Publications

Publication details [#63531]

Kennedy, Claire and Tiziana Miceli. 2017. Lingua e comunità in coro. A community choir as a space for language learning, social interaction, and wellbeing. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 40 (2) : 140–158.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
John Benjamins
Journal DOI
10.1075/aral

Annotation

This article concerns a special learning space populated by Italians and Italian learners: the choir formed in Brisbane as a joint initiative between a community association and the Italian teaching staff at Griffith University. The article aimed at bringing choir students together with L1 speakers in an environment that would be stimulating but supportive, given the collective, creative goal. It envisaged that interaction in this space would help develop the students’ language proficiency, intercultural competence, and cultural knowledge, while also bringing the psychosocial benefits of choral singing identified by recent research. These benefits include positive emotions, social support and friendship, an antidote to anxiety and stress, and a shared sense of commitment. Evaluation of findings from the project suggest that the choir did foster students’ learning together with wellbeing.