School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications
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ItemForget what you think you know - the real story about what works in languages classrooms(Filodiritto Editore, 2023)After teaching Italian in adult and university contexts with a communicative and explicit-grammar teaching focus for nearly 25 years, I was becoming increasingly perplexed as to why my students continued to make mistakes and not learn the correct forms of basic parts of speech (e.g. definite articles). This pedagogical crisis occurred around the same time that I heard Bill VanPatten speak about the failed promises of instructed second language acquisition (SLA) [9]. In a nutshell, he claimed that much of what occurs in typical languages classrooms has next to no impact on language acquisition – this resonated strongly with me and I decided to return to SLA research to understand more [10]. What I discovered has led to a complete overhaul of my teaching approach influenced heavily by Krashen’s claims that approaches based on comprehensible input are superior to all others [2]. In this paper, I will present the compelling case for comprehensible input and describe how I have implemented this in the Italian Studies program at the University of Melbourne through the use of story-listening [7]. I will also discuss student responses to the approach and provide you with a range of suggestions on how to implement this in your own contexts.
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ItemVirtual exchange and Meaning-Making - Translanguaging and Pushing the Boundaries(Filodiritto Editore, 2023)In this paper, we describe the latest iteration of our virtual exchange project (see [1], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9] for context) between students of Italian in an Australian university and students in a liceo linguistico in Italy. Students, in pairs or groups of three, met online for 4 weeks and, unlike previous virtual exchanges where we prescriptively programmed topics to be discussed, were given the instruction to define their own topics of interest to pursue together. The objective of this freer approach was to encourage students to become stronger agents of meaning-making using the languages at their disposal. As García and Kleifgen [2] note “[t]o liberate the meaning-making potential of […] bilinguals, a translanguaging pedagogy privileges emergence of meaning making, feeling, intensity, and excitement, as it moves the imaginaries of students to make connections across what are perceived and encoded as separate sign systems” (p. 568). Multilinguals can experience a transformation “when they realize the artificial and constructed nature of the categories imposed on them” ([4], p. 498), and they can then coordinate their own performances without the strictures of external categories.” ([4], p. 560). We explore the range of topics defined by student participants and compare this with both our own previous models for virtual exchange as well as others drawn from the literature. We also detail student responses to their online translanguaging experience. We examine the ramifications of this information for future similar projects but also for meaningful meaning-making for young people in languages education.
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ItemEditorial(Wiley, 2021-01-01)
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ItemNo Preview AvailableDigital corpora - language teaching and learning in the age of big data(Research-Publishing., 2021-03-01)What is it? Using corpora to teach languages is nothing new and, while the term corpus linguistics hails from the 1940s, most language learning before the 20th century adopted a corpus approach – using a series of texts in the language under study as a type of corpus on which to base acquisition. With the advent of widespread computing in the latter half of the 20th century, corpora began to be digitised, rendering interrogation of large amounts of data a much simpler and more appealing prospect. Today, languages in all forms (written, spoken, performed, formal, informal, etc.) are captured all the time through online and digital platforms, apps, etc. meaning that the wealth of language data literally at our fingertips is enormous. This has triggered the development of appropriate tools to explore these vast data sets.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableEditorial(ELSEVIER, 2020-08)
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ItemThe language of food: carving out a place for food studies in language curricula(Springer Nature B.V., 2020)This chapter argues for the place of food studies in tertiary language studies programs. With a myriad of changes to education throughout the twentieth century, language study lost its eminent position as a gateway to higher learning, which means we are required to articulate our relevance to students and university governance. Food and food culture have great appeal amongst students and carving out a place for food studies in our language curricula allows us to generate a new interest amongst a changed student cohort. As well as providing students with an enriching way of learning about other cultures, the non-canonical and universal phenomenon of food or food discourse has the advantage of being immediately accessible to our students who all have their own experiences of food. The study of food also provides us with an opportunity to enhance students’ intercultural skills, which have increasing value in the global workplace. Understanding the multiple layers of meaning attached to food and food culture helps students to develop a sensitivity to the importance of the everyday in their interactions with other cultures. We will discuss this synergy between languages and food studies in the context of tertiary language studies in Spanish and Italian, detailing some of the initiatives in this area.
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ItemThree provocations about retention and attrition and their policy implications(Springer Nature B.V., 2020)One of the recurring debates in relation to languages and cultures education in Australia concerns the issue of retention and attrition. The clarion call seems to have been continuous for the last 30 years or so. I want to offer three provocations around this issue: 1. We think it’s our fault but maybe it isn’t — research shows us that at each point of transition students will choose to change languages, regardless of their experience. A concomitant issue is that at university level some students have already decided how much of a language they are prepared to study (often due to administrative/structural constraints of their degree or for other personal reasons — cf. the phenomenon of the language tourist). 2. The curriculum wars — my recent experience of working with the Australian Curriculum: Languages has highlighted a fundamental philosophical divergence between how curriculum is conceptualized in schools education and at tertiary level. My question is whether this difference (which I will outline) is leading to attrition (or retention). 3. Gender and identity — while languages classes at all levels of schooling are typically dominated by females, and females make up a larger proportion of the language teaching corps in schools, at university level things can be somewhat different. I would suggest that there are some intriguing questions waiting to be teased out in relation to how students identify with staff in terms of gender and identity at tertiary level and whether this has an impact on retention (or attrition). For each of these provocations, I will present some initial research and discussion.
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ItemEcco! uno Teacher Companion (2e)(Pearson, 2018)
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ItemEcco! due Student Book(Pearson, 2018)