Case Studies

Name of the teacher

Maria Napoleone

Email:

Country:

Italy

Subject taught:

Italian

Years of experience:

25, teacher of the Santa Fiora Technical-Economical Institute, school part of the I.S.I.S. “Da Vinci - Fermi”

Name of the School:

I.T.I.S. “L. Da Vinci- E. Fermi”

School Typology:

Upper Secondary School

Country:

Italy

City:

Arcidosso, with other institutes located in the nearby towns

Web site:

www.isisamiataovest.it

Background and Context:

The School works in the terror of the “ex Comunità Montana”, nowadays “Unione dei Comuni”, located on the Amiata, in the province of Grosseto. This is very wide area, characterized by typical criticalities of the mountainous places, with land set composed of small towns. From many years, there has been a relevant increasing of the foreign students coming from both European countries and non-European countries, linked also to the family reunification.
This reality constitutes a critical element that therefore which represents an opportunity of debate and enrichment in an intercultural point of view.
The project was addressed both to the recently migrated students (arrived no more than 2 years) and to all the foreign students who, being arrived from more than 2 years, continued presenting evident difficulties both in the Italian language use and in the comprehension of technical languages of different disciplines.
Analysing the familiar context of the foreign students’ origin, it emerges that parents often are semiliterate and their children did not undergo a regular educational training in their origin countries. This determines a cultural disadvantage which the project tried to compensate.
The percentage of the students with non-Italian citizenship presented in the school is 17%. The percentage of students of different nationality in my second year class is 70% in the 2015/16 school year.

Factual Description:

In the 2015/2016 school year the tutors of the projects, me myself and the professor Cristina Benicchi, proposed Tuscany Regional School Office a project of teaching and empowering of Italian as second language, project which was funded, even if partially.
Undertaken action to facilitate the process of integration developed in five phases:
1- Intercultural welcoming and Italian language teaching. Objectives:
- to follow the integration and socialization among participants of the class group;
- to support the motivation and the interest related the education training;
- to acquire basic linguistic competencies, pushing students also towards a metalinguistic
reflection and to the comparison between Italian language and the languages of origin, in
particular non-Latin languages.
2- Reflection activity and research of myths present in Italian and foreign fairy tales which can be found in the different artistic traditions. The educational objective was to promote cognitive and emotional experiences through the chance of making comparisons, establish analogies and differences to enlarge the own way to see things, discovering other life dimensions and contact with the reality and the others.
3- Strengthening activities were scheduled to acquire technical languages, related to the different educational courses of our School (Scientific High School, Human Sciences High School, Technical and Economical Institute, Industrial and Technical Institute, Vocational High School). Law, Business Economics, Human Sciences, English Language, Italian Literature teachers, in this phase, should have become linguistic facilitators for the learning of the own subject. Unfortunately, this last didactic activity could not be realised for lack of funds.
Personally, I was involved in activities related to the strengthening of the Italian language, through a lab methodology focusing on stabilizing the four basic abilities, to improve textual comprehension.

Activities carried out:

Beyond the project, in my class activities I adopted a lab methodology which considered life skills development. Through circle times I could develop actuality topics as integration and gender discrimination. In the latter, I had the collaboration of voluntary psychologists of the “Olympia de Gouges” cultural association, who are involved, in the territory, in the fight against abuses on women.
We carried out a great job on gender prejudices and stereotypes and, together with second year students, I developed a project of creative writing which allowed us to participate to various contests, among which the poetry contest supported by the association. The students won awards, one of which national.
Concerning national and migrant students interaction in the second-year class, I must admit it was difficult for some national students to accept and share group activities and socialisation with foreign students.
In order to facilitate and promote integration, the following topics have been faced during the school year: refugees, migrants and refugees shelters condition.
I participated, together with second-year students, to some reading meetings to deepen some topics. These were promoted by teacher Bartolacci Paola, coming from the main Institute. One of these meetings considered a reflexion about the book “Anime Sospese”, a journalist report, Clelia Pettini, as a volunteer in a refugees shelter in Grosseto. Participating students, during a School Assembly, talked about migrant condition to the other attending students, as exposed in the book, as well as the writer’s experience.
Today I can confirm that some denying behaviours have been mitigated, through dialogue, debate and the knowledge of a different reality.
However denying behaviours remained in the local reality, which do not recognise as positive the eccessive presence of migrants: if parents are against, as a consequence, children will be too.
I strongly believe that school can do much more but, alone, it cannot face the problem that many students feel being in contact with different cultures. Other social subject are needed, who can develop together with school welcoming values and share.

Assessment and lesson learnt:

The project had a positive effect on foreign students because, thanks to the teaching and strengthening of Italian as a second language project, they overcame linguistic difficulties and acquired suitable operative tools and basic competences which can guarantee an adequate textual comprehension to share contents, even if a reminder will be necessary, in the classes after the first two years, to call the attention on word meaning comprehension and on their historical context when they will study Italian Literature.
Many foreign students do not like to ask for words meaning to the teacher, cause of problems regarding pride and scarce acceptance and awareness of their own limits, related to the usage of a different language.
In the end, I reckon that a group methodology for the development of life skills and Italian as second language literacy are educational experiences useful for socialisation and cultural and social integration of foreign students.

Description of the Case Study in National Language: