THE MATHILDE METHOD OF LANGUAGE LEARNING

In summer 2003, I completed a month-long advanced-level Italian course at the Scuola Leonardo da Vinci in Florence. My mission was to acquire enough Italian to teach elementary Italian at San Diego State, my home university. I placed into advanced Italian because I had complete Living Language’s Elementary and Intermediate Italian courses. Boring shit but effective! Living Language provided the textbooks and the audiocassette tapes, which I listened to in the car in rush hour traffic.

There were 13 students in my classes which lasted six hours a day, five days a week. We all became a cohort for that month. In my class were college students wanting to “savor” Florentine life; there was a Belgian businessman and a Korean nun. To my consternation, the Korean nun was the best student in the class, topping my 99% on the midterm and my 95% on the final. She had been studying in Italy for a year, demonstrating that a learner undergoing immersion tops an applied linguist there for a month.

We used a couple of different classrooms but one of the classrooms featured a wall fan that blew directly on the teacher; it was 95 degrees and there was no central air. Outside construction was taking place on a side street less than a mile from the Duomo. After 3 hours in the mini-classroom, elbow to elbow, the room stank pretty bad.

The Scuola hires and trains its own teachers and created its own textbook that was even worse that the ones I had to teach with at the high school or college levels. The pace was too slow and the curriculum was not customized to my needs as a future Italian instructor. I already knew Italian grammar. I needed massive conversation practice and massive vocabulary acquisition.

I returned a couple more times for more language instruction but not at the Scuola or other immersion language providers.

When I returned to Florence, I hired Mathilde, a gorgeous secretary who worked for two of my friends who are professional interpreters. Mathilde had no language teaching background; she had studied political science.

I hired Mathilde for four hours a day, five days a week during Christmas break. I told her what I needed and she provided it. Here’s how daily instruction took place. Hour 1: we walked the streets of Florence speaking Italian, me answering questions and completing assignments. Here’s one scenario:

“Stefano, what kind of store is this? What do they sell? What don’t they sell? Do this type of store exist in the U.S.?”

“Stefano, go into that pizzeria and order me a slice and a beer.”

“Stefano, go up to that police officer and ask directions for the Duomo.”

“Stefano, stop this person and ask them what time it is.”

“Stefano, stop this person and ask for money.”

This was the rhythm for an hour straight.

Hour 2: Every day I had to make lunch at Mathilde’s apartment. That meant grocery shopping, food preparation, eating and washing dishes.

Hour 3: We would watch films after lunch. We would watch a film with consistent pedagogical interruptions:

“Stefano, tell me what happened in this scene. Why is the woman crying? What did the man do to make her cry?”

Hour 4: Mathilde sat with me and went over graded essays. I had one a day as part of my homework. This was the time she corrected grammar, vocabulary usage and especially the use of anglicized expressions. Mathilde offered suggestions which increased vocabulary and strengthened my knowledge of grammar. We also discussed a work of literature during that hour. One book, a translation of the Italian-American author John Fante’s short stories, was my favorite. Again, discussion of action and writing style were the primary topics of discussion.

The rest of my time was spent with my friends only speaking Italian.

Mathilde’s method was customized, conversational and emphasized grammatical accuracy and vocabulary acquisition. She was rigorous! The best grade I got on my essays was a B+. Those 17 days were worth a month or more of immersion Italian offered at the Scuola Leonardo da Vinci.