Languages at De La Salle Dante Alighieri
Tour to Italy
The Italian students competed in the Dante Alighieri Poetry Recital Competition at Melbourne University and the French students in the Berthe Mouchette Poetry Competition at the Alliançe Française. Both these competitions take many hours of preparation on the part of the students and the contest is always fierce, with schools from all over Melbourne taking part. To their credit, students in languages prepared for their competition whilst preparing for their Semester 1 exams — an exercise that cannot have been easy. Congratulations must go to each of them for just taking up the challenge! Senior students took up the contest wholeheartedly, even with the interruption to their regular study pattern. The experience is a worthwhile exercise in preparation for the Oral VCE Exams. Well done to all students for stepping out of their comfort zone. Kath Marino LOTE Coordinator
This year’s Italian Cultural Exchange provided 21 students with the opportunity to experience the ‘real’ Italy — staying with Italian families and soaking up the culture, cuisine and artistic wonders of Venice, Rome, Siena, Assisi and Florence. The nineteen-day tour took in visits to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Basilica of St Francis of Assisi and St Peter’s in Rome. From the initial gondola ride in Venice, the visits to museums and awe-inspiring churches, bargaining with shop keepers when purchasing the best fashion items in the world, through to a Papal Benediction on Palm Sunday in St Peter’s Square, the tour was inspiring. Visual Arts teacher and tour leader, Mr David Happ, said the highlight of the tour was discussing Michelangelo’s ‘Holy family’ in front of the original work in the Uffizi Galley in Florence. “Undoubtedly the highlight for the students was their home stay with their families in Siena,” he said. Eleven days of going to school and experiencing the best of Tuscany with their peers was an opportunity that they all appreciated. As one student said, “You are actually aware of how special this is, how lucky you are, and how happy you are…and while you are doing it”. Kath Marino LOTE Coordinator 54 150
