Abstract
The hybrid and, in some cases, online-only delivery of foreign language classes that tutors and students experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic have made it necessary to rethink materials and activities designed for the students’ acquisition of the necessary language skills for the different levels of language proficiency. Therefore, researchers and teachers have engaged in a fruitful debate on digital educational tools and how these can support students in developing and honing language skills while maintaining motivation and engagement during a very challenging period. Among these skills, communication plays a fundamental role, and it has been widely identified by teachers as a particular challenge of teaching online in these unprecedented times. In this chapter, I will present and discuss the materials that I devised during my research project and that aim specifically to enhance and support the honing and enhancement of communicative skills in hybrid learning environments, with a focus on formative and summative assessment. The findings intend to demonstrate the efficacy of the aforementioned activities also for improving grammar skills, vocabulary, and cultural knowledge. Moreover, the new teaching strategies identified in the present research are helpful, as they can be adopted in classes with students having different levels of language proficiency. Despite the teaching materials, which will be presented in this chapter, having been devised for emergency remote teaching (ERT), with the aim of providing valid teaching tools during university shutdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the results that emerged from the analysis of the data suggest the efficacy and validity of these teaching strategies in wider online/blended learning environments and encourage their future deployment in academic curricula.
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Notes
- 1.
The segmentals addressed during the first pronunciation training session were: the voiced palatal lateral approximant /ʎ/; the phonological distinction between single consonants and their geminated counterparts in words which have similar spellings—/l:/ vs /l/, /s:/ vs /s/, /m:/ vs /m/; the voiced alveolar trill preceded by a consonant—/pr/, /br/, /tr/; the geminated voiced alveolar trill /r:/; the nasal palatal /ɲ/; the nasal alveolar /n/; the voiced dental fricative /t/, the geminated voiced dental fricative /t:/, and the voiced dental fricative in post-consonantal position /rt/; the voiced alveolar sibilant fricative/dz/and in post-consonantal position /ndz/. See Tables 6.4, 6.6, 6.8, 6.10, and 6.13.
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Manzini, L. (2023). Loops, Sayings, and Tongue-Twisters: How to Enhance Foreign Language Communicative Skills in Online Learning Environments. In: Fiorucci, W. (eds) Language Education During the Pandemic. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35855-5_6
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