Peer

This paper presents a proposal, addressed to primary school children between 8 and 11 years of age, for exploitation of the multilingual version of the software Addizionario. The phases of the methodology are described in which the children from different countries, after working with Addizionario, produce material to be exchanged and used by their peers for mutual culture and language learning. An experiment carried out within the framework of the Socrates-Comenius project in Italian and Welsh schools is described, with the presentation of the data collected in Italian and Welsh schools.

The proposed methodology could also be used in schools for the integration of immigrant children and for the preservation and valorisation of minority languages.

Multimedia software, primary school teaching/learning, peer teaching/learning, foreign languages, culture preservation

1. Addizionario

Addizionario[1] is a multimedia tool addressed to primary school children, initially designed to study the Italian language in an easy and amusing manner. The original idea lying behind this software was the awareness that it is possible to increase the interest and enthusiasm of children towards language if they are motivated and directly involved in activities carried out in collaboration with teachers and classmates. Addizionario suggests a new approach to language learning which envisages direct involvement of the child in the gradual construction of his competence.

a) a Dictionary for children, written and illustrated by the children themselves, whose name Addizionario has been extended to include the whole system;

The Dictionary contains the definitions, examples, drawings and free associations that 400 children of primary schools from various regions of Italy produced for around 1,000 words, among the most frequently used by young pupils.

The Activity Book, the creative module of Addizionario, makes it possible to perform a wide variety of activities on language, including the construction of one’s personal dictionary. For every word introduced in the dictionary, the child is free to perform the number of tasks he wishes, either textual or non-textual, which appear in the menu.

The textual activities include the production of definitions, examples, free associations, idiomatic expressions, synonyms and antonyms if they exist, as well as verbs and adjectives which can be associated with the word in question. The writing of invented stories and personal experiences is another important task which can help the child become actively involved in the work.

The non-textual activities consist in handling the multimedia aspects of the system. The children can produce their own drawings, record sounds, or can use the material already available in the archives of the system. With particular regard to the drawings, it is possible for the children to use the material which has been produced on paper previously and then transferred into the Activity Book by means of a scanner. If the child wishes to create drawings on the computer directly, or prefers to personalize those taken from the archives, simple tools such as pencils, an eraser, paint, scissors, etc. can be employed. On the drawing the child can construct in a simple and easy manner “hot areas” highlighting different parts or details of the image and these details can also be added to the Activity Book as new words.

From the early phase of implementation of Addizionario, we were convinced that the material collected would shed light on the emotional world of the children, their personal experiences and everyday lives, revealing their inner feelings, sentiments of love, fear and hope, and supplying us with precious and genuine material. The various tasks were typical classroom activities, but the material produced by the children opened a window into the social and cultural reality and physical ambience in which they were immersed. Therefore, the study of the data produced during experimentation in numerous schools both in Italy and abroad encouraged us to formulate the proposal, described in detail in section 4.

Availability of a multilingual (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish) version of the system described above, and the possibility of personalizing the software with respect to the language of interaction, offer new perspectives of application of the tool both in Italy and abroad.

The increased awareness, underlined by numerous documents issued by the European Community, of the necessity for pupils to know two or more languages to facilitate communication between the people of different countries, has become a crucial issue.

A growing number of multimedia tools and methods recently issued on the market seem to be very promising for the learning of a language in a more rapid and efficient, less difficult manner. However, the users soon realize that they are not always adaptable to their requirements: they supply the structures of a language, but not together with the information necessary to introduce the learner into the physical, social and cultural world in which the language in question is developed.

Taking these needs into account, and considering the possibilities offered by Addizionario, we suggest use of the tool for language learning, based on mutual teaching and on the exchange of knowledge and cultural data between children of the same age (8-11 years), belonging to different linguistic communities.

With this aim, Addizionario can be used in Italy and in other countries of the European community, where the pupils of the schools are more and more involved in projects of partnership and collaboration with their peers.

a) a set of words the teachers have previously agreed upon, chosen among the most common and closest to the world of the children, are submitted in parellel in their native language to the classes of two or more partner schools participating in the project;

b) each group of children work on their native language using Addizionario in an intercultural perspective. The awareness that the material they are producing will be useful to their peers of another country and the willingness to speak about themselves and about their everyday lives act as strong motivating factors. With the aid of the teacher who covers an important and crucial role in conducting the activities, they prepare didactic units, performing all the activities envisaged by the Activity Book: the words chosen will be supplied with pronunciation, definitions, examples, associations, sounds, drawings, etc.;

c) the children exchange and analyze the material specifically prepared for them by their peers;

d) they learn and memorise new words and grammar structures using them in different contexts. Addizionario makes it possible for the children to practise the four basic skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking). While achieving the first notions of another language, they are helped to look at things from different points of view, in order to understand better the emotions, habits, physical and social environment of their partners;

e) in the final phase, the children compare the data of their peers from the other country with their own. The exchange of information and experiences with these pupils allows them to discover similarities and differences, both linguistic and cultural between the two countries, and to understand that ideas and concepts generally taken for granted are determined by one’s cultural background. They are encouraged to learn about how other children live, but at the same time they are made to reflect about themselves, about their history and national identity.

