Didactic plays: teaching Italian as a second language through drama texts.

Abstract

Teaching Italian as a second language using drama texts as the main didactic tool stimulates learners' emotional and motivational involvement. The aim of this project is to develop a didactic methodology that is able to trigger learners' emotions and sustain their initial motivation, thus resulting in a better and more stable mnemonic retention of the linguistic input. The 1st chapter provides an overview of the neuroscientifical specifics of the acquisitional and memory process and of the main theories of motivation. The 2nd chapter discusses the features, aims and techniques of teaching Italian as a second language through drama texts, as well as its strengths and weaknesses, in the frame of humanistic-affective studies. The 3rd chapter stresses the importance of outlining the learner's profile, a table of the student's multiple intelligences, motivational drivers, cognitive and learning styles and main characteristics of his/her interlanguage. Ultimately, the last part describes a project of teaching Italian as a second language using didactically-adapted plays experimented in a multicultural class of adult learners.