How to Facilitate foreign and second language learning through the use of ICT: the potentialities of Web 2.0

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to explain how ICT (Information and Communications Technology) can facilitate language learning from both teachers and learners’ point of view: teachers have the possibility to take advantage of some new ways to motivate their students while the latter can improve their knowledge and/or study on their own becoming autonomous. However a few negative aspects will come to light as well, but some solutions are provided. Moreover the potentialities of Web 2.0 are explained in this thesis by creating a web site, Weareitalians.altervista.org. The starting point is Professor Fabio Caon’s song, Italians, to which some PDF activities, that you can find in Bonaccieditore.it, are linked. They have been adapted to the web page and they are preceded by a motivational game: Quanto Italian sei?. So we will deal with the importance of ludicity and music in language learning and we will see how it is possible to have access to every kind of material inside a web page. Web 2.0 allows every user to create many multimedia and multisensory resources for language learning and to put them in a virtual community where learners and teachers can collaborate and share their knowledge.