Italian Education Profile - Education - The British Council Italy


	THE ITALIAN EDUCATION PROFILE

	English language teaching in the formal education system Some of the most innovative projects in the overall scenario of curriculum reform are connected with foreign language teaching and learning. In 1998 the Minister issued a mandate to the heads of departments in the Ministry to explore new ways of expanding the provision of foreign language teaching in the schools they manage. The fact that this coincided with the gradual introduction of schools autonomy, with its own legislation and funding, meant that more funds were available than ever before, and a number of schemes have been launched in the last two years. The most significant of those for foreign languages have been grouped under the title of "Languages Project 2000" (Italian Schools Project) formally launched on 8 June 1999.This incorporates projects designed to pilot some of the innovative features of reforms now coming on line. The features these have in common are: they aim to place language learning rather than teaching at the centre by establishing clear and attainable learning objectives. (Traditionally in Italian schools the language syllabus is the textbook, hence the key role of and enormous market for ELT course books.) they place more emphasis on skills vs. content, and consequently on language competence vs. formal knowledge. they attempt to incorporate learning to learn skills, metacognitive skills and multiple intelligences in the syllabus. they place great emphasis on IT and multimedia resources for language learning. they attempt to design courses with objectives, language content and duration to fit in with the levels set out in the Council of Europe Common Framework document. they encourage recognition of achievement through international certification of levels reached, tying in with the concept of the language learning Portfolio. The above features represent a significant departure from the somewhat fossilised position of the Ministry of Education on foreign imports, influences and qualifications. The overall long-term aim for FL provision is to have a curriculum which guarantees: 100 hours pre-school 300 hours primary school 300 hours middle school (FL 1) 240 hours middle school (FL 2) 200 hours years 1 and 2 secondary school 300 hours years 3,4,5 at secondary school The role of English in this scenario has been defined very explicitly in the project literature as that of top priority language throughout the curriculum. The Italian Schools Project document states: "..the role of English as the language of international communication and information technology indicates that it should be the top priority at school…tuition should be widely available, the language taught using an approach which facilitates both effective communication and the use of IT and multimedia resources now common to all fields of work, public and private life." Two of the experimental projects which aim to put the above into practice are described below in the context of a brief overview of the teaching of English at the various levels. Primary level Since the introduction of FL teaching at primary level from age 8 to 10 there has been a massive demand for English from parents and students, resulting in large scale projects for the recruitment and training of prospective teachers among the practising teaching staff at primary level. Many courses currently involve several hundred hours’ language tuition before the teachers begin to include the FL in their classroom teaching. The Ministry policy to train practising teachers to incorporate the FL into the curriculum, though based on research conducted in schools, has come up against criticism from other departments, particularly since there are many unemployed FL graduates . A recent project designed to boost the quality and increase the intensity of language tuition and training of teachers has used joint Ministry and EU funding (Socrates Lingua B) to send teachers abroad on commissioned courses. In 1998 300 primary teachers went to the UK for 4 weeks. This year 270 will go for 3 week courses. The British Council, Rome was responsible for the commissioning of courses in the UK, the tendering process and placing the teachers, as well as being involved in the monitoring and evaluation of the scheme. Middle School (11-14) Provision of INSET for FL teachers at middle and secondary level has been consistently widespread .Through the national INSET scheme "Special Project for Foreign Languages" (PSLS) which ran from 1979 to the early ‘90’s, a national cadre of teacher trainers was formed with significant investment by the Ministry and the governments of the countries whose languages are taught: English (Britain and USA), French, Spanish and German. The USA made considerable financial contributions to this scheme in the early years but have since withdrawn funding and closed down all but a skeleton information service in Rome. The overall investment made in training at this level went a long way towards compensating for the lack of pre-service training in Italy ,now being introduced in the form of post-graduate one year courses. Many of the trainers in the national network have recently been retrained to run short courses equipping middle school teachers with the skills required by the recently launched Middle School Project. Schools with autonomous budgets have been asked to offer a second European language on an optional, extracurricular basis. Besides reflecting the features of the Languages Project 2000 this project allows for greater flexibility in the organization of courses at school, with smaller classes (15) determined by language level instead of school year. It places the emphasis on the spoken language and on short learning modules designed to correspond as closely as possible to the levels established by the Common European Framework So far 3,400 English courses have been run since October 1998 The project is seen as a first step towards the introduction of two languages in the middle school curriculum. Professional Teachers’ Associations and Training Events The following national associations run their own annual conferences and training events and act as a channel of communication between the Ministry and the chalkface: TESOL Italy (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) affiliated to the international USA based organisation it receives some financial support from the American Embassy (USIS). LEND (Lingua e Nuova Didattica) an Italian association of teachers of all four foreign languages, its events tend to focus on common issues and the European context, and are held in Italian as well as the relevant languages. ANILS (Associazione Nazionale di Insegnanti di Lingue Straniere) similar to LEND in that it is home grown, but with a different political position. The British Council in Italy runs the largest annual national conference for teachers of English, with approximately 1,500 participants attending a 3 day programme of talks and workshops. This event is recognised by the Ministry of Education as an accredited training event and is held at different venues throughout the country. Index \| Previous