Buongiorno tutti, mi chiamo Katarina Nguyen e sono il vostro ambasciatore italiano per il 2019!

Hello everyone, my name is Katarina Nguyen and I am your Italian Ambassador for 2019! I am very excited to be your Italian Ambassador and to work with the other Language Ambassadors to promote the benefits of languages to our College. In the past terms, I have been working with the Japanese and German Ambassadors in awarding many students across many year levels for their outstanding efforts in their language classes. We have also been to many assemblies to promote our leadership role because this is the first year that Language Ambassador is introduced to the College. Moreover, we have tried to encourage more students into continuing or recommencing a second language and offer them advice on which language to do and how to learn it effectively. In particularly, I have talked to many Year 10s who were thinking of studying Italian so they can have a better idea of what the course will look like, since Italian starts in Year 10. I have also been able to meet and spend time with the Italian students who came to the College early in Term 1, who came for a short term exchange program.

Although I only did Italian for 2 years, I have really enjoyed learning it and I have really fallen in love with the language and the culture. Learning Italian has benefited me in many ways, it has allowed me to make more friends and learn more about the Italian culture. For example, the picture above was taken with our Italian friends, Lucrezia Marcelli and Aurora Garrone. They were here for a term exchange and I have got the chance to make friends and hang out with them during the time they were here. They have also helped me a lot with my Italian. They are very special memories to me and although they have left, we are still contacting each other. It was definitely challenging sometimes, especially with the grammar because Italian grammar are very diverse and complicated since everything has gender. However, I found the gender on objects very interesting and after a while, I got used to it, so it was not hard anymore. As a person who has learned 2 second languages, I can tell you that knowing another language is so helpful and interesting. You cannot see the full benefits of it until you do it and get into a situation where you have to use it. Therefore, just give it a try, it does not have to be Italian, it can be any language that you like!

It is nearly the end of my role being you Italian Ambassador for this year and I am very proud of what the other Language Ambassadors and I have done this year. We hope that the next Language Ambassadors will continue the work we have done to promote the languages at Woodcroft College. I have really enjoyed being you Italian Ambassador for 2019, thank you very much!

Grazie mille,
Katarina Nguyen