Inglese nella scuola secondaria

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4 Parte Prima Verso la scuola di domani
www.edises.it
To sum up, a plurilingual approach is spreading fast throughout Italian schools.
It aims for integration between the MT and FL students through a greatly revised
curriculum with a plurilingual perspective. The fear that learning different
languages simultaneously could cause negative transfers is being replaced by a
pluriversal vision which facilitates the interaction and understanding of different
languages and cultures.
Through this pluricultural perspective Italian schools have been able to
recover, their original educational role of being open to a kaleidoscopic of
differences.
1.1European linguistic politics
The European Commission’s commitment to promoting language learning
and facilitating intercultural dialogue originated in 1989, the year “Lingua”
(the first foreign languages and culture teaching programme was approved.
In 2001, different measures were taken to develop a common strategy for the
widespread diffusion of languages in European countries.
The importance of linguistic education was well highlighted by the Lisbon
Strategy, adopted by the Council in March 2000, as a necessary condition in
order to improve and increase competitive levels.
The European Council Summits of Stockholm (23-24 March 2001) and
Barcelona (15-16 March 2002) set concrete future targets for education and
training in European systems, and a strategy programme for achieving them
by 2010 (“Education and training 2010”). These targets included developing
knowledgeof society, promoting language learning, developingentrepreneurial
skills and responding to the general need for European based education.
Following these Summits, European Union leaders expected a basic
improvement, notably “by teaching at least two foreign languages from a very
early age”. This intention was highlighted in the follow-up communication
“Promoting language learning and linguistic diversity: an action plan 2004-
2006”2: According to this document, European students “should have
meaningful communicative competence”; this meant “active skills rather than
passive knowledge”, associated with intercultural competencies, and “the
ability to learn languages whether with a teacher or alone”. In addition, the
main objectives to be pursued were set out, through 47 concrete action plan
proposals3, in three different strategic areas in which action should be taken:
1. Life-long language learning; 2. Better language teaching; 3. Building a
language-friendly environment.
2CM/Rec (2003) 449 July 24, 2003.
3Of the 47 initial actions, 41 were put into practice in 2007, 5 in 2013 and one was scrapped
but then continued in another proposal.