New Approaches to Teaching

Italian Language and Culture

 New Approaches to Teaching
Italian Language and Culture:
Case Studies from an International Perspective

Edited by

Emanuele Occhipinti

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

 New Approaches to Teaching Italian Language and Culture: Case Studies from an International
Perspective, Edited by Emanuele Occhipinti

This book first published 2008 by

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2008 by Emanuele Occhipinti and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-84718-638-6, ISBN (13): 9781847186386

In loving memory of my mother Lina and my brother Massimo.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables and Figures .......................................................................... xi

Introduction ................................................................................................. 1
Emanuele Occhipinti

Part I: Curricular Innovations

Chapter One .......................................................................................... 12

Eliminating the “Gap” Through Curricular Innovation
Janice M. Aski and Heather Webb

Chapter Two ......................................................................................... 40

Task-based Instruction of Intermediate Italian:
A Research-supported Model
Tom Means

Chapter Three ....................................................................................... 62

What Can Be Obtained From Project Work? A Case Study
Assunta Giuseppina Zedda

Chapter Four ......................................................................................... 84

The Conversation Hour: The Making of an Experiment
Simona Wright

Chapter Five ....................................................................................... 119

Teaching Learnable Grammar
Camilla Bettoni and Bruno Di Biase
viii Table of Contents

Part II: Teaching Italian with Technology

Chapter Six ......................................................................................... 140

Enhancing the Student Experience Through Technology:
Making Language Learning More Meaningful through
a Departmental VLE
Clelia Boscolo, Alison Davies, Kelly Smith

Chapter Seven..................................................................................... 158

Azione! Teaching Listening Skills Through Video:
A Web-based Program of Film and Television Segments Designed
for Italian Language Courses at Yale University
Amelia Moser

Chapter Eight ...................................................................................... 173

Confronting New Technologies: a Cross-Cultural Telecollaborative
Project across the Ocean
Silvia Carlorosi, Francesca Helm, Nicoletta Marini-Maio,
Kathryn K McMahon

Chapter Nine....................................................................................... 210

Podcasting and iPod in Teaching and Learning Italian Language,
Culture and Literature: a Research Study at Université de Montréal,
Canada
Jacqueline Samperi Mangan

Part III: Teaching Italian Translation

Chapter Ten ........................................................................................ 226

Teaching Italian Translation: a Challenge
Luciana d’Arcangeli

Chapter Eleven.................................................................................... 247

Translation in Teaching Italian as L2: Evolution or Involution?
Sandro Sciutti
 New Approaches to Teaching Italian Language and Culture ix

Chapter Twelve................................................................................... 269

Words don’t come easy… Especially during Exams! The Importance
of Adopting a Didactic Translation Methodology in the Context
of the 2001 Italian University Reform
Maria Cristina Cignatta

Chapter Thirteen ................................................................................. 293

Teaching Italian as a Foreign Language for Academic
and Professional Purposes. Juridical and Informative Language.
Teaching Suggestions for Students and Legal Professionals
Manuela Visigalli

Part IV: Teaching Italian Culture

Chapter Fourteen ................................................................................ 314

Visual Literacy: Teaching Italian Culture Through Images
Daniela Bartalesi-Graf

Chapter Fifteen ................................................................................... 350

A Visual Socio-Cultural Approach to Italian Women’s Studies
Flavia Laviosa

Chapter Sixteen................................................................................... 373

Building an Intercultural Identity in a Cross-cultural Transition:
A Short Term Stay case study
Barbara Spinelli, Roberto Dolci

Chapter Seventeen .............................................................................. 403

Evaluating Cultural Proficiency in an Upper Level Italian Culture
Course
Romana Capek-Habeković, Sandra Palaich

Chapter Eighteen ................................................................................ 431

Cultural Acquisition and Language Learning: The IVC,
Chiavi Di Lettura Project
Christine Ristaino, Judith Raggi-Moore

Chapter Nineteen ................................................................................ 444

From the Past to the Present: History of the Italian Culture
Nicla Riverso
x Table of Contents

Part V: Teaching Italian Culture Through Film

Chapter Twenty .................................................................................. 468

Italian Language and Culture in Close-Up: Using Film at All Levels
of Proficiency
Kerstin Pilz

Chapter Twenty-One........................................................................... 498

Teaching Visual Thinking, In and Out of the Italian Canon
Thomas Erling Peterson

Chapter Twenty-Two.......................................................................... 519

Memory on the Margins: Reflections on Italy (1938-1943)
in Scola’s Una giornata Particolare & Ozpetek’s La Finestra
di Fronte
Mary Ann McDonald Carolan

