La proposta di Raccomandazione si inserisce all’interno di un progetto più ampio della Commissione Europea che propone la creazione di uno spazio europeo dell'istruzione, da realizzarsi entro il 2025. All’interno di questo quadro si colloca anche il recente Framework sulle nuove Competenze Chiave per l’apprendimento permanente (maggio 2018), che, come illustrato nella figura, include le due competenze: “literacy” e “languages”.
Per literacy competence si intende:“the ability to identify, understand, express, create, and interpret concepts, feelings, facts and opinions in both oral and written forms, using visual, sound/audio and digital materials across disciplines and contexts. It implies the ability to communicate and connect effectively with others, in an appropriate and creative way”.
L’accento è dunque sulla comprensione e comunicazione multimodale e intertestuale, trasversale ai vari contesti e alle varie dscipline: a questo scopo si valorizzano non solo i codici orali e scritti, ma anche la dimensione visiva, uditiva e digitale.
Per multilingual competence ci si riferisce alla “ability to use different languages appropriately and effectively for communication. Languages competences integrate a historical dimension and intercultural competences. It relies on the ability to mediate between different languages and media, as outlined in the Common European Framework of Reference”.
Ancora una volta l’accento è sulle diverse competenze interculturali e sulla mediazione tra lingue e media diversi, come illustrato dal Quadro Comune Europeo di riferimento per le lingue.
La proposta di Raccomandazione, nello Staff Working Document, fa riferimento al CLIL come metodologia innovativa per l’internazionalizzazione e per il miglioramento della qualità dei curricoli scolastici. Nello specifico, si fa riferimento allo stato dell’arte del CLIL in Italia, già menzionato nel Rapporto Eurydice Brief del 2017:
CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) was introduced in the Italian school system in 2003 through a Reform Law, which made it mandatory for upper secondary schools.
The introduction of CLIL was implemented in all Licei and Istituti Tecnici (upper secondary education) in 2014/15 as part of a comprehensive school reform. In practice, one non-language subject must be taught in a foreign language in the final year at Licei and Instituti Tecnici. In the latter, the subject must be chosen from the specialist areas. In the final three years of Licei linguistici, two different nonlanguage subjects must be taught through two different foreign languages.
The Ministry of education has defined the competences and qualifications teachers need to teach CLIL classes. They concern the target languages, the non-language subjects and issues relating to methodology and teaching approaches. In particular, CLIL teachers must have attained a C1 level of competence on the scale defined by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). In order to help potential CLIL teachers acquire the appropriate knowledge and skills, the education authorities are financing specific continuing professional development activities. For instance, in 2016, within a new school reform, they launched a National Teacher Training Plan which established a wide range of training programmes in CLIL methodology, which also included teachers from primary, lower secondary and vocational schools.
A proposito del CLIL nella proposta di Raccomandazione della Commissione Europea si menziona una pubblicazione dell’autrice: CLIL in Italy: A general overview, 2016[2].
Lo Staff Working Document fa riferimento anche a una strategia che sta diventando sempre più oggetto di studi e ricerche in questi ultimi anni: il translanguaging.
Con questa tecnica si intende “the act performed by bilinguals of accessing different linguistic features of various modes of what are described as autonomous languages, in order to maximize communicative potential”[3].
Lo Staff Working Document menziona un esempio di progetto sul translanguaging realizzato in Francia, soprattutto per l’integrazione e l’inclusione di studenti provenienti da altri paesi. Il progetto ha ricevuto l’European Language Label nel 2006:
“In France, in classes for newly arrived pupils, language learning is based, either consciously or unconsciously, on a comparison between the existing language system and the language pupils want to learn. Starting from this fact, this method is aimed at helping newly arrived students discover the French language by comparison with other languages including their own while working jointly with other students. This method stimulates thinking about languages and offers the learner a real education in the languages/cultures of others, while promoting his/her own. In class, each student is both teacher and learner. Hence, each student feels recognised and valued for who they are and what they already know”.