Series | SAIL
Review | Languages in Italy, Languages in Europe: Where We Are, Where We Are Going
Chapter | Approccio plurilingue dall’Europa per l’Europa
Approccio plurilingue dall’Europa per l’Europa
Focus sull’apporto dell’Italia
Abstract
This article presents a critical reflection and a synthesis on the links between European policies aimed at promoting plurilinguism and the Intercomprehension approach, 25 years after its first appearance in the languages teaching environment. In particular, it focuses on Italy’s role in different Intercomprehension projects that have emerged and on how Italy promotes this new approach. The European Union set a target whereby all European citizens should speak two foreign languages in addition to mother tongues. This poses the challenge of which languages to choose both within European Institutions and within the educational systems. Moreover it leads to reconsider the place traditionally assigned to English. This European target remains far from being achieved, as demonstrated by the Eurobarometro polls. Against this background, the Intercomprehension solution still offers a credible option that could be extremely powerful if it were to be rigorously applied on a large scale, as we try to demonstrate. In fact, this approach respects the variety of languages and cultures by considering them within their linguistic families. It is a simple, time-effective and flexible approach for multiple audiences. An examination of the case of Italy allows one to observe how a new dynamic can emerge by participating in several European projects and how it is possible to slowly start thinking about a set of different actions that would help achieve the objective of European plurilinguism.
Language: it
Keywords Multilingual learning approach • Intercomprehension
Copyright © 2016 Marie-Christine Jamet. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.14277/6969-072-3/SAIL-7-5
