Friends meet face to face in Italy-U.S.A. exchange
BY LARRY HLAVENKA JR.
Staff Writer

FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP — Bring 20 Italian high school students to the United States and they can’t believe how warm and amicable Americans are compared to Italians.

Go figure.

On Nov. 30, 20 girls from Milan, Italy, came to the Freehold Township High School Italian Honors classes as part of an e-mail pen-pal program orchestrated by their teachers and FTHS teacher Mary Louise McGrath-Costantini.

The girls spent most of their two weeks in America visiting a high school in Staten Island, N.Y., but through the connections of Costantini, they made their way to FTHS as well.

Costantini taught English in Italy for 19 years at the school from which the visitors came. She has remained in contact with her former colleagues, Giulia Mastrapasqua and Virginia Voltones, and through them began the pen-pal program. When the Italian girls were slated to come to Staten Island, one of Costantini’s students offered his father’s limousine service to bring the girls to FTHS.

As her students conversed with their pen-pals in person on Nov. 30, Costantini described the effect it will have on her students.

“They see real-life Italians of their age,” she said. “It’s a cultural exchange — they learn theory, language, so they can put some of the language in practice.”

Costantini said the students from both countries realized significant differences.

For instance, when the students discussed weekend activities, Costantini said the FTHS students found out their Italian counterparts only go out one night a week. They have school on Saturday.

As FTHS students buzzed about their driving licenses, the Italian girls explained they had little need for one, since they live in a city.

Furthermore, despite the high level foreign language class, the FTHS students’ grasp of the Italian language could not compare with the Italians’ use of English — with good reason.

“They have been learning English since elementary school,” Costantini said.

With that in mind, Costantini believes American schools need to start teaching foreign languages much earlier than is presently done.

Through no fault of teachers or students, due to lapses in English grammar, many American students struggle with grasping the appropriate grammar of an entirely different language.

“When we teach grammar, the kids sometimes don’t know what a part of speech is,” she said. “They don’t know what an article is or what past perfect tense is because they don’t use it in the language here in the U.S.”

Regardless, the students from both countries conversed freely to the delight of the Italian teachers, especially Mastrapasqua.

“For our students this has been a very great, very interesting part of their life,” she said. “A great experience they were longing for.”

In fact, for Mastrapasqua, Voltones and most of the students, it was their first trip to the United States.

One of those students, Francesca, did not want to go back to Italy.

“I don’t want to leave here,” she said. “I am proud to be here because when I was young I wanted to come to the USA. It’s a different way of seeing the world. I love American people — you are friends.”

Another student, Roberta, agreed.

“This is a great experience because I have met my pen friend and it is fantastic,” she said. “I have already learned very much about different cultures.”

FTHS student Alex Hurwitz shared the visitors’ excitement.

“I think it’s a really cool experience because we learn so much about their culture and their school,” she said. “They go to discos, the movies, a lot of similar [activities], but a lot of differences.”

The FTHS students said they would love to travel to Italy and see their pen-pals’ school.

Although that may not happen, Foreign Languages supervisor Ina Gurman said this experience was memorable.

“This is why we study because language is very personal,” Gurman said. “To connect with students they have written to is wonderful — they can become lifetime friends.”