The Italian piazza is the centre of community for Italian cities, towns and villages. How people connect in the piazza, and have done over centuries, is key to understanding Italian culture and language use. As I began planning a teaching unit for Primary, Stage 3, I wanted to design lessons and activities for my students to learn not just the vocabulary associated with the piazza – the shops, the buildings, the amenities - or even the conversations they may have there. I wanted them to go deeper, to think about what we can learn from the piazza. How we frame learning will shape what students imagine they are doing. Is their expectation that they are learning a language simply to accumulate knowledge and become proficient at useful phrases? Or can we invite them to imagine a purpose beyond themselves? In this case, to consider how we connect with others, in order to better understand and meet the human need for connection and community. As an introduction to the unit, I invited my students to think about the difference between learning about and learning from another culture and language. From there, I asked them to embark with me on a journey of discovery of what we may learn from the piazza and how Italians connect. And how we could apply our understandings to imagine spaces as facilitators of connection and community.
We learnt about the piazza, its function and associated vocabulary through exploring maps and viewing photos and videos of people interacting in various ways in different piazze. The emphasis was not so much on the structure of the piazze but how those structures appeared to invite and facilitate people meeting together. What elements and design features could make it feel natural and appealing to just be there. How were people meeting and interacting in the space? Students then designed their own piazze, using the target language to label all the elements in Italian. Discussions about how their design would meet the criteria for facilitating connection and a rationale statement were in English. From there the plan was to create Italian conversations between different groups of people, using photo and video examples of real people meeting and conversing with each other in a piazza. But as often happens in school life, we ran out of time. On reflection, I would also plan for students to consider how practising attentive listening could facilitate other-person-centred connection and what kinds of conversations help build community. Next year, these students will begin learning a different European language. My hope is that they will apply not only their knowledge of how languages are learnt to a new context but also a deeper understanding of how and why we need to connect with each other and how we can serve others in seeking ways to build community and a sense of belonging. Libby Colla Acknowledgement Thank you to Grace Bergan, Barker College, for sharing with me the original idea for this unit. Sei mitica!
2 Comments
Grace Bergan
16/7/2020 07:56:12 am
I love your post and what you did with your students!
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Libby
16/7/2020 10:05:02 pm
Wow Grace! You are always such an inspiration. Keep those ideas coming!
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