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Chapter 1
Europe languages
Over recent years the make up of Italian schools has changed dramatically,
from a “monoculture” with a single language to being pluricultural and
plurilingual. There is a growing openess towards other cultures in keeping with
the ever transforming culture around them. Academic institutions have
adjusted their value system accordingly, revisiting the concept of “mission” in
the hope of developing in young people a sense of citizenship that goes beyond
mere local geographical boundaries. This is in order to build a society that is
characterised by the respect of “self and other”.
The impact of these different cultures on the classroom has resulted in new
teacher competences, such as the ability to decode multiple messages, as
teachers find their own cultural model of timings and strategy not always
effective. Since codes and the ways in which they are exchanged can be deeply
diverse, teachers have to adopt a “dialogical” approach where roles and
languages allow room for different forms of expression. Only then, is pluralism
nurtured and becomes a shared experience.
Apart from this, the increasing production of school books and material
together with new linguistic education awareness, have undoubtedly
contributed to the promotion of new good practice and tools. These deal with
linguistic disadvantages and linguistic skills development, even if the teacher
remains the main director of the articulated learning-teaching process.
The definition of plurilingual and pluricultural competence given by the
Common European Framework of reference for languages (CEFR)
1
, has
forced teachers to focus on the mastery of linguistic diversification and to
reconsider the educational offer. Mother tongue (MT) language teaching and
CLIL modules (Content and language integrated learning) both play a greater
role.
The trends in today’s language teaching seem to favour a proactive development
of plurilingualism. Through this the monolingual student can learn foreign
languages (FL) and develop his/her own personal bilingualism, continuing to
study his/her mother tongue, if it is not included in the school curriculum.
1
According to the CEFR, plurilingual and pluricultural competence is “the ability to use
languages for the purposes of communication and to take part in intercultural interaction,
where a person, viewed as a social actor is proficient in several languages and has experience
of several cultures. This is not seen as the superposition or juxtaposition of distinct
competences, but rather as the existence of a complex or even composite competence on
which the social actor may draw”.