Students, in English please!
The protest against Montecatini Terme Scientific high school’s Headmaster has been confirmed for January the 14th, as, for about a month now, the headmaster has been giving student interviews only in English.
Last October, the same headmaster had initialized the distribution of notices which encouraged teachers to speak English in order to accustom the students to using a foreign language.
The "Esperanto" Radical Association (ERA) and its Secretary, Giorgio Pagano, promoter of the cause, states that the "Italian language must be maintained in every aspect of life as an element to reinforce social cohesion."
The headmaster’s findings echo the initiatives of a school in Como, which recently followed "Project EBE," an English acronym for "English bilingual Education," which ensures that by next September, first year students will be able to learn Geography, Art, Science and Motor Sciences only in English.
The head of the Leonarda Spagnola di Lora school declares the "there have already been some experimental lessons in Spain that prove what a completely positive impact teaching the Bilingual program has proved to be, not only for linguistic abilities, but also for the general learning process. The method consents the child to develop his skills to the maximum potential and gain twice the cultural baggage, in a global way that opens him to the world."
Teaching the youth to dialogue in English is certainly useful to help them consolidate and increase their vocabulary, and it’s especially useful to accustom them to bilinguism, seeing that now in every European country almost everyone, starting at a very young age, speaks at least two languages, but it is also true that dialoging in a language that is not your own is challenging, and trying to learn the correct grammatical constructions, especially if the conversation requires an immediate answer.
Therefore, our position is yes, in favour of dialoguing in English, but only under certain circumstances.
Source: Vota il Prof
http://www.votailprof.it/Blog/Scuola-e- … se!-163993[addsig]