Learning and Teaching - Italian

                ITALIAN     

Students have been working hard and learning to use functional learning during Italian lessons this term.

Functional language is language used to perform specific functions such as greetings, asking for permission, advice, a specific instruction or expressing an opinion. It is the language required for people to communicate, organize their thoughts and ideas as well as socialize. Research clearly indicates that learning  functional language is important in any language development. At Christ Our Holy Redeemer our Italian language program focuses on learning around functional language. This year we have introduced a weekly review which allows students to regularly review previous learning and build on new vocabulary. Similar to what happens in other curriculum areas with the daily review.

Prep

During this term preps have learnt different phrases and words used to address and greet people in Italian according to their relationship, setting and time of day. They continued to learn the Italian alphabet and the sounds associated with each letter. Students learnt the phrase “I can see” (io vedo) in Italian which is “Io vedo…”. They enjoyed their walk and talk session where they wore their coloured glasses and walked around the school expressing the different colours they saw while using Italian. Students enjoyed using iPads as part of the ELLA program (Early Learning Languages Australia) as a tool to assist them with learning Italian. The app they used this term was called “The Beach”. In preparation for Italian day, the students have been learning a traditional Italian dance.

Year 1/2

During this term, the Year 1 and 2 students focused on the sounds made by vowels in Italian in order to assist them with their oral pronunciation and reading in Italian. They learnt the names used for different family members such as mum, dad, cousin, sister, brother. As well as words and phrases about their family members. For example my mum’s name is.. (Mia mamma si chiama..) Students enjoyed using iPads as part of the ELLA program (Early Learning Languages Australia) as a tool to assist them with learning Italian. The app they used this term was called “Camping”. In preparation for Italian day, the students have been learning a traditional Italian dance.

Year 3/4

During this term, the year 3 and 4 students continued to learn the days of the week, months of the year, seasons, daily weather and express the full date in Italian. They gathered and prayed weekly in Italian saying the traditional catholic prayer  “Glory Be “.  Students main focus was to learn the language needed to express an opinion and give an explanation. This included expressing what they like to do with their friends and why. They used grammatical structures to form simple sentences using correct gender forms. Students expressed preferences and reasons for preferences.  “I like…… because… “ ( Mi piace…. perché…..)

Year 5/6

During this term, the Year 5 and 6 students assisted in planning our school Italian Day on the 30th June. This included students thinking about and creating possible activities that  all students could participate in.  Some of those activities were then chosen to be used on Italian Day. They gathered and prayed weekly in Italian saying the traditional Catholic prayer  “Hail Mary “. Students learnt the language needed to describe the physical attributes of themselves and others such as hair colour, eye colour and height. They also used descriptive language to express what they and others are wearing or like to wear. Descriptions were used both in spoken and written forms. Students learnt basic grammar forms and  used grammatical knowledge, to interpret and create meaning in  Italian. They expanded basic sentence structure by using simple conjunctions in Italian like ‘but’ and ‘and’. 

Bravi Ragazzi !

Signora Pansino