Conte grew up in England, and studied Italian, French and German before completing a languages degree at university.
While she pursued a different career path for a few years, her interest in foreign languages remained, and soon after she began to teach English in Taiwan.
She then settled in Canberra and began studying education.
Now, Conte is an Italian teacher at St Clare’s College, in Canberra– a female Catholic high school that has around 1000 students.
“Whenever possible, I try to combine practical experiences that relate to the themes we’re discussing in class,” she says.
For example, when her students started studying Italian food and the related vocabulary, Conte took them to a Calabrian cooking lesson, where the girls made arancini and liquorice gelato.
Conte’s students after their Calabrian cooking lesson
“I also like to include a lot of games when I teach, because the students learn more when they have fun,” Conte adds.
“I have the Italian version of games such as Pictionary or Taboo, but the girls really enjoy Bingo, too.”
Utilising tools like board games or flashcards, Conte introduces her students to grammatical concepts, proper sentence structure and vocabulary lists.
“I always use four of five categories, including nouns, things, cities, foods and verbs, as well as the topic we’re discussing in class at that time,” Conte says.
To assist her students with aural training, Conte employs the use of YouTube, along with the audio supplied with the requisite textbooks.
“We’re fortunate to have help from the Dante Alighieri Society,” she says.
“It’s great for the girls to hear a native speaker talk to them.”
Having native speakers come in to talk to the students also allows the girls to learn colloquial expressions that they would not find in their textbooks and gives them an insight into the phrasing and musicality of the Italian language.
