Exploring the Intercomprehension Approach: The Case of a Multilevel Italian Course

Fabrizio Fornara

Florida State University

Articulating the Italian Curriculum 2: Alternative Approaches to Language Teaching

American Association of Italian Studies Conference, March 28th, 2015

Objective of the Presentation

Explore an alternative way to raise language enrollment by offering a multilevel Italian course for Spanish-speaker students.

RationaleHow can we boost enrollment in Italian classes?

Florida

Fast-growing Spanish speaking population: 3.6 million / 17.9 million 5+ years old

(2013 Census Bureau)

Florida State University

6,125 Hispanic / 39,878 students(but not everyone is a Spanish speaker)

Design and develop Italian language courses geared towards native, heritage, or even fluent speakers of Spanish.

Italian for Spanish Speakers

Fall 2012 – ITA1120, 13 studentsSpring 2013 – ITA1120 & ITA1121, 10+10 Fall 2013 – ITA1120, 20 studentsSpring 2014 – 18 studentsFall 2014 – not offeredSpring 2015 – not offered

Multilevel Classroom

Differentiated InstructionClassrooms with students who come from very different learning backgrounds, or those in which students have very different levels of proficiency.

(Oxford University Press ELT)

Multilevel Instructional StrategiesInstead of creating different lessons with different objectives for the different proficiency levels, teachers teach to the middle and then assign different, appropriately leveled tasks.

Spanish-speaker students are often exempted from L2 requirements. Most of them take only one level of Italian. In order to optimize the student-per-class ratio and consolidate Spanish-speaker students’ enrollment, we designed a multilevel Italian for Spanish Speakers course for students:

• With no prior knowledge of Italian

• Who have already taken a first level Italian course

• Who are everywhere in between

Multilevel Classroom (cont.)Advantages of multi-level classrooms:

• Students learn at their own pace• Students learn to work in a

group• Students become independent

learners• Students develop strong

relationships with their peers• Students become partners in

learning

Challenges of multi-level classrooms:

• Finding appropriate teaching resources and material

• Organizing appropriate groupings within the class

• Determining the individual needs of each student

• Ensuring that all students are challenged and interested

• Enforcing L2 only policies when teacher is occupied and students are working in small groups or pairs

(EnglishClub)

ApproachMixed intercomprehension and theme-based approach

Intercomprehension Approach

Emphasizes the similarities among languages (Doyé, 2004) and accelerates acquisition by sensitizing learners to the linguistic bridges that link Italian with Spanish and English (Donato et al., 2014).

Active – or even passive – knowledge of Spanish helps students to easily understand and use Italian language features.

Theme-based Approach

Helps students make sense of the content of the course by organizing it in thematic units.

Real life situations that are meaningful and interesting to students.

Structure of the CourseFace-to-face class with an online component

Four credits course, four weekly meetings / Flipped classroom

HomeBlackboard site of the course:

• Grammar tutorials: VoiceThread

• Online practice: Open educational resources exercises, online learning tools (Quizlet, Duolingo), social networking sites (Facebook or Twitter)

• Quizzes (Blackboard)

Classroom• Intercomprehension activities• Leveled tasks:

• Pairs, small groups, whole-class• Like-ability / cross-ability

groups.

Typical class schedule: • Warm-up as a whole group• Leveled tasks, variety of groupings• Whole class together

Inclusive and collaborative environment

Intercomprehension Activities

News – Modeled on the EuRom5 activities (Bonvino et al., 2011):

• Authentic, current, short, related to Italy

• Title translated in Spanish• Vocabulary box• BUT: No grammar explanations• Questions• Main sources:

• ANSA • ItalyNews

Intercomprehension Activities (cont.)

Audios and videos – Same structure as the news; students access a video or audio recording and answer a set of questions.

• Authentic linguistic inputs, snapshots of Italian society and culture, focus on “an Italian point of view”

• Short movies, cartoons, movie clips, ads, recipes, songs.

Survey

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Strongly Agree

Agree

Neutral

Disagree

N=38

Survey (cont.)

N=38

0

204060

Strongly AgreeAgreeNeutralDisagree

Survey (cont.)

N=38

0

20

40

60

Strongly AgreeAgreeNeutral Disagree

Modular StructureEvery unit has several modules:

• Two or more lexical modules - same for both levels

• Two or more grammar modules – usually different

• Module that includes idiomatic expressions and cultural notions – same for both levels

Not rigid blocks, all the information is integrated in the learning material and class activities.

In every unit:

• Lexical macro-theme (leisure activities)

• One or more micro-themes (sports, hobbies)

• Core grammar module (present tense: irregular verbs, imperfetto tense)

• Other grammar modules (temporal expressions, prepositions, adverbs)

• Idiomatic expressions (asfaltare, che partitone!) and cultural notions (Serie A)

Assignment and Grading

Thematic units (6)60% (10% each)

Core grammar module 4%Other module 2%Unit final activity

4%Written compositions (3) 10%Oral practice (3)10%Participation / Preparation 10%Final exam

10%

Grazie!

Fabrizio Fornara

ff11@my.fsu.edu @ffornara

Articulating the Italian Curriculum 2: Alternative Approaches to Language Teaching

American Association of Italian Studies Conference, March 28th, 2015