Featuring... - Northern Territory Schools

Page 12Five NT Italian teachers recently joined with colleagues in South- ern Queensland to attend the annualCOASIT Italian teachers Professional PD, kindly funded by Italingua.Paola Simeone, Claudia Vorrasi, Andrea Keighley, Ingrid Tomassi and Laura Giannasca made the trip to the WatermarkHotel on the Gold Coast, and attended three days of lectures, discussions and practical sessions, togetherwith about forty Italian teachers from Queensland schools and institutions.Sessions were hosted by Mario ……………………. and Sandra …………………., both from the University of Venice,and experts in the field of teaching Italian to non-Italian speakers.Theory lectures included topics like the change from a behaviourist approach to language teaching, to the nowmore accepted Cognitive approach. Other topics touched on areas like the changing attitudes to teaching grammar,and different perspectives on teaching a language to foreigners, depending on their needs, and situation.Practical sessions focussed on preparing units of work for students, using some of the theoretical knowledgelearned above.As always, one of the biggest benefits of the whole exercise was the opportunity to spend 3 days with other Italianspeakers, speak the language together, and hear about some of the latest developments in Italy in relationto language teaching.Many thanks to Italingua for funding our trip, and, as always, to our beloved leader, Paola, for organising all thedetails so well. Thanks again, and we look forward to many more enjoyable conferences in the future.Andy Keighley (Italian Teacher, Palmerston High School)www.schools.nt.edu.au/ltant/The LTANT website is now up and running!! The website is in its infancy at the moment and all comments for∗∗∗∗∗∗Newsletters in electronic formUpdates on eventsRecent newsConference detailsPD detailsResults from Competitions∗∗∗Links to useful websitesContact details for languagerepresentatives and theexecutiveA list of schools and their correspondinglanguages taughtThis year’s committee members were elected at therecent AGM. The positions are as follows:(From left to right)Promotions:Secretary:President:Treasurer:Publications:Jennifer UreKylie NamRuth RynehartYumiko ShawMelissa KosciukTheir contact details can be found on page 20.