Part VI: Teaching Italian Culture Through Songs

Chapter Twenty-Three........................................................................ 540

Teaching Italian Culture Through Songs: “non solo canzonette”
Paola Vettorel

Chapter Twenty-Four.......................................................................... 565

Italian Freaks and Punks: History of Italian Culture from 1950s
to 2005 Retold by Protest Songs
Silvia Boero

Contributors............................................................................................. 591
 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1-1. Side by side comparison of the old and new curriculum at OSU . 18

Table 1-2. Distribution of grammar points throughout the curriculum.. 20-1

Table 2-1. Input-heavy TBI ...................................................................... 43

Table 2-2. Types of instruction presented in this chapter ......................... 45

Table 2-3. Units of analysis presented in this chapter............................... 46

Table 3-1. Outcomes of PBL .................................................................... 67

Table 3-2. Functional analysis .................................................................. 70

Table 3-3. Transcript of the telephone call "Printer's" ........................... 76-7

Table 3-4. Analysis of functions, acts and expressions

with key words .................................................................................... 79-81

Table 4-1. Students vs. Population of Students......................................... 99

Table 5-1. Developmental stages according to Processability Theory.... 123

Table 5-2. Italian Noun and Adjective forms (major classes only)......... 129

Table 5-3. Excerpt of form focused instruction schedule ....................... 131

Table 5-4. Time 1: Production of plural forms (out of about 20 chances) 135

Table 5-5. Time 2: Production of plural forms (out of about 20 chances). 136
xii List of Tables and Figures

Table 5-6. Time 2: Production of phrasal plural agreement.................... 137

Figure 6-1. An example of an early stage short-answer question

presented through WebCT showing the use of colourful images
to illustrate grammatical concepts ........................................................... 148

Figure 6-2a. An early, original diary entry (two months into the course)
entered into WebCT by a student ............................................................ 150

Figure 6-2b. The same diary entry corrected and commented on by the
educator. Note the use of colour to highlight different types of error. Here
green was used to highlight errors that had been made and corrected in a
previous entry; red was used to highlight new types of correction. The
original and corrected entries are displayed next to each other in WebCT,
which facilitates comparison. All previous entries and comments are kept
in chronological sequence and are always immediately available to both
the student-author and the instructor: the former can easily look back at
his/her earlier production or check earlier corrections, the latter can easily
track the individual student’s progress and check whether previous errors
are being repeated.................................................................................... 151

Figure 6-3a. Example of an English text to be summarised in Italian,

presented and marked up via WebCT. The most important parts of the text
that should be carried into the summary are highlighted in blue. Green is
used to highlight points of complex lexis, often with links to further
information and suggestions given in square brackets after the highlighted
text........................................................................................................... 152

Figure 6-3b. An extract of an Italian text on the same subject as that

shown in Figure 3a. Important items of lexis and structures are again
highlighted in blue. Students can compare the two texts and use the
highlighted words and phrases to help them summarise the story presented
in Figure 3a into Italian ........................................................................... 153

Figure 6-3c. Example of student summary in response to the activity

described in Figures 3a and 3b ................................................................ 154

Figure 7-1. The Azione! webpage ........................................................... 165

Figure 8-1. The Confronti webpage........................................................ 179

 New Approaches to Teaching Italian Language and Culture xiii

Figure 8-2. The Word Association Questionnaire .................................. 180

Figure 8-3. Word Association answers on Father/Padre in the View

and Compare pages.................................................................................. 181

Figure 8-4. Word Association answers on Individualism/

Individualismo in the View and Compare pages ..................................... 181

Table 8-1. Forum discussion of Word Association answers on

Individualism/Individualismo............................................................... 182-3

Table 8-2. Confronti partnerships described in this paper ................... 185-6

Figure 8-5. Sample of ads (the authors made every effort to ask for
copyright but there was no response at time of publication) ................... 189

Table 8-3. Guided Questions .................................................................. 189

Table 8-4. Forum ................................................................................. 191-2

Table 8-5. Forum ................................................................................. 194-5

Table 8-6. Transcript from the Skype conversation................................ 198

Figure 8-6. An American student waves at Italian students during

a video conference................................................................................... 204

Figure 9-1. Photo by J. Samperi Mangan, ©2007 ................................. 210

Figure 9-2. Photo by J. Samperi Mangan, ©2007 .................................. 212

Table 10-1. Assessment ....................................................................... 234-5

Figure 14-1. Photograph by Franco Pinna .............................................. 347

Figure 14-2. Advertisement visible in the background........................... 347

Figure 14-3. Poster by Partito Rifondazione Comunista (1992).

