At MIT, Dr. Paola Rebusco usually teaches physics to freshmen. But, on behalf of the MIT Experimental Study Group, Rebusco has devised an appealing course — Speak Italian with Your Mouth Full — where she combines teaching two things many people love: learning to speak Italian and cooking Italian food. The course summary reads:
The participants in this seminar will dive into learning basic conversational Italian, Italian culture, and the Mediterranean diet. Each class is based on the preparation of a delicious dish and on the bite-sized acquisition of parts of the Italian language and culture. A good diet is not based on recipes only, it is also rooted in healthy habits and in culture. At the end of the seminar the participants will be able to cook some healthy and tasty recipes and to understand and speak basic Italian.
As Rebusco explains in a short video, this course has the advantage of making the language lessons a little less abstract. It gives students a chance to apply what they’ve learned (new vocabulary words, pronunciations, etc.) in a fun, practical context.
Above, we start you off with the first language lesson in the seminar. It begins where all basic courses start — with how to say your name. Below, you can watch the class learn to cook fresh pasta. Along the way, the course also teaches students how to make espresso, risotto, homemade pizza, bruschetta, and biscotti. Lectures for the course can be found on the MIT web site, YouTube and iTunes. Speak Italian with Your Mouth Full also appears in our collection of Free Foreign Language Lessons and 1200 Free Courses Online. Buon Appetito!
Ingredients & Cooking Instruction:
Food Preparation
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over 10 years of studying Italian and I finally got a wonderful explanation of accent marks and open and closed vowels!! Brava!
Thanksn to MIT and to Dr Rebusco to remind all professional teachers in the nworld how almost everywhere (even at MIT!!!) “if you speak Italian you ncan be a teacher!”. The method and theories of Dr Rebusco are medieval nand against all the basic principles of language teaching. It is clear nenough from the first minutes of the video that she has NEVER studied ton be a teacher, she ignores the theory and she has got no experience at nall. I’d like now to ask her and MIT: can I come to your Institute and nteach maths, please? I can count up to 1.000.000, I garantee you, my nteacher a high-school can confirm.
I agree with Cristiano. Dr Rebusco is nice, but she has NO IDEA of what language teaching means.nI don’t like to do this kind of comments, but it is important to defend those professionals who are really trained for this job.nEvery profession needs preparation and cannot be extemporized: why does MIT not consider those poor students? Thay deserve a teacher who has studied to be a teacher.
BRAVO!!!!!!! It’s a SHAME!!
I am pretty sure that this is supposed to be fun. Not that classes that employ current pedagogy are not. However, this a class(not sure is class is the appropriate title here) that combines two things and from what I’ve observed her students ARE learning how to speak and how to cook. And they are having fun and appreciating the culture and cuisine. It should not take the place of Italian 101 but is that the aim??
Flash freezing the porcetta makes it easier to dice.
Great job! My guess: this way the students will remember some useful Italian words and maybe get interested in grammar, literature and Italian history!
Fail.… fail… fail…
What happens when educational resources are by subject matter experts and production amateurs.
The sound quality in these videos is appalling!!
And for language lessons that is an unforgivable problem that would have been instantly spotted by anyone with rudimentary production experience.
Maybe if you are a very young person with no hearing damage whatsoever.
In places you can barely hear what is being said in English.
This is why online learning cannot continue to follow the do-it-yourself subject-matter-expert-as-producer production model.
I wish i can learn Italian language
DO i get a certificate?
i wish o enroll