Pixel International Conferences

In Japan, teaching Italian as a second language to adults and university students is mostly limited to the teaching of the language with textbooks designed for Western students. Many language schools also offer courses on topics such as art, history, literature, or food, but the primary emphasis of such courses is content, not language. Among such topics, moreover, geography receives scant attention, if not none at all. With this in mind, and in the spirit of the 1995 European Community’s White Paper on Education, which listed the acquisition of new knowledge through a foreign language as one of its goals for lifelong learning, in April 2022 I began developing a series of interactive digital textbooks for the adult learners of one of my online classes. The textbooks integrate language and content, teaching language through the geography of Italy. Each one offers short and scalable units on a specific topic (geographical data, historical outline, economic activities, sightseeing spots and cities, activities, events, festivals, food, etc.) that can be used as starting points for conversations and to enhance the lexical competence of intermediate and advanced learners.

My presentation, based on the data collected during the first year of this project, will consider the following points: 1) How to design an effective digital textbook for intermediate or advanced learners;

2) Assessing the reception of interactive materials in online courses by adult learners and university students; 3) Exploring the future of content and language integrated learning in contemporary language education in Japan; 4) Addressing challenges and expectations for this project in the near future.

Keywords: Digital textbooks, Italian regions, Geography, CLIL, E-Learning

References:

[1] Chun Lai, Insights into autonomy and techonlogy in language teaching, Catstledown, London, 2023.

[2] European Community, White Paper on Education and Training «Teaching and Learning - Towards the Learning Society», 1995