Introduction
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Great Expectations: how to exploit and disseminate authentic multimedia material for teaching and learning Italian as FL
Who - The PartnershipThe project was carried out by a consortium of fifteen institutions (mainly higher education) in four EU countries: Ireland, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. Two Italian broadcast companies, a national and a regional one, RAI and TelEtna respectively, providing the authentic audio-visual materials required for the production and acting as experts on communication strategies. During the contract period a section of BBC2 'The Learning Zone', called BBC Focus, also contributed to the project as a support partner, acting as broadcast provider and helping to improve the quality of the production, to disseminate activities and to evaluate audience participation. What - The ProductThe product is a multimedia package based on authentic materials for learning Italian language & culture. The package includes several modules related to educational, social and cultural issues as well as language activities. The package components are: a video program with a related workbook, a CD-ROM with related audio-visual activities and a computer disk with CALL activities. An experiment, with a pilot Open and Distance Learning (ODL) course in Italian, was undertaken during the last year of the project (1997/98). The course included a selection of modules plus the production of a new video to be used as a final test. How - The Management of the ProjectThe partners decided to work with authentic video and newspaper materials which were recorded/collected, analyzed and selected in order to develop an educational product based on solid principles. The partners were divided into two teams: the Methodological development group and the Technical team. MethodologyWorking with mass media spoken and written language (spontaneous and semi spontaneous spoken language from television and with written contemporary language of newspaper articles) the partners realized that the status of the spoken language as an object of study in applied linguistics - for the study of Italian in particular - has yet to reach the level it deserves. In communicative pedagogy, language for communication based on notional/functional approaches to language teaching (Wilkins 1976) on one hand offers the possibility of 'doing things with words' for real communicative purposes, and on the other hand equates speech acts with particular linguistic formulae or functions with a tendency to invent such formulae rather to examine real data and analyze their varieties. A notional/functional language course as well as a traditional grammatically based one are concerned with language forms like the use of the imperative for giving directions or for writing a recipe. However, a competence of forms is not a guarantee for a correct performance. Real communication involves more than a simple knowledge of forms, it depends crucially on the ability to use forms in an appropriate way. Forms need to be considered in an authentic context and practiced for communicative purposes. The influence of discourse and conversation analysis on language teaching and language acquisition studies can help improve the status of real spoken data. All aspects of speech acts, particularly talk in interaction are relevant because they include non verbal and even non vocal elements very much related to target language culture and therefore offer a useful framework for producing teaching materials and for the structuring of language syllabuses. (McCarthy & Carter 1994). For the study of spoken language what proves to be relevant is:
From the language acquisition point of view in particular it is
important to combine tasks: viewing, listening, understanding and
speaking combined with reading, understanding and writing. Therefore the partners' aim was to combine the four linguistic skills in order to archive oral and written competence. They believed that the content of a written message and its linguistic forms - syntax and grammar - could be improved by an accurate analysis of both the oral messages and the written texts. Moreover the sense of identification between the viewer/ listener/ speaker/ writer and the interpersonal involvement in the learner can create an oral/literate continuum. According to those principles the Methodological development group established a flexible set of procedures and activities 'percorsi didattici diversi/differenziati e flessibili' for:
They thought that it was then up to the teacher/the learner, according
to their needs, according to the institutional/individual situation
to choose his/her procedures for teaching and learning, -even to
add further activities or further technologies - according to the
multimodel approach to reach their course
objectives.
According to these first two principles audio- visual as well as written material has to be used to present a culturally relevant context, to recognize/identify/focus on linguistic forms in that context. and to exploit the ways in which those forms are connected within the text.
