Innovation in Language Learning

The point of departure for the didactic and methodological idea is the use of songs and the Internet in order to increase multilingualism both in schools and in lifelong learning courses and to promote the integration of immigrants.

In order to encourage innovation in education and to facilitate integration with a view to enhancing and improving communication and intercultural interaction and understanding, the Federazione Nazionale Insegnanti Centro di iniziativa per l’Europa, a non-profit professional association,  in cooperation with institutions from several European countries, produced, tested, optimised and evaluated teaching materials for IT/FR/ES/PT/RO/RU as foreign languages linking the use of songs (particularly useful to build up communicative skills in a foreign language and intercultural learning)  to the use of karaoke and audio visual materials put in the web. This approach helps overcome the problems caused by age and differences among learners.

The material, addressed to teachers of IT/FR/ES/PT/RO/RU as a second language and their students – no matter their age - and to people from various age groups wishing to learn one of the languages for work, tourism or immigration, is accessible through the web portal www.languagesbysongs.eu.

The learning materials, at CEFR A2 and B1/B2 levels, require learners to have A1 linguistic competence and are based on the guidelines which explain the methodological criteria, the introduction to the method and give suggestions both on how to introduce the music approach when teaching a language and on how to write suitable exercises.

The materials were put in the website after being experimented by 98 teachers and trainers belonging to 16 countries on 2.471 students of various ages to ensure suitability, relevance and effectiveness. They can be used everywhere, also in case of autonomous learning and the project can be considered a model to apply to other languages as well.

The project aims also at creating a community of European teachers interested in using songs while teaching a foreign language. Teachers of IT/FR/ES/PT/RO/RU, who did not belong to the partnership but were interested in collaborating to and developing this methodology, sent their teaching materials, created while following this method. The materials have been added to the worksheets written by the project’s partners and their names have been added to the authors’ list.

In five years, on the basis of ShinyStat statistics, the website has been visited 30.906 times by people from 117 countries.