Kiely, Kaitlyn // SLA Profiles (2012 & 2013) // Blog Network // University of Notre Dame

Name: Kaitlyn Kiely
E-mail: kkiely@nd.edu
Location of Study: Sorrento, Italy
Program of Study: Sorrento Lingue
Sponsor(s): Mimi Ravarino

A brief personal bio:

I am a rising junior at the University of Notre Dame. I am majoring in Computer Science in the College of Engineering, and I have a secondary major in Italian Literature and Culture. I am also a member of the Italian club here at Notre Dame. This semester I am taking a course on Modern Italian Literature, but I have also taken Medieval Italian Literature as well as the introductory language courses. Before Notre Dame, I attended Conestoga High School in Berwyn, Pennsylvania where I also took Italian classes and was a member of the Italian club.

Why this summer language abroad opportunity is important to me:

The SLA Grant is important to me because it is giving me the opportunity to study abroad in Italy. I believe it is important for me to go to Italy because I do not think that someone can truly learn a language without being in the country where it is primarily spoken. I believe there are things I will learn in Italy that are beyond what can be learned in a typical classroom because body language, slang, and idiomatic phrases are all part of speaking a language, but can be difficult to learn unless you see them regularly applied in real life situations. My course schedule would not permit a semester study abroad, so this summer would be my last chance to go before I have to get an internship for my primary major. Without the SLA Grant, I would not have this opportunity to learn Italian in Italy.

What I hope to achieve as a result of this summer study abroad experience:

During this summer study abroad, I hope to improve my grasp of Italian so that I can communicate in academic, business, and social settings. I hope that my abroad experience will help me do this because I am going to stay with a host family and I will have an internship in addition to taking a class. I hope that I can shorten the time it takes for me to understand and respond in Italian when conversing with teachers, classmates, and colleagues. I also hope to come back with a better understanding of Italian culture and customs. I plan to gain this understanding by spending time with my host family, socializing with classmates and colleagues, and by getting out and trying different things in the community.

My specific learning goals for language and intercultural learning this summer:

By the end of the summer, I will start to be able to communicate in Italian without thinking of what I want to say in English.
At the end of the summer, I will have pushed myself beyond my comfort zone when interacting with locals both linguistically and culturally.
By the end of my time abroad, I will have made meaningful connections in Italian and I will maintain them through letters or e-mail.

My plan for maximizing my international language learning experience:

I plan to maximize my abroad experience by immediately getting involved in as many aspects of the community as possible. While I am taking classes in Italian, staying with a host family, and working as an intern, I also plan to join a gym. This will give me yet another opportunity to meet Italians, work on the language, and see another aspect of the culture. I plan to try the activities suggested for the journals I will be writing because I feel it’s likely they will push me beyond what I would normally be comfortable doing. Finally, I plan to take public transportation and try to talk to people on the bus or train because I think it will be a great way to practice using simple phrases in real life and real time situations.

Reflective Journal Entry 1:

I talked with my host family today about the differences in the school systems between Italy and the United States. Since my host sister is studying at the University of Naples Frederico II, we were able to compare the different ways our universities worked. For example, my host sister told me that many of her final exams are oral exams and that they can count for her entire grade. When I told her that many classes in the United States incorporate grades for homework and partecipation, she told her mother that school in the U.S. must be really easy.

When I asked about her younger brother’s schooling, I asked if he went to an all boys school. My host family didn’t even know what that was. Apparently they don’t exist in Italy. When I thought about this later, it made more sense to me because I get the feeling that private schools are less common in this area than they are at home.
While there are things about the U.S. that seem extremely different to my host family, some things are very much the same. For example, the members of my host family (and other Italians I’ve met) seem to be big fans of American films and television. I’ve learned that the dubbing industry is huge here because so much of the things they watch are originally done in English. In fact, since I’ve been here, I’ve come across my host brother watching a dubbed version of the Simpsons, and my host mother watching the food and travel channels with Italian voiceovers.

I love the host family experience. I feel like I’m learning so much more because of it. Part of the reason for that is that I can’t be afraid to try my Italian because while my host sister speaks English, my host mother has a very limited grasp of it, but it is also because I am constantly around it. If I had chosen to live in an apartment with other students I feel like I would most likely be speaking English the majority of the time because most of the students here are native English speakers.

