Claudia Pontarolo
C. Pontarolo - Continuing education: a springboard to new perspectives and approaches
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Engaging, stimulating, and educational. For Claudia, a primary school teacher, the continuing professional development course ‘In orbit with valency grammar’, which she attended at the Department of Education and Learning / University of Teacher Education (DFA/ASP) in 2025, was an enriching experience that enabled her to gain not only confidence in her teaching approach, but also a fresh perspective to bring into the classroom.
Why a course specifically on language and grammar?
I decided to enrol on this training course to explore and gain a better understanding of a teaching approach that is increasingly used in our schools today: valency grammar. This approach centres on the verb, which has different valencies in the Italian language; it aims to identify and understand what constitutes the core clause, pinpointing its arguments and subsequently its expansions and modifiers.
To understand its philosophy and subsequently apply it with my students, I felt it was essential to explore the subject in depth. Following the training, I have been able to make the most of the Sgrammit workbooks (the core resource of the course); my students are thrilled when they get to work alongside the charming little squirrel Sgrammit and his friends in the woods!
What did you take away from this training course?
From this training, I have taken home – but above all back into the classroom – a new perspective. A different way of looking at things to understand how to teach the central role of the verb in a sentence and its functions. I believe that starting in primary school, through drama activities where it is important to understand how a given sentence should be performed on stage, is fundamental to grasping the central role of the verb. This will then help pupils to reflect and focus on constructing increasingly complex sentences using the most appropriate terminology. I have certainly gained greater confidence in bringing this approach into the classroom and in using the workbooks dedicated to this topic, which support valency grammar in its deepest sense.
How has your outlook changed?
The training has helped me gain a better understanding of the effectiveness of the valency grammar approach, which replaces traditional logical analysis. We need to shift our perspective from what we learnt during our school years; we mustn’t be afraid to venture into this new approach. At first it may seem a bit overwhelming or difficult, but once you get into the mindset and understand it, I find that it is actually more accessible to students, as it is very intuitive and practical (for example, thanks to the use of short plays).
What advice would you give to anyone thinking of embarking on this continuing professional development programme?
I would advise you not to be afraid to try out a new or unfamiliar approach and, if you have the opportunity, to introduce it to your classes straight away. I firmly believe that this is a process that should be started as early as the first stage of secondary education, and then explored in greater depth in the second stage.