Miami Palmetto Senior High (MPSH) takes enormous pride in its foreign language curriculums. Such programs not only provide students with the chance to perfect a new language, but also the opportunity to immerse themselves into a culture different from their own. Moreover, the responsibility of ensuring that students can learn a foreign language in an engaging environment to the best of their abilities falls to dedicated teachers like Dr. Natalia Gionta, who is the head of the Italian curriculum teaching for Italian I to AP Italian. As a native-born Italian, Dr. Gionta has worked extremely hard to teach students about her home country through her classes and the Italian Honor Society, an organization that she has headed for quite a number of years.
However, Dr. Gionta believed that not many of her students realized the significance of utilizing Italian as a tool in today’s global economy. Italy has always been famous for its delicious dishes and locations of priceless cultural value, but by importing and exporting goods Italy has established itself as a global economic power. Fashion, jewelry, furniture, automobiles, and medical technology form only a part of the fields in which Italian goods possess a dominance, and Dr. Gionta had been looking for a way to inform her students about this phenomenon. As a result, she decided to organize a conference hosted by MPSH to raise awareness of Italy’s power in worldwide commerce.
The conference named “Why Italian?” took place on January 18 in the MPSH auditorium, where the weeklong efforts of Dr. Gionta and multiple members of the Italian Honor Society came together to host students from MPSH and four other schools from Miami Dade County. For the first time, all the Italian entities of Miami joined together and during the conference we had the presence of Mrs. Gloria Marina Bellelli (Italian Consul of Miami), Mr. Lucio Taglione (Vice Italian Consul of Miami), Ms. Serafina Di Rosa (Education Director at the Italian Consulate), Mr. Roberto Tagliero (the Commerce Director of the Italian Consulate) Dr. Antonello Di Giovanni (from the Italian American Chamber of Commerce), Cav. Luigi Bava (President of ODLI, i.e. Organization of the Diffusion of Italian Language), Cav. Claudio Pastor (director of the Societa Dante Alighieri, i.e. Italian Cultural Center), Dr. Magda Novelli Pearson (from FIU, i.e. Florida International University Italian professor), Dr. Antonietta Di Pietro (President of FATI, i.e. Florida Association Italian Teacher), Mrs. Svenia Hammerstein (representative of IIPA, i.e. Italian International Parents Association).
The presence of these important people emphasized the relevance of the event within the Italian community of South Florida, and the conference started as Dr. Gionta explained the main premise of her project. Then, Ms. Dobbs (MPSH Principal) and Mrs. Gloria Marina Bellelli greeted the audience consecutively. Following this, the Italian Honor Society president Diego Ventosa proceeded to conduct a presentation (created by vice-president Nick Marquez) on the worldwide importance and influence of Italian commerce.
The conference also presented testimonials from individuals presented by Cav. Claudio Pastor who highlighted the phenomenon of people who study Italian as adults for professional reasons at Dante Alighieri. Some of the live testimonials were from Elise Kramer, Carmen Guerrero, Patrizia Pluchino, Joanne Tedone. MPSH was also honored to have a live testimonial from former student Elcira Verenice and video testimonial from Cristina Danies. There were other videos from Krystel Medico, student from ISCHS and Sofia Castañeda, students from ISPA. All these testimonials have used Italian in their careers thanks to their knowledge of the Italian language. Then FIU Italian professor Dr. Magda Novelli Pearson informed the audience about the Italian minor at FIU and Cav. Luigi Bava gave a speech on the different opportunities to study Italian across the state of Florida. The list of influential characters did not stop as consulate representative Ms. Serenella Di Rosa told students about the opportunity of continuing their university studies in Italy. Lastly the IIPA provided each teacher that attended with a basket composed of Italian goodies to share with their students.
This conference has inspired Italian institutions to repeat this experience in other Miami Dade County Public schools as an example of an initiative whose goal is to support and promote the Italian language and AP Italian exam. The video of this conference will also be sent to the Italian embassy in Washington, D.C. as an example of a pilot project that could be used as a model.
