Michela Barisonzi, who teaches Italian at Loyola College in Watsonia, has used the film to transport her students to Italy.
Starting with a map, she took her students on a virtual tour through Liguria, and the Cinque Terre in particular, allowing them to explore how the film’s setting was inspired by the colours and atmosphere of the area’s seaside towns.
“The group of Year 8 teachers decided to incorporate Luca into a unit of work dedicated to the most famous Italian foods, such as pizza, pasta and bread,” Barisonzi said.
“In an attempt to make Melbourne’s lockdown less isolating for students and maintain their interest in the language during remote learning, we decided to show them how to cook traditional dishes for their families.
“The objective was to reinforce the concept of Italian as a living and active language, allowing students to make connections between what they learn in class and the Italian lifestyle and culture.
“The idea was to use specific scenes in the film to contextualise the importance of pasta in Italian culture, before making a pasta dish at home choosing from a variety of sauces, including pesto alla Genovese.”
The students worked on a series of activities related to the theme of pasta, allowing them to expand their vocabulary through a “virtual pantry”, with a list of ingredients, questionnaires and audio to listen to.
“Finally, we introduced a recipe for pasta with pesto, using a series of resources based on Luca provided by colleagues and found online,” Barisonzi said.
“The students were able to read the recipe combined with illustrative images and work not only on the ingredients, but in general on the conjugation of –are and –ere verbs used in the kitchen, as a model for all the regular verbs of the first two conjugations.”
Once the sauce was taken care of, the teachers showed their students how to make homemade pasta during a live lesson or through recorded videos.
Michela Barisonzi during a video lesson
“As a teacher, I think Luca is an exceptional resource for teaching the Italian language and culture,” Barisonzi concluded.
“The setting, the music, the presence of iconic brands such as the Vespa and the Italian expressions peppered throughout the film make it an easy resource to use at various levels, both from a linguistic and cultural point of view.”
