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The awareness of the decisive role that the capability of communicating in at least
one language of the European Community plays, in the formation of the future
citizens of Europe, motivated the possibility of continuing experimentation, already put in place during the past
scholastic year, with new methods of teaching/learning for the purpose of
achieving levels of competency more and more in tune with the social reality in
which we find ourselves.
The cultural and linguistical exchanges that society
offers and demands, puts teachers in the front line with the challenge of gathering
together this patrimony of incentives and possibilities, decode them within the
school for educational use, so that modifying the actual, one has formed an
interaction which leads the educational agency to borrow from society the
technologies and new languages in
general, and make itself leader of operative methods of formation.
The picture of Europe of the people, as units of
culture, values, ways of life, of sharing of standards of progress that
interact in a broader opportunity of communicational exchanges offered more
today than in the past, places the urgency of constructing a "European
mentality" flexible to communication, to exchange, to tolerance, and to
the sharing of diversity. In line with
the ministerial project Language 2000, the elementary school participates in
the construction of a "European citizenship for students", with the
specific function of:
1. furnishing
the fundamentals of learning a community language; 2. Favoring the cognitive development; 3. Metalinguistic
competency and 4. cultural formation.
Privileged
channels of contact between different populations is the knowledge of a foreign
language, in particular English, as a language of transnational communication
and as an alphabet of new technologies.
In this view, the English language presents itself both as a requirement
for communication, and as an instrument of comprehension and in the use of
computer and multimedia technology, present in all sectors of today’s work
place and in daily life.
Therefore, this project presents itself as a continuation of an experience initiated
during the past scholastic year 1998-99 in the tenth school district
"C. Collodi" of Brindisi with the name of "English and
Multimedia", aiming at strengthening and improving the program offered,
planning moments of enrichment and strengthening the curriculum, effectively
including itself in the monthly educational program and not placining itself
parallel to it. The strengthening of
the English language makes use of the assistance of new multimedia technology
which marks a jump in quality in the
learning of a foreign language. All
with "an eye" on Europe, sharing with it the standards in terms of
competency, and of levels and shortening the distance with our foreign
partners.
2. THE NORMS PICTURE OF REFERENCE
An attentive analysis of the document provided by the Ministry of Public Education "Language Project 2000"
outlined the guidelines essential for the drafting of the present project, this
document being the primary starting point.
In the context of the European Council the results of the
research and studies were joined in two publications of major importance: The European Linguistic Portfolio and The European Common Reference Picture
(Strasbourg 1997) that presents "learning blocks" that lead to the
attainment of competency levels, from which are taken points of reference
essential to outline descriptors and levels of competency (from Picture pp.
13-14), hence ways of verifying said abilities. The levels indicated will be adapted to the specific territorial
and scholastic situation of the "Collodi" school district forming a
unique and individualized model.
Further information was taken from L.440-12-Dec.1997,
on the intervention and suggestions indicated by the Ministry. This route finds fertile ground in the
prospect of scholastic autonomy and in the instruments of flexibility
highlighted in D.M.251\98 art.1, which allows for flexibility in the
time, table, the flexible articulation of the class and the steps for
continuation, of which the present project can make use of in continuation of
the previous project, presented and set up in the C.Collodi school district,
1998-99 "English and Multimedia".