3.

Saturday 14th May: “and with hair, sir, like a cock’s comb”

Three Gentlemen of Verona 1.ii

Rovigo (about an hour’s rail journey south of Treviso) doesn’t have a great deal to commend it – it therefore seemed generally quite appropriate that it’s twinned with Bedford. It’s also telling during exams when you ask learners to give details about places around their town and the only things they list are various squares, e.g. ‘Piazza Garibaldi’ and ‘Piazza Victor Emmanuel II ’. Curiously only one candidate out of many mentioned the castle, or the twin tower remains of it (pictured). However, in the spirit of educational enquiry, I sought to compare Rovigo and Bedford, and found interesting results:

Rovigo, Italy Bedford, UK

Earliest recording of town from 838 Earliest recording or town from 796

Seat of Count of Rovigo 1194 Seat of Baron of Bedford 919

10th c. castle of which two towers remain 10th c. castle of which a mound remains

Cathedral build in 10^th c. rebuilt in 17^th Principle church built in 10^th c. rebuilt 19^th

Connected by railway in 1866 Connected by railway in 1846

I’ve also learnt that owing to a mass migration of southern Italian brick workers in the mid 20^th century, 30% the population of Bedford are of at least partial Italian descent. What you uncover, eh?

The candidates are curious creatures, either helping the day go by with unusual responses or making it drag by forcing you to extract each language item utterance by utterance as you might try to get blood from the proverbial stone. One candidate had prepared a topic on his recent trip to London:

Ben: What did you see in London?

Candidate: Big Ben, Beckingham Palace, the Naturist Museum and Tower Luigi.

So surprised I was at the Palace and Naturist Museum (I didn’t even know London had one, such is the obviously sheltered life I lead), that I didn’t stop to question where, or exactly what, Tower Luigi is.

Grade 4 requires learners to come up with pretty simple stuff, using language such as ‘going to’ for future plans and the simple past for, well, the past. Ideal topics are things like ‘my family’, ‘holidays’ and ‘my hobby’ as the level of language doesn’t allow for much else, certainly not topics encompassing the realm of mediums and regressive hypnosis. One candidate made a valiant attempt at how some “esoteric books” had helped her come to terms with being one of the many drowned in the Titanic incident, but she wasn’t really equipped for it linguistically. You have a go at it without the present and past perfect.

Then there’s also the old favourite of chickens and kitchens. Two words you wouldn’t imagine could be mixed up, but for Italians, it’s pretty much a dead cert. So you’ve got low level young kids who respond to animals (common pets and farmyard animals) you’ve pointed at. You point at a chicken and they respond with either ‘chicken’, ‘hen’, ‘kitchen’ or ‘cock’, and you can never be sure which you’re going to get. I had a disappointing run of chickens on my first morning’s examining in Treviso, but then got a load of ‘kitchens’ for the rest of day, punctuated every now and then with the odd ‘cock’, just to liven things up a bit. And once the candidate has used the language, it’s often easier to stick with it then try and correct them mid-exam:

Ben: What’s this?

Candidate: cock.

Ben: And where’s the cock? Etc. etc.

Next stop Milan and Verona.