As Umberto Eco wrote in 1964 in his book 'Apocalittici e integrati'
The Italia 2000 group has incorporated this message within the educational aims of teaching and learning Italian through the language of the media. The educational purpose is to create an interactive environment for language learning but at the same time to stimulate an educational, critical analysis of the media. The Activities created for the workbook, were set to demonstrate how the partners worked with authentic mass media materials, such as video clips/newspaper articles, according to the stated principles. Activities were organized according to an egg-timer pattern, the 'Clessidra' created by Anna Bartrum (St Martin's University College, Lancester). The model was was used to stress the progression of tasks, classified as either receptive or productive. Model for progression using authentic materialSee diagram of egg-timer model. Typology of Tasks: using authentic materialThe upper section of the egg-timer includes the progression of the receptive phase. The pre-viewing/pre -reading tasks introduce the topic and relate the topic to the learners' existing knowledge. They also introduce key words, presented in the video clip/in the reading passage. Questions on the subject to be shown or read are organized, mainly as speculation tasks to create expectations in the learner. In vision-only activity images are used to set the context. A grid is presented with questions, such as: Who? What? Where? When? How? aiming to describe the people, the setting, the body language, etc. The vision-with-sound activities are organized to unlock the gist for the comprehension of the main points of the video clip, such as multiple choices or true/false questions. To unlock details, tasks focus on re-arranging the dialogue, linking appropriate questions to appropriate answers, and re-ordering phrases/sentences for a résumé of the passage. At advanced level, open-ended questions focus on different points of view, attitudes, registers and intonations. Language Awareness is encouraged by focusing on specific lexical and grammatical/syntactical points, stressing their specific meanings and functions. At a more advanced level further professional/transferable skills are exploited with tasks such as note taking and/or interpreting. The lower section of the egg timer is concerned with the productive phase. Speaking tasks focus on extension/expansion of the lexicon and grammatical structures in alternative functions and/or by using a different register (e.g.from formal to informal). They are organized as a role-play preparation for a situation similar to the one shown on the video clip or, alternatively, as a group discussion for a critical analysis of the video clisp: arguing or defending its positive or negative aspects. The learner is also engaged in similar activities after reading a newspaper article or a literary passage, considering/contrasting the same issue as the one on the video clip. At a more advanced level, a presentation for a public speech is prepared and possibly recorded. The written tasks are mainly structured for the preparation of a summary/a précis, a report or an open article, focusing on cultural differences. At a more advanced level a complete essay is set giving input for further reading and research. During the productive phase the speaking and written tasks should allow students to demonstrate that they have achieved the specific objectives set for the production of that particular unit. Those objectives are usually set to enhance transferable/job-related skills. When: the methods used for disseminationDissemination workshops were planned at the end of each plenary meeting in all the partners' countries. Workshops were run by the partners and aimed at local teachers and lecturers. Questionnaires were distributed in order to obtain responses from the end-users: teachers, students and general adult learners. Formal reports were also received from teachers, involved in the evaluation of the material in educational institutions Several other methods of dissemination were used, such as individual presentations at national and international conferences and individual publication of articles. Feedback and practical suggestions influenced improvements and implemented the production of materials. The Italian Foreign Office (Ministero degli Affari Esteri : Direzione Generale per le Relazioni Culturali) in Rome disseminated information about Italia 2000 to Italian Embassies and Consulates throughout the world. The Italia 2000 video series broadcast by the BBC was also publicised to alert viewers to watch and record through BBC publications such as 'On Course', 'Summer Nights' and 'Radio Times'. Valauble comments on the project were received via the Italia 2000 Audience Research Project. 970 questionnaires were sent out by the BBC Learning Zone; a 42% response rate was received. The 2 televison network partners disseminated information about Italia 2000 programs as part of their role during the academic year 1997/98:
The planned Internet Course (subject to funding) to complement the ODL course could be used as a further means of dissemination as well as providing useful future Italian links. As result of the Italia 2000 experiment a UK Government grant was received by two of the UK institutions involved in the program: the University of Exeter and the University of Aberystwyth. In June 1999, a year after the completion of the project, the Italian publisher Giunti Multimedia, based in Milan, published a multimedia package which includes selected units from the original Italia 2000 series. However several units, including the video tests -(including copyright footage from Italian television networks acquired by the partners' institutions) remain unpublished. To Whom - The target audienceThe target audience was:
