PhonetIC(T)s: teaching and learning geminates in Italian SL through body movement, cooperative learning and mobile apps – an experience

Abstract

In this contribution the author addresses the use of geminates in Italian L2 pronunciation classes. She presents here an innovative and dynamic way to teach pronunciation. The combination of different teaching practices has been developed with the aim to support learners in pronunciation classes and to provide teachers with a multimodal approach: cooperative learning, body movement, mobile apps, reflection on and discovery of sounds. She describes how lexicon and morpho-syntactic aspects have been combined to phonetics teaching, how the activities have been implemented, and she shows sample activities where students are asked to perform pronunciation. The activities prepared are based on the proficiency level of the students. This approach reveals that pronunciation teaching and learning is far from being a worthless practice. She argues that teachers of Italian L2 should pay attention to perceptive and productive skills as they enhance listening, reading, writing, and speaking.