#15 webinar of the “9 Months, 9 Universities” series: Unlocking potential: Effective strategies for including highly able students in the language classroom

20 March at 11 CET on Youtube

Gifted and talented students may demonstrate certain characteristics in the language learning process that educators need to consider when tailoring inclusive language programmes. If this distinctiveness is not taken into consideration in teaching, the efficacy of their learning can be affected.

This webinar aims to describe how highly able students learn a foreign language and to illustrate some methodologies and strategies teachers can use to help their gifted students improve their language competence. In particular, the speaker will share her latest research on language acquisition in highly able students as well as the results of inclusive language lessons that were tested in multiple countries with students aged 8 to 18.

The speaker

Alberta Novello holds a PhD in linguistics from Ca’ Foscari University in Venice and is an associate professor of educational linguistics in the Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies at the University of Padua.

She is a member of various academic boards that specifically examine language education in Italy. She is co-director of CESLE (Centro Studi sulla Linguistica Educativa) and on the editorial boards of several language journals and a book series. Her main research interests include giftedness, language assessment and early bilingualism. She is the author of “Inclusive language teaching to highly able students: strategies and practical activities”.

9 Months, 9 Universities is a series of guest lectures that focus on specific topics related to language and culture and target mainly graduate and postgraduate students as well as Early-Stage Researchers and lecturers interested in these topics. The lectures are intended to generate awareness and appreciation for the topic of multilingualism as well as an understanding of the many areas of our lives that are influenced by language.