Why learn with Italian short stories?
The challenge
Having spent the last 10 years teaching Italian to native English speakers, I’ve come to realize that the most challenging part of learning Italian is putting all of the bits and pieces of grammar and vocabulary together to form flowing Italian sentences. In the early stages of my teaching career, I kept noticing a pattern: my beginner and intermediate students would tend to use recycled vocabulary and grammar, lingering on the same levels for months without significant progress.
The solution
A few years ago, after trying different teaching approaches, I decided to use Italian novels written in simplified Italian as a way to provide my students with new content to talk about during our classes. After a few classes using this method, I was shocked by the significant improvement all of my students made. Students would naturally develop their ability to construct longer sentences and expand their Italian vocabulary through the exercise of retelling the stories in their own words. They would also maximize the time spent with Italian outside the class, as the reading, listening, and writing related to the stories would be covered before the in-person class.
What happened next?
Improve your Vocabulary and Listening in Context
Due Amiche e un Album di Fotografie (Beginners – Super Easy Italian)
- Bite-sized chapters: Go over a chapter in minutes.
- Bilingual wordlists: Ready to use for your flashcards.
- Quizzes: Test your vocabulary and grammar comprehension at the end of each chapter. T
- Speaking prompts: Train your spoken Italian alone or with your tutor.
- Cultural insights about Rome: Learn about some of the prettiest neighborhoods of Rome, alongside things to do on your next trip.
- Insights on common mistakes: Written with the most recurring mistakes Italian beginners and intermediate learners make in my classes in mind.
- Modern adult stories: Using the 1000 most common Italian words and real-life dialogues you’re most likely to encounter when in Italy.
- Audiobook available.
- Read a detailed review on this book here from Daily Italian Words.
Le Avventure di Paul a Roma (Beginners)
- Short chapters: Go over a chapter in minutes.
- Bilingual wordlists: Ready to use for your flashcards.
- Quizzes: Test your vocabulary and grammar comprehension at the end of each chapter. T
- Translation prompts: Translating from English to the Italian language is a potent learning activity, as it helps recall from your memory what you have absorbed from the stories.
- Speaking prompts: Train your spoken Italian alone or with your tutor.
- Cultural insights about Rome: Learn about some of the prettiest neighborhoods of Rome, alongside things to do on your next trip.
- Insights on common mistakes: Written with the most recurring mistakes Italian beginners and intermediate learners make in my classes in mind.
- Modern adult stories: Using the 1000 most common Italian words and real-life dialogues you’re most likely to encounter when in Italy.
- Audiobook available.
- Short chapters: 7 short stories divided into bite-size chapters.
- Bilingual wordlist ready to go into your flashcards.
- Modern stories with real-life dialogues and experiences.
- Translation prompts at end of each chapter
- Conversation prompts to use train your speaking skills alone or with your tutor.
- Optimized for intermediate learners (A2-B2) by a teacher of Italian with over 10 years of teaching experience.
- Audio in slow Italian available.
Incontri in Sicilia (Beginners and Lower -Intermediates)
- Bite-sized chapters: Go over a chapter in minutes.
- Bilingual wordlists: Ready to use for your flashcards.
- Quizzes: Test your vocabulary and grammar comprehension at the end of each chapter. T
- Speaking prompts: Train your spoken Italian alone or with your tutor.
- Cultural insights about Rome: Learn about some of the prettiest neighborhoods of Rome, alongside things to do on your next trip.
- Insights on common mistakes: Written with the most recurring mistakes Italian beginners and intermediate learners make in my classes in mind.
- Modern adult stories: Using the 1000 most common Italian words and real-life dialogues you’re most likely to encounter when in Italy.
- Audiobook available.
What you can expect from my story learning method
With a heart full of wanderlust, she has called eight countries home and embraced the beauty of learning over eight foreign languages. Now, as an online teacher, she pours her energy into empowering English speakers and adult learners to master Italian as a foreign language. From the eternally beautiful city of Rome, she is on a dedicated mission to achieve greatness as the world’s best Italian language teacher!