On Friday 26 January 75 teachers of Italian attended a one-day professional development seminar, organised by Dr Mario Pace and Prof. Sandro Caruana, from the Department of Languages & Humanities, Faculty of Education, University of Malta.

Four Italian specialists, from the Itals (Italiano come lingua straniera) centre of the University of Venice delivered lectures and held workshops with the teachers. These were Fabio Caon, Giuseppe Maugeri, Graziano Serragiotto and Paolo Balboni, and the topics covered included the use of songs and films as means to teach Italian, assessment methods in the language and developing comprehension skills. These topics are especially relevant in view of developments regarding teaching Italian locally, with the recent introduction of the Subject Proficiency Assessment programme and the proposed Learning Outcome Framework.

Through these initiatives communicative competence is becoming the main focus of the learning process, and the language is being made more relevant to the needs of learners. The seminar was organised thanks to the support of the Ministry for Education & Employment and in collaboration with the Italian Embassy, represented by the first secretary Dott Andrea Marino.