Italian is the LOTE program offered at St. Therese’s School. The students from Prep to Year Six participate in a weekly Italian lesson. The program consists of both language acquisition and cultural learning.
The students in Prep learn the names of some colours, self, family members, fruits, animals and numbers. They then build upon this knowledge in subsequent years as well as learning about topics such as body parts, items of clothing, days of the week, classroom items, time, food, transport, feelings and adjectives to name but a few.
Students learn to follow simple classroom instructions and to use various greetings and other set phrases in Italian. Important times of the year such as Easter and Christmas are looked at from an Italian perspective and students have the opportunity to complete related activities. All the students participate in several ‘Google’ trips to Italy to become virtual tourists and broaden their knowledge in particular areas.
Gestures have been progressively introduced over the past few years to facilitate the use of functional language in the classroom.
All students participate in the annual Multicultural Day celebrations which has a different focus each year. On this day, students learn more about other cultures by completing various activities, often in multi-age groupings, related to art, drama, cooking, geography, sport, games, stories, etc.