Betwyll: Social reading for the teaching of Italian in North America
Abstract
The widespread diffusion of mobile devices that can access Internet among the youngest population led professors and scholars from North America to investigate the pedagogic potential of social networks. In this paper, I analyze the outcomes of some didactic projects that took place between 2016 and 2020 in North American university courses of Italian language, literature, and culture, with non-Italian speakers. All these projects make use of Betwyll, a social reading app that employs the same methodology upon which Twitter relies: interaction and writing synthesis. The analysis of these projects allows me to define the most relevant advantages of this methodology, both for teachers (freedom in the choice of the book to read; use in class or at home for homework; time-efficiency) and students (virtual classes; lowering of the stress level; learning by doing; strengthening of the class environment through interaction with classmates; enhancement of creativity; improving linguistic skills and acquiring self-awareness as individual.
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References
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