From Archivio Marco Pezzi, Comune di Bologna................................... 348

Figure 14-4. Testa di vitello, Carlo Levi (September 5th, 1935),

xiv List of Tables and Figures

 SIAE.................................................................................................... 349

Figure 16-1. Stress-adaptation-growth process...................................... 377

Figure 16-2. Factors Influencing Cross-cultural Adaptation.

A structural Model. (Kim 2001, 87. Our adaptation) .............................. 380

Table 16-1. “Discutiamo insieme” questionnaire ................................... 384

Figure 16-3. Venn diagram comparing cultural habits ........................... 385

Table 16-2. “Guarda con gli occhi dell’altro”grid .................................. 386

Table 16-3. Diary Guideline (Byram 2000: 12. Our adaptation) ....... 389-90

Table 16-4. Diary record form; (INCA Portfolio. Our adaptation)......... 390

Figure 18-1.Textbook cover ................................................................... 433

Table 18-1. An authentic cultural reading from the Italian Virtual

Class first semester textbook discussing the city of Selinunte’s fish
auction ..................................................................................................... 437

Table 18-2. Students return to the topic of the auction with a new level
of knowledge ........................................................................................... 440

Table 18-3. Extension exercises after the fish auction reading, which
include authentic interviews, individualized and personalized student web
research, and real photos taken by students who visited the auction during
their summer study in Italy...................................................................... 441

Table 20-1. Worksheet 1......................................................................... 481

Table 20-2. Worksheet 2......................................................................... 482

Table 20-3. Worksheet 3...................................................................... 483-4

Table 20-4. Worksheet 4...................................................................... 488-9

Table 20-5. Worksheet 5......................................................................... 490

 New Approaches to Teaching Italian Language and Culture xv

Table 20-6. Worksheet 6...................................................................... 492-3

Table 20-7. Worksheet 7...................................................................... 494-5

Table 23-1. Themes ............................................................................. 544-5

Table 23-2. Phonetic symbols................................................................. 546

Table 24-1. Francesco Guccini’s song................................................. 587-8

 INTRODUCTION

EMANUELE OCCHIPINTI

The aim of this collection of essays is to fill a major gap in existing

scholarship and textbooks devoted to the teaching of Italian language and
culture. Although in the past there have been monographic issues of
journals like Italica1 devoted to some aspects of Italian pedagogy,2 there
has never been a systematic collection of essays on this topic with such a
variety of contributions in a single volume.
In today’s world the need to incorporate a rigorous study of foreign
languages is more and more strongly felt: in schools and universities
across the world it is standard for students to be expected to be proficient
in at least one foreign language and also, often, to attend courses on
aspects of culture and diversity. Additionally, in recent years, more and
more scholars have become interested in effective language teaching
methodology, and many universities are starting to hire people with
specialized degrees in language pedagogy and Second Language
Acquisition rather than PhDs in literature. This calls for specialized texts
that can provide studies and examples of effective pedagogy of language
teaching and testing that instructors and teacher trainers from different
academic backgrounds can use in their classes.
In the past decade, the study of Italian has grown everywhere in the
world,3 especially in the U.S., with a 22.6% increase since 2002, and the
number of students reaching 78,368 in 20064 (rising from 11,000 in the

1
Italica is an American journal, published four times a year with articles on Italian
language, literature and linguistics.
2
See, for example, Italica 77, no. 4 (2000), 78, no. 4 (2001) on some aspects of
Italian pedagogy, and 83, no, 1 (2006) on teaching film and culture.
3
For a thorough analysis of teaching methods of Italian in the world see Paolo E.
Balboni and Matteo Santipolo eds., L’italiano nel mondo. Mete e metodi
dell’insegnamento dell’italiano nel mondo. Un’indagine qualitativa (Roma:
Bonacci editore, 2003).
4
See the MLA report at http://www.mla.org/pdf/release11207_ma_feb_update.pdf
See also Nelly Furman, David Goldberg, and Natalia Lusin, “Enrollments in
2 Introduction

