Aims

The activity is aimed at:

• giving visibility to multilingualism;

• stimulating curiosity and interest in all the languages spoken in class;

• increasing active participation and give value to the language skills of children and their families.

Links to curriculum

Studying languages

How to

Children from different cultural backgrounds and their families may be involved in teaching their classmates and teachers some basic notions in their mother tongue, for example:

• creating boards which present the languages that teach some words or simple phrases for daily use;

• digital presentations (PowerPoint presentations, interactive digital presentations made using the platform ...), also integrated with short audio files to teach the correct pronunciation of words / phrases;

• thematic 'video-lessons':

- children and their parents (depending on their level of linguistic competence in their mother tongue and in Italian) can have different roles in the realization of these video lessons. For example, children can be the teachers (with the support of parents) and / or help translate the words / phrases in their mother tongue presented by the parents into Italian.

- other children and parents from the class can contribute to subtitling these video lessons in other languages.

 

Some topics that could be addressed are:

• greetings and how we present ourselves;

• numbers;

• the alphabet;

• the presentation of some typical dishes with a video-recipe ...

 

Italian children and their families can be involved in this activity, presenting their dialect or making presentations or video-lessons in Italian that can be used by children, newly arrived parents or anyone still learning Italian.

FURTHER DEVELOPMENT: LANGUAGE OF THE MONTH

This activity can become an even more integral part of the curriculum, inviting children to choose a new language each month to present and explore together.

This proposal has been successfully tested in several schools, including the English primary school Newbury Park Primary School which started the Language of the month program. On the school  website scuola  it is possible to view and download lessons in the mother tongues produced by the students.

DIGITAL MATERIALS AND TOOLS

The lessons produced by the students can be realized in digital format using, for example, PowerPoint or exploiting the potential of the platform, including:

- The possibility to create interactive presentations  interattive  that include audio files, video clips, quizzes, games…

- The possibility to record audio or video files using the  forum function

- Digital presentations (PowerPoint presentations, interactive digital presentations realized through the platform

Intergated with short audio files to teach the correct pronunciation of words / phrases

Example of a board:



Example from newbury park:



, you can find an example of a videomade by children.