Fostering the learning of the Russian motion verbs system in Italian-speaking students

This study reports on the differential effectiveness of two pedagogical approaches to teaching L1-Italian students the Russian verbs of motion (глаголы движения, VoMs). The first is a Cognitive Linguistics, embodied approach, where the teacher used techniques such as image schemas, drawings and bodily activation to help the learners explore and understand the logic of VoMs. The second is a classic PPP approach, that works with mnemonic exercises, drills, and reproduction techniques, and that used classic metalinguistic terms to explain VoMs. 54 L1-Italian Russian students enrolled at the second year of University have been recruited in the study. Two groups were created: group A received a 160 minutes embodied treatment about VoMs, whereas group B received a 160 minutes classical PPP treatment on VoMs. The informants have been tested in a classical pre, post and delayed-post test fashion with three different temporized tasks. Results show an accrued competence on VoMs of group A, that outperformed group B in all the tests. The relevance of these findings for L2 teaching will be discussed.