Two Australian language curriculum development projects are discussed: the Australian Language Levels (ALL) Project and the National Assessment Framework for Languages at Senior Secondary Level (NAFLSSL). While distinct, both projects are closely linked. Each project was launched in 1985 in a favorable climate and in response to cost, enrollment,…

The insularity of Italian Americans is evident in their relationship with the Catholic church in America. By insisting on remaining Catholic, but only on their own terms, the Italians have won no support either from other Catholics, the church hierarchy, or the Protestants who hoped to convert them to Protestantism. (Author/MJL)

Notes that information presented in dialog form in a foreign language lends itself more easily to conversation than does intricate narrative prose. Using background information on Halloween, the article adapts the text to present information about the target culture as well as to humorously present facts about the North American festivity.…

Discusses the results of research to determine the success of the efforts currently being made in schools to teach pure Italian to the second generation of Italians in Australia in order to replace Italian Australian, a mixture of Italian dialects, Italian, and English. 33 references. (CFM)

Examination of several interrelated topics on postage stamps, including their multiple functions and significance as semiotic artifacts, precedes suggestions for incorporating them into the Italian language curriculum in such activities as reading, writing, speaking, listening, and cultural understanding. (CB)

The use of BE as an auxiliary verb with intransitive verbs has declined in all the Romance languages over the past five centuries. Today, Spanish and Portuguese use only HAVE, in Catalan and Romanian BE occurs in marginal contexts, and in French, BE is used with approximately 40 verbs. Italian is a notable exception, since BE is still used as the…

The assimilation of Italians into American culture led to the loss of the Italian language, and an oral tradition of Italian peasants in which Italian feminist philosophy was grounded. The legends, parables, and proverbs told by these Italian women challenged the teachings of Catholicism, perpetuating an underground religious tradition which…

The Department of Italian Studies at the University of Toronto focuses on language training by relating other components of foreign language study (literature, linguistics, etc.) directly to the language training process. The department features a streaming system (beginner, native-speaker, and matriculant) which places students of linguistically…

This paper presents an interdisciplinary research project that aims at developing an electronic vocabulary acquisition system for the German and the Italian language called ELDIT (Elektronisches Lern(er)worterbuch Deutsch Italienisch). The approach for studying and practicing the vocabulary. To ensure maximum effectiveness of the learning process,…

Discusses cross-language, multilingual, and bilingual information retrieval on the Web; evaluates retrieval effectiveness of indexing and search strategies based on test collections from CLEF (Cross-Language Evaluation Forum) in English, French, German, and Italian; and suggests and evaluates database merging strategies. Appendices include…

Examines the languages (German, Italian, French) year-10 British students choose to study and shows how each language has fared to provide a basis for comparisons across languages. Also examines the results of interviews with students to determine the motive behind decisions to pursue or drop a language. (five references) (CK)

International Grammar School was founded twenty years ago on the belief in the benefits of immersion language learning for children. It offers immersion second language learning in German, Italian, French, and Japanese which continues through kindergarten into the high school years. With language as the medium and not the object of learning,…

Elementary school students who were recent immigrants from Puerto Rico, Haiti, Greece, Italy, Hong Kong and Israel participated in this after school program. The goal of the program was to increase student proficiency in reading, writing, and speaking English. Ninety-seven students from two elementary schools were selected on the basis of…

Supports claim that linguistic and psycholinguistic accounts based on study of English may prove unreliable as guides to sentence processing in even closely related languages such as German and Italian. Results of a test of sentence interpretation indicate that English-speaking Americans rely overwhelmingly on word order, Germans rely on both…

Outlines the activities of a recently created section of the Italian Center for Applied Linguistics (CILA), dealing with "Teaching Italian Abroad." Describes these activities as encompassing four areas: research, teaching methodology, consultation, teachers' training and bibliographical information. Lists statistical surveys, research papers, and…