‘60s), placing Italian as the fourth most studied foreign language after
Spanish, French and German.5
This volume offers case studies that present a coherent and organized
overview of contemporary Italian pedagogy, integrating the expertise of
scholars in the fields of language methodology and language acquisition
from Italy and four major countries where the study of Italian has a long
tradition: Australia, Canada, Great Britain and U.S. The twenty-four
essays, divided into six main parts, offer tremendous variety, and an up-to-
date approach to the teaching of Italian as a foreign language or L26
incorporating both theoretical aspects of pedagogy and practical ones,
including examples of specific syllabi.
Part I (“Curricular Innovations”) explores new teaching approaches
in the Italian curriculum. The five essays in this section answer the need to
update curricula with innovative and stimulating activities that take into
consideration the latest studies in language learning. The first chapter
examines the principles of CBI (Content-based Instruction), from the
history of its development, dating back to 1965 in French programs in
Canada, to its use today. The chapter focuses on its implementation at The
Ohio State University in order to eliminate the division between
elementary courses devoted solely to the teaching of language, and more
advanced ones devoted to the teaching of literature. This method allows
students to progress with their natural language learning of the four skills
while integrating authentic materials in all courses levels. The old and new
curricula are compared and discussed with reasons for the change. In the
appendix, a syllabus and a grid for oral and written assessment are
provided.
The second chapter presents data from research on task-based
instruction of intermediate Italian. The study follows a three-phase task: a
pre-task activity in which the tasks are explained and students are exposed
to authentic oral material; a during-task activity in which students actually

Languages Other Than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education,

Fall 2006,” http://www.mla.org/pdf/06enrollmentsurvey_final.pdf
5
See Mario Calabresi, “USA, la rivincita dell’italiano: è boom di corsi
all’università,” La repubblica, April 23, 2007.
6
The term “Foreign Language” refers to the teaching of a foreign language in
schools in a foreign environment (for example Italian taught in the U.S., Great
Britain, Australia, etc.). “L2” refers to the teaching of a language spoken in the
context where foreign speakers live (for example Italian taught in Italy, Canton
Ticino in Switzerland and areas of Istria). See Paolo E. Balboni, Didattica
dell’italiano a stranieri (Roma: Bonacci and Università per stranieri di Siena,
1994), 13-4.
 New Approaches to Teaching Italian Language and Culture 3

perform the task that is recorded on video or audio; and a post-task activity
in which students work on the transcripts of their activities and on
grammar points introduced by the instructor. Thus, the structured input
and output of the TBI model creates the basis for a more natural way to
acquire fluency and improve accuracy.
The third chapter expands on the notion that the best way to learn a
foreign language is to put students in contact with real-life situations. The
chapter deals with an innovative and flexible approach called “Project
Work” that aims at integrating the theory of the language with its practical
use in every day life. The didactic methodology of Project Work was
applied to a class of Erasmus7 students of Italian L2 in an Italian
University. The chapter presents data obtained from the implementation of
Project Work in which students were asked to assist in organizing a
conference on second language acquisition with a series of related tasks
including creating and distributing brochures and planning a cultural
itinerary. The advantages of such a method are manifold, since students
must incorporate their linguistic knowledge with a systematic use of
different grammatical structures in a cooperative way, in which they not
only need to interact with each other, but also with the world outside the
classroom. Role-play became an essential part of this method because this
helped the learner to act in a real situation (for example, students had to
make phone calls in order to ask for estimates).
Chapter Four explores the effectiveness and challenges of the
“Conversation Hour Program” at The College of New Jersey in the U.S.
The Conversation Hour builds on studies that show that shorter and more
frequent contact with the foreign language is crucial to master what has
been learned. Even though the author had to face some bureaucratic and
organizational issues including, among other things, the preparation and
supervision of the coordinators, in the end the experiment became a
permanent reality expanding to all foreign languages taught at the College.
The teaching approach was aimed to foster the five Cs (Communication,
Cultures, Connections, Comparisons and Communities) recommended by
ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) with
activities ranging from vocabulary building to short dialogues and role-
plays.

7
The Erasmus project was created in 1987 and is named after the famous scholar
Erasmus of Rotterdam who lived and studied in many parts of Europe for the
purpose of expanding his experience and knowledge. The program offers generous
grants and allows students to study for a semester or an academic year in a
European University, other than his/her own, and have the credits earned
recognized in the home institution.
4 Introduction

