MILLICENT High School students are keeping a minority language alive following the recent introduction of Italian to the curriculum.
While latest census data reveals the number of Millicent residents speaking Italian at home is on the decline, secondary students learning the Romance language has increased in recent years.
Millicent High School principal John Shelton said following the loss of the school’s Indonesian teacher, Italian was one of four languages identified by the school community as a preferred language to be offered.
“Italian was on the list because there was a number of people said there’s a reasonably strong Italian community in Millicent and we thought it had local relevance to the town,” he said.
“Three years ago Therese Musolino came onto our staff and was able to teach Italian so we ran a trial with some of the Year 8 students which was successful.
“I’ve always kept my eye out for a teacher who has another language and in the next year we got Gabriela Castello who introduced Italian to all Year 8 students.
“This year we have got a Year 8 and 9 Italian class.”
Mr Shelton said as well as social and cognitive benefits, students learning another language had improved skills across other subjects.
“There is definitely research that indicates students who study another language actually developed greater skills in other areas of their learning,” he said.
“What I have noticed is there are some students who are almost doing better in Italian than they are in English because the Italian language follows some better conventions.
“Kids struggling with English are having success in Italian which is great because success breeds success.”
Year 9 student Madi Bowering said after studying the language in Year 8, she decided to continue learning to increase social and cultural opportunities.
“Speaking another language is going to help me in the long run and what better language to speak than Italian,” she said.
“I want to be pretty fluent and I’ll need a little bit more help but I’ll get there.”
Madi said the immersive lesson, which includes conversation and reading, allowed her to efficiently learn and improve her foreign language skills.
“Sometimes we sit and watch Italian television in class because the more we hear it, the more we get used to it,” she said.
“We have an app where we can practice Italian at home which is a good way to keep practicing.
“We’ve done activities where we will write a paragraph in Italian and read it out in class and everyone helps each other when we speak.
“It’s a good way to learn the language because you can hear how the words are supposed to be pronounced.”
