Chi sono
Ciao, piacere, sono Elisa Borella!
Nata e cresciuta in un quartiere multiculturale della periferia milanese, sono madrelingua italiana e formatrice linguistica certificata (DITALS II) per l'italiano come lingua straniera.
Da anni, però, vivo e lavoro all'estero, dove sono felice di accompagnare le mie studentesse e i miei studenti di tutte le età, provenienze e livelli QCER nel loro percorso di scoperta e di apprendimento della lingua-cultura italiana, con professionalità, empatia e un sorriso sempre sulle labbra.
Un mosaico di esperienze
If at the beginning of my academic journey, many years ago now, I had been told that I would have been moving to Austria, that I would have been using German and English on a daily basis to work, as well as teaching Italian as a foreign language... I would have not believed it!
And instead this is my reality since 2015, when I had the opportunity to live the life-changing experience, of working as a Italian Assistant Teacher at a high school in Perth, Western Australia.
With a strong Linguistic and Language teaching instruction at Università Cattolica di Milano and Università per Stranieri di Siena, over the years I have collected many different experiences, teaching in private courses and cooperating at the same time with language schools (from Graz in Austria to Łódź in Poland), universities (FH Kärnten, KFU Graz) and cultural associations, such as the Società Dante Alighieri.
All this wealth of experience, exchange and mutual enrichment between colleagues and learners has strengthened my conviction that languages are the most effective tool for remaining active and curious, as well as creating more open-minded and aware citizens of the world. Preserving, promoting and spreading Italian language and culture abroad has thus become my personal small contribution to the more ambitious goal of facilitating intercultural exchange, seen as an opportunity for growth rather than a challenge not worth facing.
Years of experience
as language trainer and university lecturer
Italian courses
(online and onsite)
Italian courses for
universities abroad
Happy students
over the years
Countries of origin
of the students
over the years
5+
65+
30+
350+
22
Communicative effectiveness, flexibility, positive emotions
These three keywords represent my mantra for an effective and long-lasting teaching and learning of a foreign language, especially of Italian.
Having worked with university students, adults, seniors, families and high school pupils (my youngest student was 7 years old, while the oldest one was 83!), I had the opportunity to ask myself how to best support my learners. After many attempts, I came to the conclusion that:
-
language is a tool for inter-action, so our final goal (according to European guidelines in the matter) should not only be grammatical correctness or 'native speaker' pronunciation, but to be able to express ourselves effectively and to achieve our non-linguistic goals, meaning to move comfortably in a different language-cultural environment, without getting stuck or speechless;
-
not all teaching methods and techniques work with all groups of learners, but from all groups of learners it's always possible to learn something new: every situation is therefore a wonderful opportunity to improve ourselves, both as teachers and learners;
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languages are a powerful tool for (self-)determination, so it's crucial to avoid negative feelings (such as fear or stress) hindering our access to language. In this regard, making mistakes is part of the language acquisition process and learning from our mistakes is one of the most effective strategies to foster acceptance, both towards ourselves and towards others.
