Presents a proposal to bring literature into the basic program of instruction and make it a meaningful component of the learning process. A model lesson describes how literary texts can be perceived and studied as performances of a language. (CB)

Describes a workshop offered at the Middlebury College Italian School on contemporary Italy. The morning sessions consisted of a discussion by a native Italian scholar of contemporary Italy and of related readings and the afternoon sessions consisted of readings and discussions and hands-on activities in lesson preparation. (SED)

Cites problems in the current method of teaching the subjunctive to English-speaking students of Italian. The ineffectiveness of associating the indicative mode with reality and the subjunctive mode with possibility is discussed. Psychological explanations, not grammatical ones, are presented to explain this use. (CFM)

Presents a system for teaching the Italian future tense by tracing its development from the Latin vulgar use of infinitive plus "avere" to indicate futurity. (AM)

Principles, objectives, and techniques that focus on the challenge to and the role of teacher and student in the Italian conversation course, with a view to greater efficacy, are presented. (AM)

Looks at devices that stimulate intralinguistic thinking patterns, that is, patterns that can only be induced by the structures and forms of the target language without any dependency upon native-language patterns. Focuses on problem-solving activities that help the learner develop modes of thought that can be solved "Italian." (SED)

Investigates the effectiveness of placing more emphasis on reading in the elementary and intermediate foreign language classroom. Explores approaches to and models of foreign language reading, such as schema theory and content language teaching. Discusses the appropriate point at which to adapt the various strategies. (Author/VWL)

Reviews research about the brain's hemispheric functions, emphasizing the practical implications and applications of bimodal language learning. Four pedagogical principles (contextualization, visualization, diversification, and personalization) that characterize any integrated approach to language teaching are also discussed. (CB)

Examines the theoretical and practical rationale for processing instruction as a method of incorporating grammar instruction in a communicative foreign language approach. Presents results of a study on the role of processing instruction on the learning of the Italian future indicative tense by a group of English-speaking students. Results…

Examines recent studies of linguistic corpora in Italian, and presents the results of an analysis of "piace" and "piacciono" conducted on a corpus of 3.5 million words of written Italian, accessible at the University of Birmingham in England. Focuses on pedagogical applications of the data and on the inductive methodologies…

Presents a scheme directed towards Italian language Teaching Assistants teaching subject and object pronouns, and discusses the etymology and diachronic development of these forms. (Text is in Italian.) (AM)

Describes a theatrical workshop developed to teach Italian to third-year students. The aim of the course was to increase students' understanding of Italian language and culture and to enhance their communicative skills and appreciation of literary texts. (Author/VWL)

Considers the most recently published or re-edited North American textbooks for Italian with a view to discussing the current methodological trends they illustrate. Findings indicate that all except one of the seven textbooks reviewed have been upgraded to reflect an integrated or eclectic approach and that they differ mainly in the authors'…

Reviews recent literature concerning what to do to help foreign learners of Italian develop communicative competence, i.e., a functional knowledge of the uses of the language. This literature shows that to be conceptually fluent in a language is to know how that language encodes concepts on the basis of metaphorical reasoning. (33 references) (CK)