Teaching interlanguage in the era of the Web 2.0: the use of YouTube

Abstract

Interculturality represents one of the most important and difficult topics that we teachers need to pass on to our students. In the past very often, students that did not have the chance to travel to the country of which they were studying the language of, used to associate what they heard from closed ones or teachers as the truth. So many stereotypes were born around foreign countries, especially counties that had very different cultures from the original one. Today with globalization and technologies everything changed. The use of the internet opened up a myriad of possibilities for a student who wants to learn a new language. We, as teachers, must know some of these tools and how to better use them in the classroom, in order to be better at our job and also to avoid creating false stereotypes like in the past. With this elaborate, I am going to analyze some of these tools available to teachers and students, by posing particular attention to the case of YouTube. Then I am going to analyze more in-depth some YouTube Channels and videos that in my opinion offers good materials for the teaching of interculturality and more specifically the Italian Language, culture and history to Anglophones students. I will also develop a possible didactic unit made out of these materials and I will test it with real students using technological instrument and online classes. In the end, I will gather feedback and data to support my thesis by using Google Form.