This website is an accessible and engaging resource for primary-aged students learning Italian. It provides clearly sequenced lessons with audio to support listening and pronunciation as students learn or revise the basics. The site also includes a number of children's stories, some with animations, read out in easy-to-understand Italian.
Structure and features
On 'The Italian experiment' website, students can access 13 beginner lessons with audio examples covering the following topics:
- numbers
- days of the week
- months of the year
- how to say 'The'
- question words
- talking about the family
- asking directions
- to be (in love)
- to have (hunger)
- going shopping (-are verbs)
- taking everything (-ere verbs)
- time concepts
- possessive adjectives.
The stories will be familiar to many students, and include the text in Italian (with English translations that can be turned on or off) and beautiful illustrations. Students can listen to:
- Poletto carletto (chicken little - with video)
- Il Gabbiano e la balena (The seagull and the whale)
- I tre porcellini (the three little pigs)
- Riccioli d’oro e i tre orsi (Goldilocks and the three bears)
- Cappuccetto Rosso (Little red riding hood).
For teachers
Teachers can develop questions to support students' comprehension as they listen to the stories. Older students can be given the task of translating portions of the text, and then checking their work against the translations available on the website.
