Thursday,
January 17, 2008
The
ANNOTICO Report
The
Italian Sons and Daughters of Italy were instrumental in the founding.
The Hammonton News
By Ben Meritt
Staff Writer
Jan 16, 2008
HAMMONTON --
Interested in exploring the Italian language and culture? The
And Hammonton is
the place for the center, said its founder, Antonina Bellesorte.
What better place
for a school that celebrates all things Italian than in the town that,
according to the 2000 census, had more Italians per capita than any other town
in the country?
Bellesorte said she is close to
relocating the school to the Italian Sons and Daughters of Italy headquarters
at
Hammonton Town
Council member Tracy Petrongolo is helping Bellesorte find another facility for the school, one that
could possibly be the center's permanent home.
Classes in
Hammonton begin Jan. 24, Bellesorte said.
"I started
out in
She said the
cultural aspect is what separates her school from a course at a community college.
"Our
philosophy at Pinetina is you shouldn't learn the
language without the culture," Bellesorte said.
"You should know where your dialects came from. You should know why you
say a word a certain way."
Bellesorte said Pinetina's
small class sizes are conducive to better comprehension of the lessons.
"You cannot
really learn basic conversation when you are in a classroom with 10 to 20
people. You learn best after a certain age -- a mature age," Bellesorte said. "If you keep a class at four to six
people, it's really semi-private. Then you are really going to be
successful."
Brimming with
enthusiasm, Bellesorte has a simple goal for her
center, which celebrates its four-year anniversary this spring.
"Once you
know how you sound, how you do it, it becomes a passion. It's
how you communicate with someone else," Bellesorte
said. "It's imperative that the children, especially, learn how and where
they came from. That to me is really mandatory."
Bellesorte is a graduate of
In 1968, after
many years of English classes at both the elementary and high school, Bellesorte came back.
The classes at Pinetina, which means "small pine forest" in
Italian, are open to everyone.
"You don't
have to be Italian to love this culture," Bellesorte
said.
In addition to
language, Pinetina features culinary arts classes,
travel to
Bellesorte said learning the Italian
language -- especially for the children -- is important to her.
"I really do
specialize in the children's program first. They are our future," Bellesorte said. "They don't have Italian in the
schools, so they almost don't have permission to say its
OK to learn about my culture other than what the parents can do, and sometimes
the parents don't know."
Gannett News
Service contributed to this report.
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