Language games and movement games: ludic motion in Italian language classes

Abstract

 This study aims to share two ludic activities for Italian language teaching that can be adapted to other foreign language teaching contexts. The dynamics are mainly based on linguistic and movement games, which allow the student to move around the classroom, as in the oral development activity Caccia al tesoro (Treasure hunt). In this activity, the student is expected to move around the room to find out classmates who must meet the requirements made through a series of ludic and nonsense questions. Movement activities like that not only foster the use of spoken language and vocabulary acquisition, but also promote interaction and peer identification in the microuniverse of the classroom. The other activity, Il sasso nello stagno (The stone in the swamp), consists of the creative production of acrostics. Both ludic activities are designed to Middle School students and adults, and they are based on the premises of Gianni Rodari’s The Grammar of Fantasy (Grammatica della fantasia, 1973). Such activities are games that promote strangeness and creativeness. The students interact, think about the language, play and learn, and the class flows in a more spontaneous way.