“I want to learn Italian” my students say the first time I meet them, of course. Actually, it isn’t so obvious since some of them are in Italy, they need to learn Italian, but they don’t want! That’s life! But back to the point, when they say “I want to learn Italian”, I ask: “Why?” and the answers are: for love, for study, for the family, for the Italian way of life, and for many students the reason is art. If you want to learn Italian because of the Italian art, read this article. If you don’t like art, don’t worry you can read too ; )
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I want to learn Italian
Italy has the most world heritage sites and is the birthplace of the Renaissance and humanism. According to UNESCO (the cultural and educational agency for the United Nations), over 60% of the world’s art treasures are found in Italy. Some of the most famous Western artists, from Giotto to Michelangelo, were Italian. Knowledge of Italian is vital to understand the contexts of this art. If you like arts, music, design, architecture, opera, food, etc. this is the reference language. This is the promotional part ; ) But what we want to talk about is learning Italian trough art. I know there are so many courses on Italian art. But what we do in our offer is using art to express yourself in Italian. Read below!
The speaking image
From the marvelous The Tate 3 Project to the still useful tips of Ben Goldstein passing through the work of Francesca Talpo or Chaz Pugliese, we present here an activity that we use in our online lesson: the predictive writing (born from “Storie per imparare”). We start from the famous Caravaggio’s painting “La vocazione di San Matteo” and, after having analyzed it, we read the short novel “Sogno di Michelangelo Merisi, detto il Caravaggio, pittore e uomo iracondo” by Antonio Tabucchi. After giving some copies of paintings and sculptures taken from the history of e Italian art, we ask the students to think about what happened before the moment represented on them. Prediction activities can be very useful when working with tenses. This particular activity focus on the past tense but other times the activity could focus on the future or the present.
Painting, Architecture, Sculpture
As you can see in the image on the top of this article, in Italy you can find amazing architecture, wonderful painting and astonishing sculpture, not to mention design, fashion, and food. We love some works of arts like the well-known “The Last Supper” painting by Leonardo da Vinci, or the frescoes by Luini in San Maurizio, or the controversial “L.O.V.E.” by Maurizio Cattelan.
Which is your favorite Italian work of art? And why?
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