I am always telling my students how effective writing is to improve the mastery of the language we are studying and to enhance our confidence. In fact, through writing we can improve our sentence construction, our grammar and expand our vocabulary at all Italian levels. As in Italian we use the present tense to talk not only about the present but also about our immediate and planned future, beginners can keep a journal and write about their daily activities, holidays or Christmas’ plans. In this way there won’t ever be the problem of ‘what should I write about?’ as we always know what we are going to do tomorrow or how we are going to cook our turkey next Christmas. The more we write the faster we improve. Mistakes will get fewer and fewer and we will improve our speaking, too. In fact, the more frequently we write the more we get confident when we talk about the topics we wrote on.
Those who are at a more advanced level and have a weakness should work on it through writing in order to get rid off the problem. Writing, in fact, helps to ‘dig’ the famous pathways about which I have recently posted: italiancork.com/la-goccia-scava-la-roccia/ . My friend and student (the famous Maria) wrote many many sentences with the hypothetical construction, talking about her life; linking our learning to something meaningful and dear to us makes our learning even more effective. This is why I suggested that she should write about her life ‘Se non avessi incontrato mio marito…’ (If I had not met my husband…); this is a wonderful example of hypothetical construction and also such a meaningful topic for her to write about.
It is true that writing takes time, indeed, but it is worth it, trust me. Write regularly, an 80/100 (beginners-lower intermediate) 150/200 (intermediate and upper intermediate) 250/300 (advanced-fluent) word essay a week or every 10 days. It pays off, believe me. Send your writing to me on carolina@italiancork.com and I will be happy to check it for you!