The fifth and last chapter of the first section explores linguistic
structures and their relationship to L2 development. The essay discusses
what stages should be followed so that grammatical structures can be
acquired at the appropriate level, without teaching structures that are too
advanced, in order to speed the learning process. The progression is
successfully achieved with Processability Theory that allows the instructor
to teach structures at the right level according to a hierarchal sequence:
lemma access, category, phrasal and sentence procedures. The experiment
was carried out in a primary school in Sydney, Australia, in two Italian
courses for 12 weeks. At the end of the experiment, children had learned
in three months what they had not learned during a previous three-year
period.
Part II (“Teaching Italian with Technology”) deals with the
fundamental tool of technology, integrated in nearly every curriculum
thanks to the availability of computers and internet connections in tech-
enhanced classrooms. The chapters in this section introduce some
innovative projects, through the discussion of outcomes and goals. The
first chapter explores the potential of WebCT a web-based tool with
hyperlinks, images and colors, with the purpose of stimulating interest and
improve effective learning of Italian at the University of Birmingham, UK.
The experiment proved successful by boosting students’ confidence and
interest thanks to a vast array of activities including discussion boards and
online exercises with electronic feedback.
The second chapter discusses the development of “Azione!,” a web-
based program of Italian film and television segments used in the
elementary and intermediate Italian language courses at Yale University.
The program was designed to allow students going abroad to be more
comfortable in real-life situations and teach them to “listen selectively”
and “listen for specific content.” The topics of the segments range from
health, environment and technology, travel, and politics to growing up and
the family, and the flexibility of the program facilitates its integration with
any textbook. Students have the ability to expand and reinforce their
knowledge with activities of increasing difficulty. Furthermore, the
unabridged clips help them to become accustomed to the normal speed of
the language, with exposure to various accents and regional differences.
“Confronti” is the name of an innovative project, and topic of the third
chapter of this section, developed cooperatively among the University of
Padova, the University of Pennsylvania and Middlebury College in the
U.S., and based on the Cultura French Project created at MIT in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. The goal of integrating culture into the
curriculum is achieved through a common website and communication
 New Approaches to Teaching Italian Language and Culture 5

tools like Skype and webcams. Using these tools, students across the
ocean can take advantage of their particular expertise to discuss topics
such as stereotypes, family, school, private and public spaces, regionalism,
immigration and emigration. In this context, students are responsible for
discovering differences and similarities while the instructor takes the role
of facilitator. The advantages are many: enthusiastic involvement, the
opportunity to understand a different culture while reflecting on one’s
own, and closer connections with students from a different country.
The last chapter on technology is devoted to research at the University
of Montréal in Canada on the use of iPods and podcasting to learn Italian.
Like with every technological tool, some challenges are present, but there
are numerous advantages to using a tool that the majority of young people
own: thanks to its small size and large memory, the iPod can be used to
store hours of audio and video materials that accommodate many learning
styles. Students can listen not only to songs, but also to recorded lessons
and authentic language material, allowing them to learn in a quiet
environment. Instructors can offer more content to advanced and
motivated students and students with learning disabilities.
The four chapters of Part III (“Teaching Italian Translation”)
explore the challenges of teaching translation courses. Translation has
gone through various phases: from being appreciated to being regarded as
an old fashioned and ineffective method for language teaching. Today,
many language experts consider the exercise of translation not only useful
but also fundamental for improving students’ reading and writing skills as
well as their cross-cultural awareness, and some argue that it can be
considered a “fifth linguistic ability.” Chapter Ten describes the challenges
surrounding a collaborative online learning course at the University of
Strathclyde in Scotland, where students were faced with changes in the
course structure over a period of three years, and analyzes the outcomes
and drawbacks.
Chapter Eleven focuses on how translation can benefit the learning of
Italian and how translation techniques can in fact help learners to achieve a
high level of expertise, contributing to “metalinguistic reflection,”
broadening vocabulary and helping students to analyze cultural
differences, develop “textual competence” and master more sophisticated
stages of the learning process.
Chapter Twelve expands on the benefits of translation, presenting a
case study of teaching methodology used in seminars for undergraduates
to hone their translation skills in their final year of a three-year degree
course in “Civiltà e Lingue Straniere Moderne” at the University of Parma.
The seminars are geared towards students who translate from Italian into
6 Introduction

English, and train students through readings of an array of texts from

literary to technical, scientific, political, and legal. Chapter Thirteen is a
“hands on” example of how to help students analyze specialized language,
in this case legal and journalistic, with its unique use of technical, lexical
and morphosyntactic terms. This, of course, bears some problems since
English is not the students’ native language, and the risk of
misinterpretations or poor translation is very high. The methodology
proposed helps students in the process of decoding and encoding thanks to
some techniques that are analyzed in detail, such as “cloze method” to
strengthen grammatical structures; “multiple choice” and “error
correction” exercises to facilitate students’ critical thinking; and “back
translation” to help students notice discrepancies.
Part IV (“Teaching Italian Culture”) is devoted to examples on how
to effectively teach Italian culture in every foreign language curriculum.
As Swiderski points out,

Whatever presence culture may have in the language classroom, those who
enter the classroom expect culture. They have explicit expectations,
expressed perhaps as a wish to learn about the ways and lives of the people
who speak the language to be learned, or as a need to know how to behave
and how not to behave while among these people. Students expect to
receive this information, and teachers expect to teach it. This is the outright
cultural act of language teaching/learning set within the cultural
environment of the classroom.8

