The Future of Education

This presentation shares the findings of an action research project focusing on Improvement and Innovation in Learning and Teaching Languages and Cultures conducted in Adelaide, South Australia. Secondary school students were taught irregular present tense verbs using melodies of popular songs once a week for 5 weeks. They were tested at the start of each lesson and data was collated to examine the results.

Whilst traditionally, singing has been reserved for junior primary school students, it has been well-received by older students, with a noticeable improvement in their ability to recall Italian vocabulary and pronounce it correctly. The proposed methodology has since been successfully adopted in the classroom in both an all-boys and co-educational setting at Yr 8-12 level, covering a range of verbs and tenses. This approach has also been extended to include songs about other vocabulary and phrases used in the language classroom and has led to increased confidence among students in terms of their ability to understand, recall, correctly pronounce and use certain phrases.

Whilst the presentation focuses on an Italian language classroom in Australia, it can be easily adapted for other language classrooms, and several examples are included in the presentation.

How can you make grammar something to sing about in your classroom?