'Poet of the day' competition to engage school kids
Patrick Atack
Europe;Italy
01:49

For three weeks, Italian schools have been closed and teachers have had to find alternative ways to teach children. 

For one English teacher CTN Europe spoke to, this challenge has been an enjoyable one – and allowed her and her colleagues to expand upon what they could otherwise ask students to achieve. 

For example, they now have longer between lessons (quite simply because it's "impossible to ask students to be in front of a screen for six hours"), so more extended projects are now a possibility. 

Isida Laci, from the locked-down "Red Zone" in the north of Italy, told CGTN Europe she set her class a three-stanza poem to write in English – with only the first line given to them. This is a new style of learning and teaching, Laci explained, which was the result of teachers meeting (via video call) and deciding how they could teach their pupils without adding to their stress levels.