New publication: Developing speaking and writing skills in Italian through History of Art

Posted on 6 September 2023

New published work in the field of Language for Specific Purposes

Cinzia Bacilieri (Lecturer in Italian, Department of Language and Linguistic Science) has authored a chapter “Developing speaking and writing skills in Italian through History of Art” featured in “Italian as a Foreign Language: Teaching and acquisition in higher education” published by Vernon Press.

Developing speaking and writing skills in Italian through History of Art

The article describes the challenges of developing specialist language skills for students of History of Art and Italian language through Italian for Art Historians, a 20 credit-bearing module created by the Department of Language and Linguistic Science for the BA in History of Art, delivered via the Languages for All programme. The paper illustrates the experimental initiatives that provide the key to facilitating the acquisition of specialist language skills essential to the History of Art discipline for complete beginner-level students. The first

part of the paper provides a brief overview of the historical context of setting up this interdisciplinary content-based language module and the challenges faced by the lecturer when planning and delivering a course that has to be fully integrated into an undergraduate degree programme. The second part of the paper focuses instead on examples of selected case-studies, teaching material and classroom activities to illustrate the deep impact that the interdisciplinary nature of the courses has on the students’ engagement and learning.

To purchase a copy of the publication from Vernon Press: https://vernonpress.com/book/1758

“Working on this paper as part of an international panel was a true privilege. It gave me the opportunity to illustrate the role of Language for Specific Purposes in language teaching in higher education context and to present the result of a long lasting fruitful collaboration between two departments at the University of York” - Cinzia Bacilieri (Department of Language and Linguistic Science)