Community Voice & Outreach Initiatives

Impariamo con i Cartoni! Learning Italian by captioning and revoicing cartoons.

The Youth Academy at the University of Galway offers high-ability primary and secondary school students a unique opportunity to engage in university-level learning. Designed for 4th to 6th class primary-school students and 1st to 3rd class secondary-school students, the programme provides courses in various subjects, including Italian (for primary schools), that extend beyond the standard school curriculum. This initiative fosters academic development and exposes young learners to university life, encouraging them to explore diverse fields of study.

In 2017, Dr Francesca Nicora and Dr Anastasia Beltramello designed and launched a new course entitled Impariamo con i Cartoni! Learning Italian by captioning and revoicing cartoons. Since October 2024, the course has been taught by Sveva Zafferri, a PhD student in Translation Studies. This is an innovative language learning programme for primary school students, focusing on Italian through interactive audiovisual translation activities. Students engage in captioning and revoicing tasks, where they add subtitles and dub animated content, enhancing their listening, speaking, and comprehension skills dynamically and enjoyably. This approach not only teaches the Italian language but also immerses students in Italian culture through iconic Italian cartoons like La Pimpa! Students gain numerous transferable skills while learning a new language and mastering professional software like Aegisub and Audacity.

Italian Summer Camp

The Italian Summer Camp, funded by Languages Connect, is a two-week immersive experience in Italian language and culture for secondary school students, organised by the Discipline of Italian within the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Galway. The camp combines fun with learning, helping students build confidence in speaking Italian while connecting with peers who share a passion for Italy.

Italian Summer Camp 2024: Federica Curreli, Sveva Zafferri & Dr Francesca Nicora

Culture, Creativity and Innovation

• Creative workshops on art, cinema, and food, including Mask Up! Venice and the Carnival, Flourishing Art in Florence, A Culinary Trip to Naples, and Ciak si gira: Rome and the Italian Cinema.
• Hands-on experiences such as pizza-making, painting, and crafts inspired by Italian masterpieces.
• Audiovisual translation labs, where students subtitle and dub Italian cartoons, using professional software in the University’s language laboratories.
• Technology-enhanced learning, including sessions in Virtual Reality that let students virtually explore famous Italian cities, museums, and monuments.
• Outdoor games and team challenges, such as cultural treasure hunts and collaborative quizzes, that reinforce learning in a playful way.

The camp concludes with an Italian-style photobooth, a gelato party in the University Cafe, a screening of highlights and clips produced during the camp and a special award ceremony!

AI-powered Subtitling Workshop

The AI-powered Subtitling Workshop, designed and co-taught by Dr. Francesca Nicora and Sveva Zafferri, PhD in Translation Studies, offered students a fresh way to experience the Italian language through curiosity, media and technology. Participants from local secondary schools explored lesser-known Italian regions, analysed real TV dialogues, experimented with subtitling tools and reflected on AI in their daily lives — discovering that language learning can be cultural, creative and future-focused.

Subtitling, Translation & AI Awareness

The workshop began with a cultural exploration of lesser-known Italian regions, focusing on Abruzzo and Molise. Through reading-comprehension activities and quizzes based on clips from the Italian TV series Love Bugs, students discovered authentic traditions, landscapes, and curiosities while improving their Italian listening skills. The workshop then introduced audiovisual translation through the use of Aegisub, a professional subtitling tool. By working on clips from the series, students learned how subtitles are created and edited, paying attention to key professional standards such as readability, timing, segmentation, clarity, and tone. In the second part of the workshop, students engaged in a hands-on post-editing activity, improving AI-generated subtitles and comparing them with human translations. This task highlighted the importance of interpretation, creativity, and cultural awareness in subtitling. Alongside the practical activities, students also participated in a discussion about Artificial Intelligence, reflecting on its benefits, risks, ethical implications, and limitations in audiovisual translation, language learning, and everyday life.

What students gained

✔ Knowledge of Italian geography
✔ Listening and comprehension skills using real Italian media
✔ Practical experience in audiovisual translation and subtitling
✔ Awareness of professional digital tools (Aegisub)
✔ Critical thinking about AI, technology & media literacy
✔ Teamwork, creativity, and problem-solving skills

This workshop series demonstrates how language education thrives when it connects culture, technology, and critical thinking. Through hands-on tasks, real Italian media, and guided reflection, students were able to experience the language rather than simply study it!

