Words like cherries: one pulls the other. The more you know about them, the more you can dialogue, express your ideas and form an increasingly cohesive and communicative community. This is the aim of the free web app ‘Apprendere parole’, created by the Veronese linguist and speech therapist Debora Musola of the Logogenia Onlus Cooperative, with the contribution of the Cattolica Foundation, Pio Istituto dei Sordi, the Cariplo Foundation, the Bank of Italy and the supervision of the Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialisation of Padua.
The web app was created to expand the lexical vocabulary of Italian for all deaf children, who may have a reduced linguistic repertoire due to deafness, limiting their interaction with the language, which now becomes accessible as it is written on the screen. The support is also accessible to all users who want to learn Italian as L2.
The chosen logo is a cherry, because the same rule applies to words as to cherries: one pulls the other. It is really easy to use and accessible to everyone, with a drop-down menu that gives access to all the areas, with the possibility of knowing nouns, adjectives, verbs, prepositions and pronouns.
The words entered are the basic words of the Italian vocabulary, with a high frequency of use in everyday life. In each work area, the first step is to discover the meanings of the nouns through a kind of game, with the aim of matching a noun with the corresponding drawing by means of a precise indication (e.g. ‘touch the tree’), in order to receive visual feedback and, above all, immediate positive or negative feedback in the event of an error. The margin of error is 50 per cent, i.e. two pictures, to avoid having to make too many choices.
Learning Words is available at www.apprendereparole.it and can currently be used without registration. A form will soon be created to allow each user to create a personalised course, so that the application can provide personalised exercises to improve their level.
