Lately, I have heard that Italian has become one of the most studied language in the world. Somebody says is the fourth or fifth in line, after giants such as English, Chinese, Spanish. However, while everybody is celebrating this success, there are no real evidences to confirm this thesis. For sure, Italian language is gaining traction. Schools and Italian institutes of all over the world are increasing their enrolment figures. Italian keeps being a force of attraction worldwide thanks to its beauty, its cultural heritage and its uncontested excellences, including art, landscapes, design, food and music.

Now, let’s put aside these notions that we already know. Italian is above all a language, a very complex and articulate one, both structured and volatile.

During my experience of Italian teacher to Chinese students, it was very common to encounter difficulties expressing some concepts that have no equal in Chinese language. Books and grammar may help, giving a structure to the language basic rules, but sometimes thousands of exercises still are not enough to get some hidden meanings. Frequently, in front of my astonished students, I had to cut short their questions by stating that “it’s a rule” and then suddenly deny saying “it’s an exception”. The reason of these answers relates to obstacles mostly linked with Italian grammar, which make students create sentences where they only need to fill empty blankets with the rules they have learned by hearth (and in which they are incredibly talented and fast).

Recently, I had the chance to take part into an educational training (organized by Alma Edizioni) where the discussion orbited around this topic: Italian has many strict rules but how to handle them depends on how much you can separate yourself from their specific use. The take-away of the seminar is the most genuine instruction to convey to the students for a fair comprehension of the grammar rules: the need to understand and relate to the context of the sentence. Without context, language is just a bunch of sounds mixed together.

What may be a big obstacle for Chinese students is the different language approach: as a student of Chinese language myself, I have to go through their method where a single word or a single sentence is repeated again and again. I tried to propose the same method during the Italian classes, with the introduction of new words in common sentences. What I noticed is that when we get to the listening and the speaking part, everything seems to be forgotten; when they find the same words in texts or need to use them to make a sentence by themselves, they occur in mistakes due to their habit of learning single words next to their translation. In fact, if in Chinese is often possible to use a character after its meaning is learned, Italian words have at least from two to four variations, generated by gender, singular and plural, the great enemies of Chinese students.
This is why an introduction of linguistics’ inputs should go in parallel with beginners learning, as I was – similarly – introduced to Chinese language with the support of character’s roots. Second, speaking and listening exercises, assisted by native speakers, should increase significantly. “We already do with our books” teachers might say, but the exercises in books I have worked with seem to be the slow motion of an imaginary conversation: nothing is real, voices, tone, words! If the student is not ready yet to be put amid two people speaking about the post office near the cinema Odeon, or the last psychological thriller someone saw where a bipolar girl secretly goes to the psychiatrist, or the two friends at the supermarket arguing whenever buy Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano, then we might start proposing other exercises to encourage students to move away from the text and exercise with usable and easier sentences.

The globalization of languages, especially the less spoken ones such as Italian, can be an incentive to think on different methods to teach and learn them. Italian language has to find new ways if it wants to spread internationally and keep its prestige in order to avoid an expressive and linguistic flattening. Internet can definitively offer new possibilities and ideas.

My students often asked me to suggest websites where they can practice by themselves. After a long and hard search, I must say there is not so much I could recommend. For the same reason of the complex teaching method, there are really few and poor websites who have tried to part from the old-school teaching by grammar rules: pronouns and exercises, prepositions and exercises, future tense and exercises. Nobody speaks, the exercises are mechanic and useless, not – as it should be – fun and stimulating.
Then there are the most common ones, such as the free online language courses, which I personally dislike for an intensive and serious study, but they sure work for a post-first language lesson, but nothing more. They seem too terse, and they obscure background and spoken language, usually proposing the repetition of few words with the support of ordinary images.
Lastly, there are those language packages with the so-called common sentences for travellers. For those there is no much more to say.

What I didn’t find anywhere is an approach to a language that, first, has never stopped to love its bonds with a literary written language, so that when it comes to write something down, from dialogues our whatever, sentences suddenly pull itself together with a messy and obsolete result; second, Italian has hard time in proposing itself following specific areas of interests: it’s difficult for learners to identify the background and the aim of the exercises and the cultural elements on homemade website, everything is in a mess, the graphic is terrible, they are difficult to use, there is too much Italian. They remain addressed to those advanced students who, ironically, no longer need such support. Below, I would like to introduce you some Italian blogs and websites in order to demonstrate that, today, Italian can be considered one of the most studied languages in the world, and maybe also reflect the fact that there is still much way to go to perfect its teaching system.

– Yabla (https://italian.yabla.com/) A2-B1-B2
Very good mix of videos, lessons and flashcards addressed to elementary level (with grammar videos) and intermediate levels (with a fair range of topics to choose from). The website is complete for any kind of listening exercise, which I mostly appreciate, and perfect for beginners who need much listening combined with grammar. Unfortunately, you need to pay a monthly-fee to access most of the videos.

– http://francesca-italiano.blogspot.nl/ B2-C1
Homemade website with poor and low graphic but interesting if curious about culture and society, both with simple but alternative grammar exercises. There are lots of link to Italian websites such as television channels, newspapers, blogs for the more adventurous. It could have a god potential if supported by a better graphic.

– Learn Italian Language (https://ciaoitaliablog.wordpress.com/) B2-C1
Wordpress blog surely useful to find nice inputs about culture but mostly about Italian idioms, due to the frequent parallelisms with native English speakers. The blog has plenty of information, videos and extra links, but maybe without a real declared purpose, which causes confusion and a sense of mess, mixed with a poor graphic.

– Adblog (http://www.adgblog.it/) C1-C2
Everything you ask for, Adblog has the answer for you: art, history, food, cinema, music, theatre, tv programs, grammar exercise, didactic inputs, Italian universities information. Difficult to use and to read for elementary and intermediate students. The first time you get there, it could look as the website is still loading; give up pressing F5 because the page is just really bad to look. But if you learn how to search your information, it could give useful sparks. The bad thing is that to navigate the website you need a pretty high level of Italian. However, for those Italian teachers interested in different exercises you could find new ideas here.

– Transparent Language (http://blogs.transparent.com/italian/) No level, just need to know English first
“What kind of world would it be without English?” if you are looking for a review of your high school English lessons this could be the moment to visit Transparent Language website where everything is in English, there are no exercises, no videos neither grammar. Posts deals with Italian words linked to specific topics, so may be useful for improving vocabulary. The only real nice thing is the “Word of the day” project to which you can sign up by email, to get a new Italian word to learn everyday on your mailbox. http://www.transparent.com/word-of-the-day/)

– Memrise (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/880674476/membus-tour-creating-the-worlds-first-video-dictio) A2-B1-B2
I am definitely looking forward to see it coming. The project, as you can see from the link above, deals with a video-dictionary, which could be downloaded as an app on your mobile. A video-dictionary means that you would be able to learn new words or idioms, with a native speaker introducing the word for you. The idea improve the concept of the recorded sound you could find in any online dictionary, providing a better idea of how words should be pronounced, and why not, teaching you something about the body language.

– Parola del giorno (http://unaparolaalgiorno.it/) (C1-C2)
This is definitely my favourite one, but I must say it could be difficult to use for beginners, intermediate and advanced students as well. The strong point of this newsletter is the explanation of the etymological meaning of common and less common word we use in everyday life. Even if the required level is really high, this is the only website I have seen proposing a high quality graphic and a well-defined intent.

Diletta Taverni