The use of songs and films as means to teach Italian was one of the topics covered during a recent one-day professional development seminar that was attended by 75 local teachers of Italian.
The lectures and workshops were delivered by Fabio Caon, Giuseppe Maugeri, Graziano Serragiotto and Paolo Balboni, Italian specialists from the Italiano come lingua straniera (Itals) centre at the University of Venice.
Other topics covered included assessment methods in the language and developing comprehension skills. The topics are especially relevant in view of developments regarding teaching Italian locally, with the recent introduction of the Subject Proficiency Assessment programme and the proposed Learning Outcome Framework.
Through these initiatives, communicative competence is becoming the main focus of the learning process, and the language is being made more relevant to the needs of learners.
The seminar was organised by Dr Mario Pace and Prof. Sandro Caruana from the University of Malta’s Department of Languages and Humanities with the support of the Education Ministry and in collaboration with the Italian Embassy.