Valency Grammar Laboratory
The “Laboratory on Valency Grammar” is a virtual environment dedicated to hosting the activities, events, documentation and products relating to the model of Valency grammar and its didactic mediation, that are the result of research activities conducted by Indire over the years.
Starting in 2016, with the field research project Didactics of Valency Grammar, Indire has activated a path of study and research on the Valency Grammar model, which laid the foundations for the establishment in the following years of a permanent observatory on the model itself and on its didactic mediation.
Among its outcomes, the research offered the world of education a real didactic proposal, tested and validated by the teachers involved, consisting of a curriculum on valency morphosyntax to be implemented from primary school to the first two years of upper secondary school, a model for laboratory lessons on valency grammar and a repertoire of teaching and learning units.
Valency grammar is a scientific model of description and analysis of the functioning of the sentence structure in the different configurations that this can assume in the uses of the language (Sabatini, 2011, 2019). The empirical research also carried out by Indire (Camizzi, ed., 2020) demonstrates how this model is very effective from an educational point of view, because it can involve students in a real reflection on the language (cf. National Guidelines), through an inductive and exploratory teaching approach, and to foster greater interest and motivation for the study of grammar.
As a continuation of these experiences, the Indire research group intends to activate, starting from the 2023-24 school year, an informal network of teachers, schools and experts interested in or dealing with valency. The aim is to bring to a national level the experiences and the results of experimentation and research interventions carried out in local contexts, and give the opportunity to other schools to get to know them and experience them in their context. This network, in the first place, will host training and dissemination events on the teaching of Valency grammar open to all, also carried out with the collaboration of other experts and institutions.
With this “Laboratory” Indire intends to respond to the requests from educational institutions and individual teachers to learn about and train on the topics of valency grammar as an alternative model to the traditional teaching of grammar at school.
Sabatini F., Camodeca C., De Santis C. (2011), Sistema e testo. Dalla grammatica valenziale all’esperienza dei testi, Loescher, Torino.
Sabatini F., (2019), Grammatica (perché, quando e come) e pratica testuale, in E.M. Duso, et al., Riflessione sulla lingua e modello valenziale, Atti dei corsi di formazione per insegnanti sulla grammatica valenziale “C’è grammatica e grammatica…” (Università degli Studi di Padova ottobre/febbraio 2017/2018-ottobre/giugno 2018/2019), Italiano LinguaDue, 11(2), pp. 249-254.
Camizzi L., a cura di, (2020), Didattica della grammatica valenziale: dal modello teorico al laboratorio in classe, Carocci, Roma.