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TEACHING IN MULTI-CULTURE CLASSES

Italian relevant Law: Presidential Decree of 31st August 1999 No.394: Teachers’ Council defines, in reference to fluency level of each foreign pupil, the necessary adaptation of study programmes….

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TEACHING IN MULTI-CULTURE CLASSES

• Learning times

• Strategies

• Tools

• Suggestions

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TEACHING IN MULTI-CULTURE CLASSES

• Starting from respect for the phase of silence, keeping in mind that experts indicate 5 years as necessary for learning a language

• Enhancing the scope of interaction, which, of course, is different from learning

• Useful suggestions can be found in the work of Gabriele Pallotti about stages of learning, not only on how to work, but also on how to face mistakes that seem to nullify what was taught.

• Gabriele Pallotti – A.I.P.I., Associazione Interculturale Polo InteretnicoTITLE: Imparare e insegnare l’italiano come lingua stranieraEditore Bonacci pagine 90 + video

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TEACHING IN MULTI-CULTURE CLASSES

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TEACHING IN MULTI-CULTURE CLASSES

• Example of learning stages for Italian as a foreign language (G.Pallotti)

• Tense: basic verb>past present perfect>past>future

• Agreement: articles>attributive adjective>predicative adjective>past participle

• Negative: no>non>nothing/nobody>neither>

at all

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TEACHING IN MULTI-CULTURE CLASSES

• Effect of the theories on learning Italian as a foreign language on evaluation

• 2 objectives of evaluation:communication skillsfluency (syntax)Traditional evaluation is based on number of

mistakes, while we should learn to evaluate progress, that is capacity to access and expose meaning

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TEACHING IN MULTI-CULTURE CLASSES

• Types of mistakes:Phonological: muntainLexical: takedGrammar: yesterday I sleep

To plan, it is necessary to understand what type of mistakes are made

It is necessary to schedule what to correct and when. Use CEFR (Common European Framework of

Reference for Languages) to plan this process.

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TEACHING IN MULTI-CULTURE CLASSES

why evaluate• Initial evaluation to create a profile,

diagnose student’s needs and plan customized paths

• Dynamic evaluation to monitor progress, mistake signal advancement (frequent, for example a path like: taken taked taken)

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TEACHING IN MULTI-CULTURE CLASSESstrategies and suggestions

• Always remember that for non-Italian speakers Italian is together object/tool for learning

• Facilitated approach to essential contents by associating whenever possible text and images

• Establish customized paths• Offer simple and clear concepts• Use few synonyms• Often repeat given information

TEACHING IN MULTI-CULTURE CLASSES

strategies and suggestions

• In mixed ability classes ( MAC) traditional teaching methods cannot be effective, because the mere verbal and one-way approach limits comprehension possibilities, while cooperative learning and peer tutoring seem very effective.

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TEACHING IN MULTI-CULTURE CLASSES

In the opinion of Ekwall and Shaker (in Ginnis 2002: 24) people remember: 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, 50% of what they hear and see, 70% of what they say, 90% of what they say and do.

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TEACHING IN MULTI-CULTURE CLASSES

strategies and suggestions

Cooperative learning and tutoring facilitate learning

• from the linguistic point of view

• from the relational point of view

• from the affective point of view

The teacher becomes a learning facilitator who raises the interest of pupils.

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TEACHING IN MULTI-CULTURE CLASSES

strategies • Choice of task/s then becomes very

important, looking for attractive ways, indicating an interesting goal and constantly assisting the various groups, which must be made of 3-4 pupils chosen according to the presence of a driving element, two average members and one in difficulty.

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TEACHING IN MULTI-CULTURE CLASSES

In the perspective of highly mixed ability multi-culture classes, the most relevant advantages of this kind of work are:

• study advantage, especially for non-Italian or weak Italian speakers;

• improvement of the class climate and of ethnic relations;

• improvement of social, cognitive and affective development of all students;

• improvement of self-esteem and self-control capabilities;

• improvement of motivation levels and of the pleasure of being in the class;

• prolongation of the task concentration time;

• improvement of self-esteem14