The five essays consider how Italian culture is taught in the States, and
provide some useful examples on how to improve its effectiveness.
“Visual literacy” (introduced in chapter fourteen) is a skill to develop in
order to decode images. The same skill can be applied to film—a medium
that employs visual and cultural messages—and chapter twenty-one
introduces “visual thinking,” or the ability to facilitate the analysis and
description of a film before its interpretation, as an important skill in the
teaching of film. Students must therefore be encouraged to think critically,
and should be able to “read” an image through a series of exercises, which
the author describes in detail. Students should then be able to make
hypotheses and recognize similarities and differences between the two
cultures. In the end, students may, for example, come to the conclusion
that when the same object is used at different times in different cultures, it

8
Richard M. Swiderski, Teaching Language, Learning Culture (Westport, CT:
Bergin & Garvey, 1993), 19.
 New Approaches to Teaching Italian Language and Culture 7

may become two completely different objects, even if these objects have
the same semantic definition.
Chapters Fifteen and Nineteen discuss two cultural courses developed
and taught in two different American universities. Chapter Fifteen
analyzes a fifth-semester culture course (“Women in Italy 1930s-2000s:
history, sociology, law, anthropology, cinema, dance and songs”) taught at
Wellesley College. The interdisciplinary nature of the course makes it a
model for cultural courses that incorporate a variety of visual media such
as films, documentaries, dance shows, interviews, political posters,
militant slogans and murals, etc. Through guided discussions and oral
presentations that include visual tools, students are engaged in thinking
critically and “visually.” The same concepts are applied in the cultural
course examined in chapter nineteen, taught at the University of
Washington: an interdisciplinary survey of Italian culture from the pre-
Roman era to the contemporary time. The purpose of this course is to
develop a cultural awareness focusing on historical, political and religious
facts and their enormous impact on the artistic and literary world.
“Intercultural competence” (chapter sixteen) is another fundamental
skill that students should develop in order to experience a reality different
from their own when they travel abroad. When abroad, students
experience a dynamic process including three different steps: stress,
adaptation and growth. The case study presents some tools that instructors
can use to prepare students for the new experience, with the support of
data from a two-month summer program of Columbia University students
who visited Venice. A website was created in order to provide useful
information about the host country and Ca’Foscari University. Also, pre-
departure meetings tested students’ attitudes and expectations. In Venice,
students were matched with “cultural partners” for support and exchange
of experiences. Through a series of “social communication” activities
students were able to discuss with their teachers and cultural partners their
expectations, fears and surprises. Keeping a journal in which they
registered their perspectives while experiencing this different reality
further enabled students to confront their fears and develop an intercultural
awareness.
As we have seen, integrating culture into the curriculum is not as easy
as it can initially seem, especially when instructors need to assess students’
cultural competence. In chapter seventeen, a third-year Italian culture
course is analyzed, and assessment suggestions are offered employing a
combination of formats to ensure that students’ grasp of the materials
covered in class is assimilated.
8 Introduction

The “IVC, Chiavi di lettura” project (chapter eighteen), developed at

Emory University in the U.S., takes a step forward in implementing the
Modern Languages Association suggestion to integrate culture with the
teaching of language and literature. Culture is presented in order to learn
the language, and students are asked to make comparisons and connections
through art, politics, religion and theater, among other disciplines. Indeed,
this authentic and interdisciplinary cultural material provides the context
in which grammatical rules are embedded and acquired in an intuitive
manner. In this way, the process of grammatical teaching occurs in a
passive mode and students can think about formal rules in a later phase.
The advantage of this method is that the learner’s process mimics first
language acquisition in a dynamic and natural way.
Part V (“Teaching Italian Culture Through Film”) and Part VI
(“Teaching Italian Culture Through Songs”) are concerned with how to
successfully integrate culture with two of the most effective media: films
and songs, and how these media can be used to teach cultural competency.
Chapter Twenty is a case study of a curriculum change at Macquarie
University in Sydney, which integrated films into all levels of Italian
courses. The essay explores some of the most up-to-date and frequently
used film manuals, and it analyzes the effectiveness of some activities and
assessments of proficiency, such as plot summaries, film reviews, short
answer quizzes, letters, research projects and oral presentations. The aim
of the study is to see how students responded to this curriculum change,
and to support the integration of movies into language teaching. The
author ultimately makes the case that love stories, quests, coming of age
films, and films where the main characters are children, teenagers or
young adults were most effective.
Chapter Twenty-two is a detailed analysis of two movies, La finestra
di fronte (Facing Windows) and Una giornata particolare (A Special Day)
that, because of their thematic similarities and depictions of particular
moments in Italian history (Fascism and the Holocaust) can be used to
explain the historical background of certain events and how these events
shaped Italian political developments. Films in this case help students to
contextualize what they learn and images help them to better remember
historical facts.
The last two chapters take into consideration how songs can be used
both to integrate culture and grammar into the curriculum (while trying to
overcome the existing dichotomy between “big C” culture thought of as
Art, Literature and Opera and “small c” culture seen in the popular culture
that is an integral part of students’ lives) and to strengthen students’
listening and comprehension abilities.
 New Approaches to Teaching Italian Language and Culture 9

