The grammar of social inclusion

In universities, schools and high schools all over the world, from the USA to Japan, passing through Mediterranean countries and the Middle East, Italian language courses are constantly increasing, a growing demand that reinforces old and new relationships.

In recent months, Mentorship Sapienza has been planning the activation of a free Italian language course for foreigners among peer students and finally from 1st February 2021 the project initiative will begin. The course has been sponsored on the social profiles of Mentorship Sapienza and has quickly filled up with participants.

Maria Giulia Palleschi – focal point of the socio-cultural area – is a 21-year-old student of Oriental languages and civilisations at Sapienza University and, assisted by 10 other mentor and senior students from various faculties of the same university, she is the promoter of the online Italian language course: “What drove me and my colleagues to organise the Italian course was the interest in languages as essential tools for building bridges between cultures, promoting social inclusion, which is the motto of our committee, getting to know other nationalities, achieving cultural and personal enrichment”.

The course will run for one month, from 1st to 28th February 2021, and will consist of 8 online lessons, two lessons per week and a supplementary lesson on Saturdays: “We will teach basic grammar, sentence construction useful in the present and the near future, we will do conversation exercises and provide paper and digital material that our peers can consult during and after the course”.

No speeches, then: what the mentors are facing is a major challenge that coincides with the winter session, “Between the crucial objective of passing exams to the maximum and setting up a teaching project to make our ‘students’ an active part of a new community, we reserve the right to call ourselves ‘superheroes’”. Maria Giulia says jokingly.

The acquisition of language skills is the first step towards successful integration, and the Sapienza Mentorship Committee is delighted to open the Italian language course thanks to the willingness of its mentors: “It is a great satisfaction to give foreign students the opportunity to learn Italian, with the hope, on the one hand, of providing added value to their professionalism, and on the other of confronting different cultures in time and space, through the development of opportunities for growth on a cultural and personal level”.

By
Marta Santilli

With
Maria Giulia Palleschi