October month activities in The Old Stable 2019

We are off to a good start of the year, and it’s a pleasure to write about it!

Leaving aside the upheavals of having a wife that is immersed in local politics head to toe, exactly when it is time to role up the sleeves to get the academic year started, we had a nice turn up for our first week of courses. If you are wondering about the open day that took place at the end of September, the turn up wasn’t that high but those that came showed a genuine interest and most took up courses with us on the day. It was more of a chitchat and showing around our unique countryside atmosphere in the classroom.

Old Stable groups 2019-20

So what have we, so far?
Our hit from the very first year: Play and Rhyme Time is running on Mondays, Elena is having this one and so I’m a little bit missing on the fun.
New are two adult beginners courses of Chat and Laugh on Mondays and Tuesdays (and we thought that we will only have children!) – those are proving very satisfying. We really appreciate people coming over to our classes after a long day of work and so make the best to make it fun and relaxing.

On Tuesdays we have one relatively small Children’s group (Fun Time). They consist of children in the early ages of primary school and we get to sing, play card games and just have fun in English. Thursday is one of my favorites, not only because it’s nearly the end of the week but because I have a small group of D&D players in secondary school and high school. It’s hard to get them engaged in reading and writing (hopefully I’ll report on their progress soon) but the spirits are good and I can see that they are slipping into the fantasy world. I see this (getting them interested in old style role playing games) as a goal by itself, nowadays with all the play stations and on-line gaming opportunities (nothing against it, but I still think the face to face encounters are better).

Last but not least on Thursdays is my Tea and Talk group. A bunch of young to middle aged adults who come here for the joy of speaking English and having fun. Sometimes, I feel embarrassed that I get paid for this job, it’s so much fun!!! This year there is a higher turn over to the Tea and Talks course and it seems things just flow with the group. This gives me inspiration to think about how we can make it even better and I really hope launching our students-blog project soon (yes, I hope getting our students contributing to our blog in some way). Writing is definitely an essential tool to get one’s language skills advanced quickly (I for my share, admit not doing enough of this in Italian. When I do make the effort, I do feel the improvement quite immediately)

New external course with CEMI, Bologna

We are proud to launch our first external course starting January 2020! We will be hosted by our Children’s music school in Bologna!

CEMI, Bologna is both a Suzuki and traditional music school catering children and their families and has recently moved its premises to the church of San Donnino in Bologna after a long period in which it struggled to rent a decent place. So excited to being part of their project! please read here more, especially if you know of anyone in the area that might be interested.
Our open Day in San Donnino will be on Monday, 16h of December.

Gearing up for Christmas! (so soon?) – 20th December

Don’t get me started, I know Halloween was just here a month ago with all its commercial greed. Am I already going on about Christmas?! Well, yes, but hold your horses (reindeer). For Halloween we dedicated a lesson or two to introduce the Anglo-Saxon culture and get our students to know some spooky related vocab. Very few know the stories behind Halloween or why people carve Jack’o’lanterns out of pumpkins (it wasn’t originally so). So we did our best to give the cultural background,

For Christmas we are planning to do something special. We are inviting the English father Christmas to our stables. A few of his helpers will hold a workshop on writing a non materialistic wish lists and Christmas songs! Fancy that. Save the date: Friday 20th of December! Not just for our current students. More soon….

Looking for more?

We are still building up our networks and have left Fridays for the occasional private lesson or maybe even more groups to open this academic year. If you know of anyone interested, please do not hesitate to give them our contact.