Mi piace questo binario!

“I like this platform!” I learnt my first Italian sentence from Catherine, when she told me the story of her linguistic adventures on a trip to Italy before we’d met, let alone married. Imbued with beginner’s zeal she was determined to use what skill she had acquired in the language at every opportunity, including with unsuspecting strangers encountered in a railway station – any railway station… Funnily enough, family history does not record how the conversation developed after this powerful opening gambit. This film is dedicated to her inspirational enthusiasm.

Mi piace questo binario! from Gordon Wells on Vimeo.

A collaborative effort by participants in the recent POOLS-CX video workshop for language teachers, held in Pistoia, Italy. We aimed to teach each other something of our own languages, while learning how to make videos at the same time. Would anyone care to count the number of languages used – and identify them all? And can you identify the locations – other than Pistoia itself?

Once again we are indebted to the Italian Dub Community for the Creative Commons licensed music. It gives a necessarily patchwork film some kind of narrative unity and direction!