and also quicker (if you commit to the sessions and the extra work after). The file I would prepare for you would be quickly presented to you and it’s your choice to go through it together or alone during your spare time, so that you can freely tell me if you need technical help or would rather only exercise talking with me. This method would be very individual and dependent on specific goals, so that makes it ideal for people that don’t easily stop in front of mistakes (the session is only useful in time if we both make the conversations going), like talking and find inspiration in questions and topics or even just really need to improve their Italian talking skills quickly. Anybody can give it a try, but this needs to be fitting and right for me to work honestly and decide to have more than two sessions with you.

Personally, I do not think anything needs to (nor can) be perfect, but I do believe good starts get us really, really far. And more than that, when it comes to languages and communication, I encourage practice and openness to mistakes and new strategies as much as I can. Those are the two main reasons why I value ‘talking sessions’ with a native speaker so much. First of all, they are the best way to start many things: committing to your Italian speaking skills; understanding personal weak and strong points; improving the communication on all aspects (choice of words, structure, vocabulary, accent and intonation) and getting a better insight on the language, by knowing how to use it practically and understanding the cultural reasons and choices behind it. Second of all, being a strategy that evolves around your personal needs and knowledge, it’s meant to help you focus on practicing the language and hopefully reach your goals quicker, by trying first and clear up doubts or correcting mistakes after.

Thank you for reading so far (took some time, but it's helpful!) and please feel free to write to me if you need some more details, have questions or want to figure out with me the way to schedule a meeting: place, date and time, duration and price of the meeting(s). :)

Your Serena