Search

Copyright of Nuova Secondaria is the property of Edizioni Studium S.r.l and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper deals with the use of fairy tales as a tool for early foreign language teaching. In order for the storytelling in a foreign language to be effective, tales need to be comprehensible in terms of both narrative and linguistic style. Since comprehension also involves cognitive abilities that vary according to the pupils' age, teachers need specific methodological guidelines to enhance comprehension at an early age. This paper could be divided into two parts. The first section is devoted to a general outline of both children's narrative competence and the textual features of traditional fairy tales. The second part provides some general guidelines to enhance the comprehension of a fairy tale by simplifying its narrative structure and linguistic style. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with some theoretical issues regarding the epistemology of Language Teaching Methodology. According to an Italian research tradition, Language Teaching Methodology is based on the principle of implication, which is sometimes misinterpreted as a one-way path that starts from theories -- mostly borrowed from other science fields -- and leads to practical resources and guidelines. On the contrary, this paper will show that research in Language Teaching Methodology follows a two-way path that leads not only to practical tools but also to theoretical principles that are specific to this research area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of foreign language teaching is currently exploring the benefits of new methods and pedagogical approaches, among them CLIL (Content and Language Integrating Learning). Recent approaches give priority to tasks which are both content and language oriented and the challenge for foreign language teaching is to find tasks which motivate learners to use the target language but which also give them a fair chance to learn to cognitively cope with the content subject and the language forms which they find themselves confronted with. Developing and using effective tasks and activities is a priority for the CLIL methodology. This paper firstly outlines the use of tasks and activities in a CLIL environment with particular attention to those that promote students' oral skills. Then the paper reports on an analysis of videos of ten CLIL lessons with the aim of evaluating tasks and activities designed in the context of CLIL classes of secondary schools of the Veneto region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyse the effectiveness of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) as an educational approach in teaching Italian as a second language to immigrant students. Moving from the consideration that many young and adult immigrants have trouble in going beyond an instrumental use of the Italian language, the paper highlights the advantages of CLIL in order to promote in immigrant students both the cognitive academic language proficiency (or CALP, according to Cummins' definition) and the intercultural awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the outcome of an experiment conducted in 2011 with Italian students of Spanish L2 and German L2 attending the MA course in Modern European and American Languages and Literatures at the Faculty of Arts (University of Florence, Italy). The aim was to study the connexion between linguistic-textual consciousness and translation competence, foregrounding lexical and syntactic difficulties and strategies applied in L2-L1 translation of descriptive informative texts published on the website of the European Union. On the basis of the results, useful advice for teaching translation into Spanish L2 and German L2 is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of the new information and communication technologies (NTIC) in higher education constitutes a challenge for university institutions and deserves maximum integration in the planning of teaching programmes. In this short paper we will evaluate the use of blended syllabuses in language learning, which, thanks to the web, allows us to combine both traditional and innovative approaches: the combination of visual information, up-to-date subject material, and the novelty of the medium has become increasingly attractive to both learners and teachers. We have also analysed some on-line materials which could be an important support in the teaching of Spanish for special purposes. However, this has led us to create learning paths due to the lack of structured material so far available for this sector of learning. In particular we will examine some projects in blended learning for use on the Moodle-Sapienza platform, directed at our own students of Economics. We hope that these efforts in extending traditional methods will continue to be supported by the University authorities, support which is essential for any lasting improvements in didactic relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we assess the effectiveness of a set of tasks specifically devised for elicitating two Italian interlanguage structures, namely passive and object topicalisation. These structures occur rarely in natural conversations because they are highly dependent on discourse-pragmatic choices. Therefore, in order to ensure good data density we cannot rely on naturally occurring speech, and need an elicitation instrument that prevents learners from choosing options other than the targeted ones, After briefly presenting the structures and the task design, we discuss the results of the validation procedure showing the strengths and weaknesses of our elicitation instrument. On the basis of the results, we suggest how it could be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the different roles that linguistics and psycholinguistics may assume when applied to foreign language teaching at school. Both disciplines are useful and necessary for language