This presentation reflects on the outcomes of two projects carried out in the Italian Program at the University of Chicago with the objective to encourage intercultural reflection through written exchanges between American students and Italian high school students. These two intercultural projects used different platforms and modalities. The first one was carried out through an MIT exchange site called Cultura, and successfully encouraged intercultural reflection between first-year students of Italian and Sardinian students from Liceo Classico G.M. Dettori.

How can foreign language learners evolve and benefit from interacting with speakers of other languages and cultures within the contemporary global scenario?

Over the past two quarters I have taught Italian 1 and Italian 2 as pilot hybrid courses in the Department of Italian at UCLA. These courses met 2 days a week for an hour and fifteen minutes each session. My previous experience teaching 100% online Italian courses for Cal State University Long Beach helped me structure a hybrid course since students in this type of course need a lot more direction on how to study and use online materials independently. In order to address these issues, I created a detailed course program/study flow chart and a welcome letter.

Technology-enhanced curricula offer students increased exposure to the target language and provide more opportunities to perform in the target language by negotiated language use with their instructors and classmates alike, both in and out of the classroom. The Department of Italian is currently offering two sections of Intensive Italian Advanced I, one traditional (five days a week in class) and one hybrid (three days a week in class and two days online).  This new format, which consists of both online and face-to-face instruction, has been devel

Foreign language teachers all face the same challenges. One of the largest challenges is trying to import the culture of their language into the classroom. In recent years, technology has been an important ally in this effort by providing easy access to realia. However, teachers need to choose their materials with care because sometimes they can appear “fake” or “prepackaged,” which can make students disengage.

The presentation will focus on integrating museum resources in the Italian language and culture curriculum at intermediate and advanced levels. Through a step-by-step construction of well developed, dynamic, self-paced activities, I will demonstrate how enriching, innovative, and adaptable online museum resources can be in teaching both language and content-based courses. Alternative platforms of content delivery, such as Wikis and Google+ will be discussed.

This presentation will examine the use of four digital tools—Word Press, Audio-Lingua, Vimeo and VoiceThread—to increase students’ communicative skills and cultural awareness in Italian.  We will review the curricular requirements for the AP Italian Language and Culture Course and discuss how many of the core elements can be incorporated into pre-AP levels of Italian instruction.