The audience profile, determined through the 'Italia 2000 Audience Research Project' promoted by the BBC, was split into 220 women and 190 men in the following groupings:
In November 1997 the partner institutions issued 28 certificates of completion for students in Ireland, Spain and the UK. The target countries (Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, and Spain)
were not the only countries involved in the project. They also included
other European and extra-European countries where people were interested
in learning Italian in a formal educational situation or in a more
independent way on a self-access base. Requests for the produced
materials have come from all over the world e.g. Mexico and Australia. Comments on past experiencesThe organization of the ODL pilot course and the production of its final test on video proved to be more demanding than expected, requiring extensive planning and co-operation by the group responsible for the methodological and didactic aspects of the project. However it was rewarding for the partners to monitor student progress and encounter such an enthusiastic response. In future in any ODL course for language learning more time should be allocated to the end-users to absorb the course material and to produce the required assignments. The recommendation is that a full academic year - at least twelve months - is required to deliver such a course. The continuous assessment and the final Certificate of Completion were also important elements requested by the students in order to measure their results. Experimenting with the new technology involved in the production of the Internet course proved to be an exiting experience for the partners involved in both the technical and didactic/linguistic aspects of the project. What was first envisaged as a program with still pictures has become a course incorporating video materials thanks to the advanced technology exploited during the course of the project. The Italia 2000 web site course was one of the major achievements obtained during the three-year project, even though there are further possibilities for improvement. Comments both from institutions and individual learners stress the need for innovative materials at intermediate and advanced level for Italian and welcome the use of multimedia/new technology which can provide integrated linguistic elements and be used by independent/autonomous learners. Some institutions also reported on the use of the multimedia package as an 'example of good practice' in teacher training courses. The partners wish to acknowledge the support of the European Commission (Socrates & Youth). Without which such a project, needed for the diffusion of the Italian language, could never have been realised. The partners believe that their experience can be useful to other colleagues involved in similar projects and are available to give advice and suggestions.
NOTESFor information about the content, the pedagogy, evaluation & use of the CD ROM included in the Italia 2000 multimedia package, visit the Web site www.mml.cam.ac.uk/ital2000/CD and links to Oxford and Aberystwyth websites: http://www.italia-2000.com/english.html [link no longer active], for information on online exercises and http://www.italia2000.aber.ac.uk [link no longer active] for information on transcriptions and CALL exercises BBC Focus was at that time part of 'The Learning Zone', BBC 2's through the night education service. It was broadcast terrestrially throughout the UK and Benelux counties. In addition the Learning Zone used to broadcast by satellite on BBC Prime, throughout Europe. During the contract period of the project BBC Focus used to broadcast within the Learning Zone for 2 hours, three nights a week. It worked in partnership with non-profit making organizations who funded and made programs, which were then broadcast, to motivated targeted audiences. The viewers recorded the programs, to use as part of a course of study or simply as information, which helped them with professional or personal development. The programs were usually marketed to alert viewers to watch and record. Both the BBC and the program providers did this through a variety of methods. The Italia 2000 programs broadcast on BBC Prime Satellite in 1997/98 were free. The last Italia 2000 programs broadcast between 1997-1998 were transferred into the digital system. The Open and Distance Learning Course was disseminated through BBC broadcasts, study notes and test papers were posted to individual users both in UK and in Europe. The course also included an Internet program with related audio-visual activities, which is still available on two mirror Web sites, run by the Universities of Oxford and Aberystwyth. A multimodel approach means the use of suitable and flexible multimedia programs/packages which can blend a variety of technologies and techniques - both old and new- that best fit an individual Institution, a teacher training program or a personal situation. Because of the choices and resources now available through digitized/interactive video and computer-based communication, a whole new dimension has to be added to the teaching and learning process. The Report: Italia 2000 in
the Learning Zone: Viewing, behaviour and attitudes, commissioned
by the BBC, was produced in October 1997 by Mr. Peter Dyson and
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