Reflective Journal Entry 2:

I’ve been in Sorrento about two weeks now and I am really excited because my host family has said they have already seen a big improvement in my Italian. Spending time with my host family has been especially great because I have learned about things from them that I might not have thought about otherwise. For example, I went to see my 10 year old host brother play in a soccer game in the stadium where the Sorrento professional team plays. I don’t think I ever would have visited the stadium, but having done so, I realize how soccer is a major part of Italian culture. Since I am here during the Euro Cup, and since Italy is still competing, I obviously realized how important professional soccer is to the Italians (Everything and everyone stops to celebrate when Italy wins a game, and people will stand in the street watching the television if there is not room in the restaurant or bar), but I did not realize that soccer was so important for kids my host brother’s age (every single child in his school plays soccer, my host brother practices for hours everyday, and I don’t think he has ever played or considered another sport). When I asked if my host brother liked playing basketball or even volleyball (because I know they are some of the more popular sports after soccer), my host brother just looked confused and said, “I’ve never played, but its soccer. Why would I want to do anything else?” My host family just looked at me as if I was crazy. I then learned that, unlike where I grew up in the U.S. which has many different children’s leagues for different sports, Sorrento seems to only offer soccer. This really underlined the fact that, while in the U.S. there is not one main popular sport (while many people are diehard football fans, others like baseball or basketball, and some like them all), in Italy everyone is a soccer fan and then they may or may not be fans of other sports.

Reflective Journal Entry 3:

I was with a few friends from the Sorrento Lingue School and we met an Italian group of boys while we were out one night. After meeting up with them again a few times, one of them said, “Ti voglio bene” to one of my friends. When my friend asked me about it, I couldn’t remember what it meant. I knew it was I like you or I love you but I couldn’t remember which and I couldn’t remember in what way it should be understood. I asked my host mother about the phrase and she described it to me as being more than liking someone, but not loving someone romantically, but she struggled to explain it exactly. Both my host sister and one of the teachers at the school had a clearer explanation. They both explained that it was a phrase used to describe how siblings love each other or how you would love a parent or relation.

I find it interesting how the Italian language is so precise. While in English I would just tell my family I love them, saying ‘ti amo,’ the direct translation of ‘I love you,’ to them would be incorrect.

Another phrase that I’ve learned here is ‘che palle.’ I heard my host sister saying it when sitting down to lunch one day and I couldn’t understand what she meant. I had asked her how work had gone for her that day (she works on the days she doesn’t have class) and she had finished with that phrase at the end of her response. When I asked her about it, she responded by saying it was sort of like saying or groaning ‘oomph’ at the end of a long day. When I asked the teachers at the school about the phrase, they told me it could also mean something along the lines of ‘that sucks’ or even ‘yuck’ or ‘gross.’ I think its funny how I was just saying that the Italian language was more precise, and I now see how there are a ton of words in English for this one Italian phrase.

Reflective Journal Entry 4:

There’s a piazza here named after Torquato Tasso, the 16th century Italian poet. In this piazza, there is a Statue of Saint Antoninus, Sorrento’s patron saint.
It’s interesting to me because I realized that, at home, many street names and statues are of political figures like Washington or Jefferson or Ben Franklin (at least the statues put up by the city), in Italy there’s really a lot of pride in artists. I also think its interesting that patron saints are so prominent in Italy. It seems like every city, town, and region in Italy has a patron saint, everyone knows the story of the miracle they performed, and their feast days feature fairly large celebrations. The story of Saint Antoninus is that when a child had been eaten by a sea creature of some sort, Saint Antoninus was summoned and he convinced the creature to return the child. Saint Antoninus’s feast day is February the 14th and I was told that the entire town celebrates. While I expected religion to be prominent in Italy, I was surprised at how prominent it was. I think this was because of the differences from my previous experiences (not counting my time at Notre Dame). For example, if Philadelphia has a patron saint, I have no idea what it is and I had trouble finding it online.

Sorrento is also known for another religious celebration. My host family and I got to talking about the processions of Easter. Sorrento is very well known for their processions (taking place over Holy Thursday and Good Friday). On Thursday, white hooded figures led by a choir of women process throughout the town with two other choirs (one of children and one of adults). On Friday, the processors wear black and the women do not process. My host family has books about this and pictures of it around the house because it is a major part of life in Sorrento and it is a well known tradition of the city.

The only thing I can think of in the United States that is similar to these celebrations is the fourth of July (and the U.S. only has one), and even then I think the celebrations in Italy may be more elaborate.