The first experimentation of the procedure described above is currently underway and involves a number of Italian and Welsh schools. Contacts with Wales were started in 1996 within the framework of a Comenius project in which this part of Great Britain was partner of the primary school of Capannori (Lucca, central Italy) which at that time was working with the first prototype of Addizionario. Lesley Godding, at that time headteacher of the Glynhafod Junior School, Cwmaman, Aberdare, Rhondda-Cynon-Taff, Wales, expressed a strong interest in the tool, and suggested to use it for a joint-project between the two countries.

Work with Addizionario was conducted first on paper and then on computer using a rather faulty and hasty English version of the system. At present, with the availability of the multilingual version, experimentation can be carried out with full satisfaction and without major problems.

What follows are some of the data - produced by the children of the two countries - which at a first glance seem to be of some interest. While the Italian data come from schools of different types and from various regions of Italy and reflect a more heterogeneous background, the British data all come from a rather depressed area of Wales, badly hit by the rapid decline of the coal industry.

From even a small sample of material, it is possible to receive information as to how the children of the two countries spend their Sundays, what type of food they eat, their relationship with parents and relatives, their favourite games, surrounding environment and traditions.

Particularly interesting were the definitions that reflect the children’s personal, concrete experiences, associated feelings and impressions. When speaking about themselves, the children also provide information about their daily experiences and cultural aspects of their everyday lives.

Sunday for Welsh children is usually a day of rest, when you eat a cooked dinner, which is a meal that has meat in it. Parents don’t generally work on that day and often go shopping with their children, and this is made possible by the fact that most stores in Wales are open on Sundays, unlike Italy where they often have a Sunday opening once a month.

An Italian boy visits new places with his parents every Sunday, while another one goes to buy cakes at the confectioner’s, a typical Italian habit. Strong affection is shown for parents and relatives alike. For an Italian child, mother is the person who prepares cakes and bottle-fed him when he was a baby, while daddy is the person who brings presents. Grandmother, which the Welsh children call granny or nan, is a person they visit on Sundays or where they go to sleep for the night.

A classroom for Italian children is a place where they get together and study in a pleasant manner and without interruption, while for a Welsh boy it is a place where they work all day and which has six tables and six groups in it. For the Welsh children, a computer is used to write out a story, or letters, or do your homework, while for the Italian children it is an intelligent machine, a type of television with which one can write, play, draw and work, and which is very fussy.

The word child was defined by an Italian pupil as a very young person destined to become old if he doesn't meet any obstacles in the meantime and represented with a blue ribbon hanging on a door. In Italy, when a new baby is born, it is the custom to place a blue ribbon ‑ in the case of a boy, a pink ribbon ‑ in the case of a girl, on the door of the house.

For a Welsh pupil, a boy has short hair and wears one earring in his left ear, and this description is also reflected in the drawings the children have made.

From a comparison of the material produced by the children of both countries for the word carnival, it emerges that the celebration, metaphorically described as an outside circus, or a moving entertainment, is different in the two countries. In Italy it is celebrated in February - and the children emphasize on dressing up in fancy clothes and throwing streamers at one another, - while in Wales it is celebrated in August, when many people are on holiday and the weather is more reliable.

The impression we receive is that despite the weather conditions which in Britain are far worse than in other more southern European countries, outdoor activities with games such as the bean-bag or the wheelbarrow race are a lot more frequent and intense, while football is definitely the favourite sport for Italian boys.

The children of both countries explain that a forest has a lot of trees of different types, plants and shrubs, with animals like squirrels and owls for the Welsh, while some of the Italian children also associate a forest to the idea of a dangerous, dark, bewitched and fearful place, with wolves.

Italian families commonly use the aeroplane for business, while for Welsh children this means of transport (a big giant bird, an airy piece of machinery that flies) is essentially associated with holiday-making to Spain or to Greece.

Finally, the drawings of the Welsh are generally less colourful and elaborate than those produced by the Italian children who are innately more extrovert, but in both cases they always reflect the everyday life and social experiences of the children. For example for the word church, one of the drawings represents the congregation immediately before or after the service, with a handicapped person on a wheel-chair. The buildings represented by the Welsh children are those typical of British architecture, in Gothic style and with mosaic windows. The tombs are located in the churchyards, a feature that is not present in Italy where the graves are generally found only in the cemeteries.

4. Concluding remarks

We have presented a proposal for the exploitation of Addizionario as a teaching/learning language tool. The same methodology can also be used to preserve and valorize the minority languages, as well as to promote and foster initiatives for welcoming and protecting the language and culture of origin of immigrant pupils. The levels of use of Addizionario are not predefined, and therefore it can be appropriately exploited by pupils of various ages and abilities, adapting to their different needs. The Italian students can be involved in processes of reciprocal enrichment, where the presence of non-Italian cultures is a resource and not a problem. Linguistic and cultural differences should in fact be considered as positive values, laying foundations for mutual respect, cultural exchange and tolerance. The software can be also useful to the teachers working with textbooks which do not always take into account non-Western and non-Christian cultures.

References

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[1] The software was implemented at the Institute of Computational Linguistics (ILC) in Pisa, in collaboration with the Department of Computer Sciences of Turin University, and patented by the Italian National Research Council (CNR) of Italy.

Peer-supported foreign language learning:

Abstract

1. Addizionario

4. Concluding remarks

References