teaching: applied psycholinguistics plays a role in developing language teaching activities and strategies, while applied linguistics may be used for assessing the learner's language competence, for evaluating the teaching process. We discuss this point by describing a study regarding an experimentation in which developmental psycholinguistics offered the way of teaching and applied linguistics the evaluation analysis of first and second graders' linguistic production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After reporting briefly on the difficulties in the development of Translation Theory as a bottom-up science within the Italian academic system, this paper focuses on a recent theoretical model of human translation processes which aims to be universal, economical, testable, and both internally and externally consistent. The model offers a single macro-parameter to be used in the decision making process by the translator's "internal ear" selecting the L2 f-equivalent of any minimal translation L1 unit. A serendipitous application of the model in Foreign Language Teaching is then discussed which shows, in the case of beginners, the existence of a significant cognitive difference between oral, simultaneous translation/switching and the old-fashioned method of written, mechanical "translation" (the latter having reasonably been rejected in contemporary pedagogical theories). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the foundations of the "Science of Language Education" with special reference to the trends and tensions in Italian academic circles. In particular, it reaffirms a clear-cut distinction between Applied Linguistics, on one hand, and Glottodidactics / Language Education / Language Pedagogy / Educational Linguistics etc. on the other hand. Different labels reflect different outlooks and major epistemological distinctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The practice of using translation in language teaching has recently regained respectability as an eminently communicative activity, being expected to enhance L2 acquisition. However, if several theoretical assumptions are indeed rehabilitating this technique, the practical, and above all experimental front is still seeking attention. This paper offers three teaching sequences centred on pedagogical translation and, in particular, prose aimed at Anglophone learners reading any subject at University level It will be suggested that the prose class, by allowing to objectify the process of transferring meaning from L1 to L2, is an irreplaceable pedagogical tool leading to complex interlinguistic evaluations. The directional asymmetry it entails is a resource not to be overlooked even within a bilingual and bicultural syllabus targeting lower levels of competence (A1-B1). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a social environment marked by constant change, the role and functions of teaching have to adapt to the learners' requirements and needs regarding acquisition and learning. This paper offers reflections and working suggestions to facilitate the teachers' assumption of an active and interactive role and the inclusion of their subjectivity into class dynamics and learning processes. The focus is on methodological suggestions that can be useful both in teaching and in the relational/behavioural management of the class as a group. The aim is to improve the students' involvement and performance by favouring an "atmosphere of work" suitable to building up personal profiles marked by commitment, intrinsic motivation and responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following an ecological approach, this paper discusses the results of a research in the field of new technologies applied to language teaching based on project work. Great investments are made in this field and they concentrate more on the infrastructure and the instructive software, therefore it is necessary for the research to focus on the quality of the educative environment related to new technologies and on the real learning opportunities that such environment can offer. Results of this study demonstrate that help of new technologies and teaching based on project work produce very interesting effects, like collaboration, creativity and autonomy, taking in correct consideration the space, the social and cultural context. So, in the analysed extracts, it is possible to see different growth indicators of the L2: in terms of self-construction in respect to others, of ability to create social relations, to assume role, to interact with environments different from that of instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After a brief discussion of "CLIL as a vogue term", with all the liabilities that plague good concepts when they become fashionable, and after the consequent distinction between true and false CLIL, the paper argues that true CLIL gives teachers an excellent opportunity to overcome the traditional view that tends to equate language learning with learning the grammar of that language. Lexical matters, at various levels of complexity, are so relevant in CLIL that only a Lexical Approach (again, if properly understood) appears to be adequate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we want to focus on the so called "vehicular use of second languages" -- i.e. the use of a second language in teaching knowledge in different fields --, in order to evaluate its effectiveness as an educational approach in early foreign language teaching. We will analyse the advantages of the vehicular use of languages in the perspective of teaching languages in the kindergarten school, considering in particular the parallelism between first and second language acquisition. Then, we will suggest some practical considerations to follow and implement this approach, also illustrating a concrete experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the light of prototype theory and of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies on bilinguals' phonetic and phonological systems, the present article discusses the developmental aspects of L1 and L2 perception and production, with particular reference to vowels, as vowels are inherently more susceptible to modification or cross-language influence than consonants. It then investigates what happens in monolingual and bilingual infant minds before the age of three, identifying the mechanisms which enable young children to learn how to "translate" perceived acoustic (i.e. physical) sounds into linguistic items and to produce them correctly in L1 and L2. At last the paper describes the phonetic and phonological development of a particular case of "late" early German-Italian bilingualism, in a child raised bilingually after the age of three, when still at a pre-school age but after having reached a high level of phonetic and phonological competence in L1 on which a "new" (L2-specific) sound-system is being built. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an interplay of nodes and links -- as in the web -- this paper connects heuristic suggestions from a wide range of different theoretical sources (neuroscience, cognitive and social psychology, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, etc.) with learner-centred approaches to language teaching. It focuses, in particular, on a multidimensional approach suited to children aged 3-5, which includes techniques and strategies intended to promote intercultural awareness and plurilingualism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to show how primary schools can effectively teach foreign languages, starting from the pragmatic and textual skills already acquired by the children in their native language. Following a psycholinguistic perspective for early learning of L2 and taking into account the articulated communicative activities of young children in different contexts of situation, format has been found to be one of the most useful approaches. It is therefore beneficial for exposure to a foreign language to include child-teacher interaction in such a way as to follow those same stages of language development: play as an activity governed by rules, the routine of operations shared between adult and child in day-to-day life, speech acts, performative utterances and regulatory, descriptive and narrative texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The feelings which are at the roots of the actions are linked to the precocious achievement of the reflective function. The mind is predisposed to translate the experience into narrative terms, thanks to a specific form of reasoning: the narrative thought. Children take up early a narrative perspective by using specific linguistic, cognitive and emotive modalities. At the primary school the first approach to the symbolic systems belongs to those activities included in the "fields of experience": speeches and words, media, the body and its movements as it is described in the first part of this paper. The second part describes a multimedia project which integrates what is learnt at school with other specifications provided for by the reform, it represents one of the possible ways towards a change of the educational offer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on some important neurolinguistic principles connected to foreign language teaching. Individual differences in learning a L2 are considered, starting from Penfield's studies to Michel Paradis' researches. The theme of bi/multilingual education psychology is also taken into account, focusing on the opinions in favour and against it, and on bilingualism in school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes an experimental project carried out in 1998-2001 and which is still going on, on larger bases, after the results of the experimental phase which is discussed here. In the Province of Trento, which has a high degree of autonomy including school regulations and curricula, the Provincial Federation of Kindergartens has decided to experiment the teaching of German or English in some schools, according to the following principles: considering language as a formative, not just instrumental, subject; making language acquisition/teaching as natural as possible, through careful consideration of the neuro- and psycholinguistic features of children aged 3-5; experimenting new operational models, without importing at kindergarten level the techniques which are already widespread for primary schools; checking results scientifically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the first national project promoted by the Italian M.P.I. in 1996 and is organised in three parts. The first focuses on the history of the project and presents its aims, features and first results. The second part provides reflections and examples, while the last one points out some critical issues in the teaching a second language in "scuola dell'infanzia". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Definition is an elusive word, which may refer to both the process of defining and to each of the results of such a process. In foreign language teaching, a lot of attention has traditionally been devoted to word-formation, borrowing and calques, as well as to the formal aspects of terminology. In the light of recent methodological advances, this paper aims at showing how important it is to raise the learners' awareness of the relationships between terms and the concepts they stand for, primarily--but by no means exclusively--in the language(s) of science and technology. In the quest for meaningfulness and naturalness, the text (as opposed to the word, phrase or sentence) stands out as the primary unit and as the starting point; one common way of processing a foreign text in everyday life is translating it, and translation into the learner's mother tongue is regarded as a viable testing tool, as long as it is dealt with as a pragmatically valid type of paraphrase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]