A. Che tipo di approccio segue?
B. Che tipo di relazione stabilisce tra lei e i suoi studenti?
C. Il suo programma segue una linea definita o si adatta ai bisogni degli studenti?
D. L’errore: che cos’è? Lo corregge?, lo recupera? E. Qual è il ruolo della grammatica nelle sue lezioni? F. Fa lezioni di cultura italiana?
56 say “think” because there may be a discrepancy between the methods the teachers think they use and the activities they actually use. This discrepancy could be the result of a wrong knowledge or misunderstanding of terms as “approccio comunicativo” etc. that could maybe be confused by the teachers. What we expected from this question was a definition of what our informants were later going to explain us in detail through the other questions of this section. The question “quale tipo di approccio segue?” was structured as a multiple choice question; basically we did not modify it from the questionnaire of 200341 because if on the one hand we wanted the teachers to give a label to their approach, on the other we did not want to make it too difficult to understand. As Balboni says “ the main problem with this question regards the precision of the words used” (Our translation, 2003:45)42. We assumed, and the data from the former paragraph confirm it, that the majority of teachers has a good/high/specific knowledge of teaching theory and applied linguistic. 58 % of our informants declared to follow a communicative approach, 16% a grammatical approach and only 6% said they followed an audio-oral approach. The questions following well fit in our part called “teaching approach” that includes aspects of the everyday teaching as use of grammar, use of L2, consideration of the errors and evaluation of it but also relation with the students and planning.
According to our responses, 48% of our informants declares they establish an authoritative but based on reciprocal respect relationship with their students. Only 3% define his/her approach authoritative and 13% of our teachers declared to establish “friendly” relationship with their students. An interesting data is represented by 26 % of the teachers who declared they have a relationship “mentore-studente” as the teacher represents a sort of guide for the student. In fact, even at the question “Il suo programma segue una linea definita o si modifica in base agli interessi degli studenti”? 42% of the teachers declared to coordinate their planning with the other teachers of Italian . Only 23 % affirm they shape the program around student’s needs. 19% declares to follow the book. Obviously, as we reported in the previous chapters, there are educative goals teacher must reach by the end of the course and moreover, there is a national program to stay in line with.
Considering errors and mistakes, the outcomes we had were very differentiated. Generally, the teachers declared to do not correct errors particularly in the oral. The students, in their opinion, stopped and corrected, would lose confidence in what they are doing. Many of our teachers consider the error a good possibility to learn something new. Some informants told us they do not consider the error, or they wait the students to correct the error by him/herself.
The next part of our questionnaire focuses on three important aspects of a language: grammar, culture and use of L2. What we have observed in our 8 months of our assistantship has been that grammar is much less considered than in Italy. Moreover, as our teacher declared, only 16% of them follow a grammar-based approach. It is interesting to see how data about the use of grammar in the class reveal that 74% of teachers dedicate a specific moment to grammar. We don’t find high incongruent the fact that a small majority
41
See Balboni and Santipolo, 2003
57 declares they follow a grammar-based approach but then, a much bigger number affirm to dedicate specific time to grammar, we find this aspect interesting to investigate on. Fig. 21 below shows the answers to the question: “ Che ruolo ha la grammatica nelle sue lezioni?”
Figure 21: Che ruolo ha la grammatica nelle sue lezioni?
Regarding the consideration of the culture, the question we posed was similar to the question about grammar. We saw that only 55% of informants often take classes of Italian culture while 39% answered they “sometimes” do it . Then, more specifically, we asked them what culture they bring in class: answers have been very variegated and they included:
Songs; Movies;
Classes on food;
Art classes on carnival, Christmas, Easter; Italian cities;
Made in Italy (products); Eco-tourism;
Italian typical games as bocce or scopa; How to make coffee;
Poetry43;
Specific cultural topic;
Songs but only to work on grammatical aspects.
Another important aspect we thought it was important to focus on was the use of the target language, Italian, in class. We read that some of our teachers do not feel very comfortable with their Italian; to what extent this “lack” affect in some way their use of L2 in class?
43
We also signal that every year the Cultural association “Dante Alighieri” organizes a poetry competition trough the schools of Victoria, based on Italian Poetry of any age
74% 0%
10%
16%