BRISBANE - On May 31, a dramatic journey concluded with a performance at Mount Alvernia College, a high school for girls in Kedron.
The performance involved four Year 7 classes and their two teachers, Italian teacher Sara Tuan and drama teacher Maria Conway.
Tuan explained that the joint project, which combined the curriculum unit on fairy tales, as per the Australian Curriculum for Year 7, with Italian language teaching, sprang from her observations of her students.
“The idea came to me after noticing that many students who study Italian also take drama classes,” said Tuan.
“Considering that the curriculum requires students not only to understand a variety of verbal and non-verbal texts in Italian but also to interpret them and create presentations, staging a show based on Italian songs aligned well with curriculum requirements.”
The development of the project was led by Tuan and Conway, who decided to create a production inspired by fairy tales.
“I also consulted Giovanna Amatruda, Language Program Liaison Officer at the Italian Language Centre in Brisbane,” Tuan continued, “to gather insights on how to proceed.
“This led to the idea of choreographing Italian songs from Disney fairy tales.
“After listening to several options, we selected two that were particularly suitable: Aspettando una nuova vita from Rapunzel in the movie Tangled and In fondo al mar from The Little Mermaid.”
The performance was staged for Year 5 students from Saint Anthony Primary School, close to Mount Alvernia College.
“We wanted to show them that continuing to study Italian can be fun and creative in secondary school,” emphasised Tuan.
“Integrating different subjects is very important, especially between languages and the arts, because it helps students understand the importance of collaboration in achieving a common goal, as well as fostering critical thinking.”
The project also had the great advantage of engaging students in aspects related to daily life, helping them build their vocabulary regarding everyday actions and emotions.
From left to right: teachers Maria Conway, Sara Tuan and Giovanna Amatruda
“The students were very enthusiastic,” assured Tuan, “and they had a lot of fun learning the gestures that accompanied the song lyrics.
“Many of the girls use TikTok in their free time and enjoy learning dances and choreographies on social media, so it was easy to capture their interest and get them involved.
“Also, at this age, they’re not afraid to perform in front of an audience, unlike older students.”
Given the positive experience, Tuan would like to undertake similar projects in the future with other subjects in order to involve a larger group of students.
“Perhaps [we could create] CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) courses with other disciplines.
“That would be very useful and would help the girls and the school develop a greater interest in foreign languages,” she concluded.
