For Staging Cultural Networks in the Language Classroom, the entire group of Italian Language Lecturers and Lecturing Fellows will redesign the third semester of Italian toward a student-centered pedagogy based on collaborative and experiential learning. This approach underlines the socially constructed nature of knowledge and empowers students by tapping into their specific fields of interest and promoting ownership of learning.

 

The redesigned course will engage a new conceptual framework involving representations of body, space, and relations, allowing students to expand their understanding of the relationships between language and culture and forge connections between the elements of language as form (syntax, semantics, pragmatics) and language as action (performing identities, speech acts and functions). The approach exploits the deep connections between language study and a wide range of fields in the Humanities and beyond. It continues an ongoing emphasis on collaboration and vertical integration by engaging advanced students to work as teachers with their peers in earlier phases of the language sequence.