Mark Thomson
★★★★★
When I think about Elena teaching Italian to me, the words energy and enthusiasm are the first ones that come to mind. Her passion is evident from the first class.
I really enjoyed her use of visual tools (video segments from film and music videos) as well as the audio tools (listening to music). They really challenged me to listen well to drive my understanding of Italian. The music added a sense of rhythm to the words which is a learning tool that I had used before.
Another technique of Elena’s that I found very helpful was getting students to ask each other questions in Italian, answer in Italian and then explain the answer to someone else. Asking the question (2nd person), listening to the answer (1st person) and explaining the answer to someone (3rd person) really helped me think about the correct conjugation and structure of the sentences.
I thoroughly enjoyed Elena as an Italian teacher.