94011 - Seminar: Language Teaching

Learning outcomes

The seminar aims at providing students with the operational tools for teaching a foreign (FL) or a second (L2) language. We will focus on lessons planning, on the use of resources for language learning and teaching, as well as on the assessment of communicative competence.

Course contents

The seminar aims at providing students with the operational tools for teaching a foreign (FL) or a second (L2) language. We will focus on lessons planning, on the use of resources for language learning and teaching, as well as on the assessment of communicative competence. More precisely, the following topics will be dealt with (and exemplified through English, French, and Italian as LS/L2, in particular):

– basic principles of course planning e lesson planning;

– designing teaching units;

– planning and designing single tasks and activities for developing the four language skills;

– structuring language contents;

– choicing of authentic texts and making them teachable according to different LS/L2 learners profiles;

– adapting text-books pages to different classroom contexts and according to specific learning and teaching variables;

– basics for the assessment of communicative competence.

Readings/Bibliography

· Chini, M. & Bosisio, C. (a cura di), Fondamenti di Glottodidattica: apprendere e insegnare le lingue oggi, Roma, Carocci [cap.4 “La didattica della L2”]

· Foreign language teaching methods https://coerll.utexas.edu/methods/

 

· § D. Cortés Velásquez, S. Faone, E. Nuzzo, “Analizzare i manuali per l’insegnamento delle lingue: strumenti per una glottodidattica applicata”, Italiano LinguaDue, n. 2. 2017.

 

 .M. La Grassa, “Un modello operativo per la didattica delle lingue online: l’Unità Didattica Digitale” in EL.LE, 10/1, 2021, pp. 29-51.

 

Further readings will be provided during at the beginning of the seminar.

Teaching methods

After an introductory lesson and the presentation of basic methodological tools, the meetings will be in the form of interactive workshop. Students will be required to apply the teaching principles, gradually dealt with, to specific classroom situations. The latter will be envisaged within possible educational frames related to the teaching of a second/foreign language (i.e. in institutional/formal contexts or in informal ones; with young or adult learners; etc.).

Assessment methods

Assessment is based on a ‘teaching unit’ to be designed and carried out according to specific criteria and topics assigned by the teachers. The teaching unit will be focused on a second language chosen by the single student.

Teaching tools

Power point will be one of the main tools used in the introductory lessons and workshops; web-based materials will  be used in order to illustrate tasks, activities and learning routes. All the materials will be available on Virtuale.

Office hours

See the website of Rosa Pugliese