As they practiced Italian together last spring, Will Nelson '27, Reagan Quinn '27, and their small learning group decided they sounded too rehearsed and cautious.
As a solution, the students decided to use Italian in everyday contexts to become more comfortable, confident, and conversational. They changed their phones' default language to Italian. They discussed their lives over coffee while speaking only in Italian, using ChatGPT to generate discussion prompts that would force them to incorporate specific vocabulary and grammar structures into their conversations.
These efforts, which improved their use of the language and built a strong sense of community, were part of the Collaborative Conversations Project, an initiative led by research assistant professor Tania Convertini and senior lecturers Giorgio Alberti and Matteo Gilebbi.
Funded by a project grant from the Design Initiative at Dartmouth (DIAD), the Collaborative Conversations Project brings the innovation methodology of design thinking to language learning.
A human-centric approach to problem solving, design thinking encourages innovation, teamwork, and empathy through a five-phase approach: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. Outside academia, organizations across sectors use design thinking to consider an end-user's needs and come up with effective solutions to meet them. In Italian classes at Dartmouth, professors employ it as a tool that puts students in charge of their learning while allowing them to hone transferable skills like community building, creative problem solving, and collaboration.
Language learners can also apply insights and expertise they've gained in other areas of study—such as game design, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence—to inform design thinking methods that may help them overcome challenges.
"As we work with design thinking, we're working on reframing humanities for the 21st century," says Convertini, who directs the Italian language program. "Every collaboration, process of connection, and intersection with other disciplines—it's a benefit that allows us to speak a common language."
"The Collaborative Conversations Project illustrates the power of design across disciplines," adds Eugene Korsunskiy, associate professor of engineering and co-director of DIAD. "I'm excited by how the faculty team is using design thinking to make language learning more engaging and effective. This shows how the methods and mindsets design can be meaningfully applied within the rich academic diversity of the liberal arts at Dartmouth."
Fostering empathy and community
The practice of design thinking can make the experience of learning a new language less daunting.
"Learning a new language can be an uncomfortable experience for students who have little experience with the language," Alberti says. "They don't necessarily have a study method that works for them yet. Through the design thinking project, students understand that they share common issues. I think it is especially great for beginner-level courses in the language sequence."
In introductory Italian language courses, the Collaborative Conversations Project is incorporated as an option for extra credit. Through small groups that meet at least four times, students identify language-learning challenges they share and test solutions before providing a final reflection on the overall process at the end of term.
"By emphasizing problem solving through teamwork, students gained a crucial transferable skill: empathetic collaboration," Gilebbi says. "They realized that, despite having different learning styles and abilities, students often face the same academic obstacles. Design thinking encouraged them to work together on testing and implementing strategies and solutions that could be easily adapted to the specific needs of their peers."
In addition to Nelson and Quinn's coffee shop chats, students have played games like Two Truths and a Lie, practiced telling jokes, and asked for advice with a hypothetical problem to help them become more conversational in a new language.
Students who want to improve their listening skills have watched movies together in sequence—first without sound, next without subtitles, and then with subtitles—breaking down each viewing to assess how much of the scene they understood correctly.
These scenarios engage learners by creating emotional connections and forcing them to use and understand different tenses and vocabulary in situations that feel less like structured learning and more like community building.
"Everyone learns differently, but it was helpful to see some of the ways in which my classmates studied the material," says Quinn. "In fact, I implemented several of their strategies into my own learning and studying processes for Italian 3."
DIAD's support allows the project to provide funding to groups of students to gather and test their design thinking solutions at places like coffee shops without cost being a barrier. The funding also supports materials, such as sticky notes for brainstorming, as well as a forthcoming design thinking resource library for faculty and students.
In upper-level courses like FRIT 31: How Languages Are Learned, the Collaborative Conversations Project is built into the syllabus, enabling students to apply and demonstrate what they are learning.
Students start with their own experience as language learners—identifying a problem or challenge within their experience and then connecting with others around campus to understand the challenges they face too. From there, they identify a solution, test it, and ask the same group of people to provide feedback as to whether it would support their needs before incorporating that feedback and delivering a final presentation.
The practice of considering others' needs and perspectives is central to the project's goals.
"If our students feel supported in facing these challenges, in helping solve challenges, in thinking about solutions—if they do that as a community, it means we are creating a base for living together as good citizens," says Convertini. "And that is so much needed."
The success of the Collaborative Conversations Project can be seen in students' grades, attitudes, reflections, and enhanced sense of community.
At the end of term, students have an opportunity to reflect on the impact of the project. "These reflections are quite crucial," says Alberti. "They show that there is a conscious approach to a study method, which is pedagogical goal number one, and that students felt in charge of their learning experience."
Alberti often hears from students that they speak Italian so much better than they speak a language they studied for multiple years in middle and high school, he says. "There's a sense of gratitude for this creative learning environment."
"The Collaborative Conversations Project is the epitome of what the Italian department strives for: building community," says Nelson, who took Italian 1, 2, and 3, with Alberti during his first year. "It helped me improve my proficiency and find new friends with whom to navigate my language-learning journey. Even today, months after finishing my most recent course, my iPhone keyboard is still in Italian."