Hands-on Italian

Dr. Francesca Nicora, in her role as Liaison with Languages Connect and Outreach Officer at the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, was awarded HEI (Higher Education Institute) funding from Languages Connect for the period 2023–2026. This funding enabled the organisation and delivery of outreach activities in secondary schools across Galway city and county. The Hands-On Italian workshops bring to life one of the most fascinating aspects of Italian culture — its world-famous hand gestures. Designed and delivered by PhD students Sveva Zafferri and Federica Curreli - along with the help of student ambassadors Liadan Harrold and Agostina Reati - this initiative introduces students to the art of non-verbal communication, showing how gestures form an essential part of speaking and understanding Italian.

Learning Through Gestures and Play

During the workshops, students explore the meanings of Italy’s most iconic hand gestures — from che vuoi? (“what do you want?”) to perfetto! (“perfect!”) — discovering how expression, tone, and movement work together to communicate ideas and emotions. One of the most popular moments is the gesture performance, where students create and perform a short dialogue using only hand gestures, without speaking a single word. This fun, theatrical challenge helps them understand how body language carries meaning and emotion in Italian culture. The experience continues with a buzz-quiz, where teams compete to match gestures with their correct meanings. The energy is high, the laughter contagious, and the learning unforgettable. The Hands-On Italian workshops highlight the cultural and expressive heart of the Italian language — helping students connect, move, and communicate just like Italians do.

Tra-balliamo

Tra-balliamo — Italian for secondary schools

The title Tra-balliamo plays on the Italian verb ballare (“to dance”), reflecting the project’s goal of uniting language, movement, and culture in one creative, embodied experience. The project led by Professor Laura Incalcaterra McLoughlin was funded by Post-Primary Languages Ireland (PPLI); the course -including the syllabus, aims and lesson plans- was designed and delivered by Dr Francesca Nicora and Dr Michela Dianetti in their capacity as research assistants. The project introduces students to Italian through performative pedagogy — combining gestures, dance, and improvisation with vocabulary, pronunciation, and cultural discovery. Each session invites learners to move, speak, and feel the language, turning linguistic input into a physical and emotional experience.Tra-balliamo was implemented across three Irish secondary schools in Galway (St. Mary's College, Our Lady's College, and Colaiste Ende), involving a total of 64 Transition Year students over several sessions. The initiative offers an innovative and inclusive way of teaching Italian through physical expression and performance.

Learning through our body

Drawing on the principles outlined in Dianetti and Nicora’s research (Didattica performativa: il corpo e la danza come strumenti di apprendimento linguistico), Tra-balliamo uses performative pedagogy to transform language learning into a multisensory experience. The method combines movement, rhythm, and gesture with linguistic input, activating multiple perceptual channels — visual, auditory, and kinesthetic — to reinforce comprehension and retention. Students are encouraged to learn through doing: classroom routines involve movement-based tasks, short choreographies, and improvisational exercises that promote collaboration, trust, and social connection. Traditional Italian dances are introduced to highlight the intercultural dimension, while theatre-based activities — such as mime, vocal imitation, and dramatic expression — strengthen students’ pronunciation, rhythm, and confidence in speaking. Each cycle culminates in a creative final task — a choreography and a short performance — allowing students to take ownership of their learning and experience Italian as a living, dynamic language.

Impact & Methodology

Tra-balliamo has shown how body awareness and movement can enhance linguistic and cultural understanding. By alternating brief physical activities with moments of linguistic reflection, students develop not only the four core skills — reading, writing, speaking, and listening — but also transversal competences such as cooperation, empathy, and creativity. This embodied approach helps reduce anxiety, increase focus, and foster a sense of well-being, all of which are essential to successful language acquisition. The project demonstrates that language learning is most effective when the mind, body, and emotions are engaged together, creating lasting connections between words, actions, and meaning. Beyond its immediate classroom success, Tra-balliamo stands as a valuable teaching resource for Italian educators. The materials, methods, and activities developed through the project provide a model for teaching Italian — and foreign languages in general — in a performative, movement-based way, enriching language education with creativity, expressiveness, and cultural depth.