Chapter Twenty-three demonstrates how music can be beneficial to

language learners because it stimulates parts of the brain conducive to
learning a foreign language. Its utility is based on the assumption (studies
by Alfred Tomatis are mentioned) that every language has a different
frequency and that the contact with frequencies other than the ones of our
own language can lead to better production of different sounds. The course
illustrated in this chapter, taught in Italy to Erasmus students, was centered
on main topics, with songs used as an introduction to different cultural
realities. The preview and follow-up activities—key-word listening,
dictations, use of rhymes and phonetic symbols, rewriting texts and role-
playing to cite just a few—proved very useful for a general understanding
of Italian culture and the reinforcement of grammatical rules, increasing
students’ attention and performance.
Finally, the last chapter shows how songs can form the basis of an
entire course on language and culture. The purpose of the course (“Italian
Freaks and Punks: History of Italian Culture and Civilization from 1950s
to 2005 retold by Protest Songs”) is twofold: using “protest songs” is
useful for familiarizing students with some possibly unknown yet critical
moments in Italian history of the last fifty years, such as differences
between dialect and standard language, economic and cultural
development, students and workers protesting for better living conditions,
and feminism. The songs are also used for reviewing difficult grammatical
rules pertaining to the subjunctive, conditional, imperative with pronouns,
passato prossimo/imperfect.
The chapters of this book, despite their differences, share the enduring
theme that the teaching of language and culture should be a natural
process, with a holistic exchange between teachers and students. To quote
Stephen D. Krashen, “We teach language best when we use it for what it
was designed for: communication.”9 After much progress and many
changes in the theory of language teaching in past few decades, Krashen's
words from 1981 still represent a valid assumption that illustrates one, if
not the main, goal of this collection.

DREW UNIVERSITY, USA

9
Stephen D. Krashen, Second Language Acquisition and Second language
Learning (http://www.sdkrashen.com/SL_Acquisition_and_Learning/index.html),
11.
 PART I:

CURRICULAR INNOVATIONS
 CHAPTER ONE

ELIMINATING THE “GAP” THROUGH

CURRICULAR INNOVATION

JANICE M. ASKI AND HEATHER WEBB

Introduction
The dilemma that has plagued Italian programs and has been
discussed repeatedly at roundtable discussions at national conferences is
how to bridge the ‘gap’ between elementary language courses and
intermediate/advanced content (usually literature) courses. The key to the
solution must be related to two erroneous assumptions that curricula with
this gap make about L2 acquisition: 1) an L2 can be acquired after one or
two years of classroom language study and 2) students cannot take content
courses until they have mastered the language. In this traditional
curriculum most learners are unlikely to succeed, since, as SLA research
has demonstrated, a foreign language cannot usually be mastered after
such a brief period of classroom study. Moreover, since language courses
typically employ a communicative approach and therefore focus on
interpersonal communication, students are ill-prepared for the discourse of
academic content courses.1 The ensuing frustration has been identified as a
major source of attrition between the lower-level language courses that
satisfy the language requirement and enrollments in the major.2

1
James Cummins, Bilingualism and Special Education: Issues in Assessment and
Pedagogy (Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters, 1984). James Cummins,
“Language Proficiency, Bilingualism, and Academic Achievement,” in The
Multicultural Classroom: Readings for Content-Area Teachers, ed. P. Richard-
Amato & M. A. Snow (New York: Longman, 1992), 16-26.
2
Beatrice C. Dupuy, “Content-Based Instruction: Can it Help Ease the Transition
from Beginning to Advanced Foreign Language Classes?” Foreign Language
Annals 33, no. 2 (2000): 205-23. Diane Musumeci, “Language and Linguistics in
the Italian Curriculum,” Italica 73, no. 4 (1996): 493-507.
 Eliminating the “Gap” Through Curricular Innovation 13

