Letters outside the box: multilingual practices in high schools and academic contexts

Abstract

In this report, we present certain teaching activities employed at the University of Calabria and at the I.T.C. C. Mortati high school. The former were conducted within the English for Basic Academic Skills courses, the latter in the Spanish as a Foreign Language classes for students in the last two years of high school. The grammar and linguistic knowledge required for writing and gap filling letters, emails and short messages are often problematic to students struggling to learn a foreign language. The teaching experiences illustrated show, on the other hand, how formal and informal letters can be presented to pupils by combining conventional writing practice with other creative techniques such as Total Physical Response, in order to make the lessons more dynamic and entertaining in a relaxed environment. More specifically, letters will be re-assembled in a jumbled style, through a cut and paste technique. Pieces of text will then be given to students at random in order to create a reasonable collage. Special attention will also be given to the specific contexts of action research.