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RHS has always been dedicated to furthering the use of modern foreign languages, but the presentation by Marilena, our Italian Commenius assistant, on her homeland and the culture of Italy on Monday the 22nd and Friday 26th was both brilliant and shocking. The presentation itself was amazing: Marilena showed photos of the principal cities in Italy along with personal anecdotes on friends or family members who lived there, and the main features of the city. While being dazzled by the photos of a country full of culture (and pizza!), Marilena led a short session in how to pronounce the cities names in Italian and even went so far as to include Mrs Robinson and Madame Shirley in demonstrating a typical Italian conversation, complete with hand gestures and accents. But the shock came at the end of the assembly when it was revealed that Marilena has only been with RHS since October and when she came to RHS she didn’t speak a word of English! Many of us had been under the impression that she was fluent in the language and the thought that she had learnt all this in less than 5 months was mindboggling. Marilena is unfortunately leaving at the end of term (Easter) but we wish her the best of luck at furthering her English to the point of fluency (she’s sounds fluent already!). Marilena, buona fortuna per il futuro!! Written by Jenny Eyre (Year 11)
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