Supplementing the Elementary Italian curriculum with listening exercises based on film clips

Grant Details

Amount: $750

Project Start Date: 12/31/05

Status: In Progress (under development)

Project Type:
Campus Based

Languages: Italian

Project Level:
Beginner

Project Skills:
Listening

Institutions Involved:
University of Pennsylvania

Primary Contact:
Helen McFie-Simone (smcfie@sas.upenn.edu)

Department of Romance Languages, 521 Williams Hall
255 South 36th Street
Philadelphia , PA 19104-6305
Phone: 215.898.8449

This project arises out of the need for appropriate listening material for first-semester Italian at the University of Pennsylvania. The text currently used, "Qui Italia", published in Italy, is lacking in helpful listening exercises. Film clips will serve to provide a much richer input than voices from a cd or a cassette and will enable students to immediately understand at least the context in which the dialogue takes place. The use of clips will be followed up by a viewing of the entire film, which will be much easier to understand in its entirety because of the work done previously with the clips. Because this course is taught in multiple sections, the material will be made available on a website for the purpose of making it readily available to all instructors.