Reflective Journal Entry 5:

While I’ve been in Italy, I have been able to travel to Capri (twice) and Positano as well as exploring Sorrento. Our group from the school all met up in Positano our first weekend. The bus ride was amazingly beautiful, if a little scary, and the city was gorgeous also. I am consistently amazed how, due to the steep coastline, everything is built on top of each other. We spent some time on the beach, did a little exploring and ate dinner together, and soon it was time to go back. The thing I didn’t think about was the climb back up! There were so many stairs!

My first day in Capri, I traveled with friends to Anacapri and took a chair lift to a high point on the island. It was incredibly beautiful and the ride up to the lift gave me an opportunity to see a lot of the island I probably would have missed. That same day we also got to visit the blue grotto. One of the oarsmen even let my friend swim in the water (unfortunately she got stung by a jellyfish, but she said she was still glad she did it)! I was really glad I got to see Anacapri on my first visit because, when my family came to visit, they stayed in the center of Capri.

With my family, I took a boat tour that explored the island. We were supposed to go to the blue grotto again, but the water was a little rough that day (luckily my family was able to go back and see it for themselves). It was great to be able to show my family what I had been learning, and I was really glad they got to experience some of my trip with me.

While in Capri, I learned that there was no freshwater source on the island, so pipes were laid under the ocean to send water from the mainland. Someone told me that people on the island save rain all year round so that they can grow the gorgeous plant life on the island.

Reflective Journal Entry 6:

My class at SASL (Sant’Anna Institute-Sorrento Lingue) was great. There was only one other person (who was also from Notre Dame), so we really got a lot of individual attention. The class was Medieval Italian Literature I (Dante taught in Italian) and I noticed the thing I notice a lot about teachers. My teacher Domenico was great because he was really enthusiastic about the subject matter. He liked and was interested in what he was teaching, and it definitely came through in his teaching.

I really enjoyed the class, and I feel that it was a great introduction course because it left me eager for more. Having enjoyed my first experience of La Divina Commedia I will definitely jump at the chance to take another class. I also noticed that it became easier for me to read Italian as the class continued. I found myself having to look up words less and I also found myself having to reread less because I was able to read for meaning the first time through instead of puzzling out grammar and vocabulary. If I ignore all that I learned about Dante during the course, I still feel it was beneficial because it helped my Italian reading skills.

I also did an internship at SASL. I was glad that I did this because I got an idea of the Italian work environment (at least at a school) while being able to continue working on my Italian. At my internship, I was able to combine my interests in computing, web design and photography with my being a native English speaker to work on SASL’s website, set up a daily photo blog, and help with the flow of Italian translated to English. After 5 weeks, I left SASL with 150 internship hours and a completed class, as well as new friends and an amazing host family.

Postcard(s) from Abroad:

Reflection on my language learning and intercultural gains:

I’m really glad that I was able to stay with a host family because I think that had the single largest impact on my spoken Italian. I think I really needed to experience that because it got me out of the habit of trying to make everything so perfect before I spoke. My first goal was definitely achieved. I still think in English for the majority of the time, but there were multiple moments when I noticed myself responding without translating. Those moments were amazing because I would be done speaking and realize that it felt just like thinking (not like thinking and translating). My second goal was also achieved because I definitely did some things that I would not normally do here (In the beginning I was shy of forcing people to speak in Italian with me by saying “possiamo parlare solo in italiano?,” or ‘can we speak only in Italian?), but by the end of my stay, I was able to joke around and explain that I wanted to practice. As for my third goal, I think that I will have to wait and see because it has only been a short time since I’ve returned.

Reflection on my summer language abroad experience overall:

I think being abroad changed me. I feel as if I had to become more independent. Since it was the first time I had ever traveled alone internationally, it was a new experience for me and I think it really helped me grow up. I think this summer changed my worldview in that I am now more aware (or maybe even aware period) of how other people in other cultures live and interact. A simple example of this would be the fruit in Italy. It’s picked fresh and ripe and sold locally, and you can notice the difference in taste instantly (I miss the fruit in Italy). Another would be that power and phone services are extremely expensive, and a third would be that recycling is the law, and it has to be separated. For those who are considering applying for an SLA Grant, I would definitely recommend a host family. With my host family, I was able to get a view of the town and culture that I would have missed otherwise, and I also felt that it really helped me improve my language skills because I was constantly surrounded.

How I plan to use my language and intercultural competences in the future: