Design • Audio • Narrative • 2023

SCENES FROM AN ITALIAN RESTAURANT

Language Learning

About Scenes from an Italian Restaurant

This audio project will plunge early Italian learners into the relatable story of an American putting her language skills to the test while dining in Rome. Through its incorporation of simple Italian sentences, this audio experience aims to expand learners’ knowledge of the Italian language.

Script

Scenes from an Italian Restaurant

00:00 / 02:46

Statement of Need

Keeping up with language lessons can be difficult when the content does not feel practical, conversational, or relatable. Placing a beginner’s Italian lesson in the context of an Italian restaurant through a fun, immersive audio scene can help learners stay motivated to keep practicing.

Concept Description

This project takes advantage of the affordances of audio to incorporate the listening and speaking skills inherently involved in Italian language learning. Through audio, learners will dive into the story of Lizzie, an American visiting her friend Isabella in Rome. When the two friends go out for dinner, Lizzie acknowledges the inadequacy of her Italian skills. As Isabella provides Lizzie with much-needed guidance about the language, listeners will be able to expand their knowledge of Italian alongside Lizzie. Overall, the story of Lizzie encapsulates, engages, and encourages the struggling language learner.

Target Audience

The target learners for this project are 18-65-year-old Americans who identify as Italian language novices. In general, this demographic consists of individuals who will be

open-minded about learning new language skills
willing to travel to Europe
familiar with Lizzie's accent
empathetic toward her struggles with pronunciation and cultural immersion

Design Process

To plan for the project, I mapped out the actions & sound effects that would be featured throughout the audio experience:

1

Lizzie & Isabella enter restaurant, Lizzie mentions love for Rome

Door creaking, Italian music, restaurant ambience (glasses clinking, people talking, etc.)

2

Host approaches, Isabella asks for table

Footsteps

Footsteps toward table, pulling out chairs

3

Lizzie & Isabella walk to table, discuss Lizzie's need to learn Italian

4

Isabella teaches Lizzie phrases about dining & food

Laughter

5

Lizzie hears waiter, tries to order in Italian

Footsteps

Lizzie makes mistake, scene ends

6

Laughter, restaurant sounds fade out, music crescendos

Script

Before diving into the audio production, I wrote out the scene's dialogue:

The audio experience was created with Garageband, incorporating snippets from Duolingo.

Entertainment Inspirations:

Title: "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" by Billy Joel

Setting & Character Names: The Lizzie McGuire Movie

Favorite Travel Film: Midnight in Paris

Learning Theories

This audio project applies two principles from Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning:

Personalization Principle: People will achieve better learning outcomes when language is presented as conversational as opposed to formal (Mayer, 2014).

Voice Principle: People will achieve better learning outcomes when narration is spoken via a human voice as opposed to a machine voice (Mayer, 2014).

Mayer, R. E. (2014). Cognitive theory of multimedia learning. In R. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (2nd ed., pp. 43–71). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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