Le tecnologie della comunicazione nell'insegnamento e nell'apprendimento di una lingua straniera : la videoconferenza via web nella scuola primaria

The development of oral skills appears to be one of the most critical issues in foreign language teaching at primary school level. The root of this problem may lie in the lack of an authentic communicative context in the foreign language lesson. Today’s communication technologies allow to open up the language classroom to the world, thus assisting teachers in providing authentic language contexts and in increasing the motivational levels of their pupils. Emerging tools such as Videoconferencing via web allow collaboration at a distance with other pupils on a common project, sharing information and tasks in real time. Our research has two different foci: (1) we consider two case studies of telecollaboration projects in which Italian primary school pupils share common tasks with peers in the United Kingdom through Skype sessions, analyzing the motivational impact due to the emotional involvement experienced through such an innovative learning programme; (2) we investigate the reasons why, despite the availability of the tool, telecollaboration projects are definitely rare in Italian schools.