In the Italian program at The Ohio State University (OSU) this

artificial division between language and content instruction has been
eliminated by adopting Content-Based Instruction (CBI), in which the
study of language is integrated into courses that focus on content, such as
history, film, and literature. While CBI can be adopted in a variety of ways
and degrees, at OSU we have adapted all post-elementary courses to the
CBI model, and courses that focus exclusively on language, such as
“Grammar and Conversation” and “Grammar and Composition,” no
longer exist. By the same token, there are no courses that focus exclusively
on content; faculty teach content while attending to students’ developing
language skills in every course. In this way, the study of language
continues uninterrupted throughout the undergraduate program.
This essay begins with a brief introduction to CBI. First, the history of
the development of this model and its current manifestations in the United
States are outlined, then the principles of CBI and the research supporting
its effectiveness in foreign language education are examined. This is
followed by a case study of the changes implemented in the Italian
program at OSU. A comparison of the old, traditional curriculum and the
new CBI curriculum is accompanied by a discussion of the reasons for the
change and the organization of the program. After describing the program
that is in place, this essay concludes by exploring the challenges of
curricular revision from a traditional language program to CBI, and
describing how the faculty at OSU collectively confronted and are
overcoming these challenges.

A brief introduction to Content Based Instruction

Dueñas3 states that integrating language and content is not a novel
pedagogical approach in the field of general education, but it is a relative
newcomer to second/foreign language teaching. Using content to learn
both language and subject matter originated in Canada circa 1965 in
immersion programs that were developed for English speakers learning
French, Canada’s other official language. CBI appeared on the language
teaching scene in the late 1980s and gained popularity in the 1990s.4 For

3
Maria Dueñas, “The Whats, Whys, Hows and Whos of Content-Based Instruction
in Second/Foreign Language Education,” International Journal of English Studies
4, no. 1 (2004): 73-96.
4
For the distant origins of CBI, see Diane Musumeci, Breaking Tradition: An
Exploration of the Historical Relationship between Theory and Practice in Second
Language Teaching (San Francisco: McGraw Hill, 1997). She traces the principles
that characterize CBI to three educators of the 15th-17th centuries who were
14 Chapter One

many years integrating language and content remained primarily an ESL

and K-12 endeavor,5 but it is becoming increasingly popular in secondary
schools and has seen explosive growth in post-secondary institutions.
Met, Brinton and Holten, and Dueñas6 point out that the term “content-
based instruction” is commonly used to describe approaches that integrate
language and content instruction, but that this term is not always used
consistently. As examples, Met7 notes that for Crandall and Tucker CBI is
an approach that integrates the presentation of subject matter topics or
tasks within the context of second/foreign language teaching while Curtain
and Pesola limit use of the term to curriculum concepts being taught in the
foreign language.8 Moreover, the definitions of content also vary in that
for some it must be academic subject matter while for others it needs to be
material that is cognitively engaging but not necessarily academic.9
The differences among the various manifestations of CBI demonstrate
the flexibility of the framework. Met10 conceives of this flexibility in terms
of a continuum of the relative role of content and language. At one
extreme are total immersion programs that are primarily content driven,
and at the other are language courses that frequently use content for
language practice and are therefore language driven. She finds that
sheltered courses, the adjunct model, and theme-based courses fall

proponents of pedagogical reform: Guarino Guarini (1374-1460), Ignatius of

Loyola (1491-1556), and Johannes Amos Comenius (1592-1670). She suggests
that their innovations were ultimately ignored as the “other” pedagogical practice
of teaching Latin through memorization of grammar rules and vocabulary and
translation came to be understood as the traditional approach to language teaching.
5
Maiheng Shen Dietrich, “Integrating Content into the Language Classroom” in
Content, Tasks and Projects in the Language Classroom, eds. R. Jourdenais and S.
Springer (Monerey, CA: Monerey Institute of International Studies, 2005), 47-60.
6
Myriam Met, “Content-Based Instruction: Defining Terms, Making Decisions”
NFLC Reports. http://www.nflc.org (accessed 1/4/07). Donna Brinton and
Christine Holten, “Into, Through and Beyond: A Framework to Develop Content-
Based Material,” English Teaching Forum 35 (1997): 10-25. Dueñas, “The Whats,
Whys, Hows and Whos.”
7
Met, “Content-Based Instruction.”
8
Jodi Crandall and G. Richard Tucker, “Content-Based Instruction in Second and
Foreign Languages” in Foreign Language Education: Issues and Strategies, eds.
Amado Padilla, Hatford H. Fairchild and Concepcion Valadez (Newbury Park,
CA: Sage, 1990), 35-54. Curtain, H. A. and Carol Ann Pesola. Languages and
Children: Making the Match (New York: Longman, 1994).
9
See the University of Minnesota’s website on CBI
(http://www.carla.umn.edu/cobaltt/cbi.html) for various definitions of what
qualifies as content in CBI.
10
Met, “Content-Based Instruction.”