Magic-e-School - 2020

The Council of Europe is insisting on the need of acquiring multilingual abilities and investing on people’s natural plurilingual skills, these latter innate in the individual.

School plays an important role and it is crucial that the study of foreign languages starts in the early stage of education. With the headteacher’s autonomy, each school can achieve degrees of quality and excellence and open to the linguistic address, investing on bilingual education since primary ages.In Italy we experimented an important starting point when the Directorate General for School Ordinances and Autonomy, in partnership with the British Council Italy and the Regional School Office of Lombardy, launched the IBI /BEI project (Insegnamento Bilingue Italia/ Bilingual Education Italy), which involved six primary schools in Lombardy. This launch took place in 2012-2011. 

 To start such a project there were precise criteria to be fulfilled:

1. teachers with proficiency in English of at least B2 level in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages of the Council of Europe;
2. school principals and teachers to participate in planning meetings, language and methodology training courses (face-to-face and online), seminars and conferences;
3. the involvement of at least 50% of the classes in the first year of primary school;
4. the guarantee of continuity for the entire five-year period to children who begin bilingual

education in the first year of primary school;

5. a minimum amount of hours for English. This is equal to 25% of a weekly timetable;
6. the presence of English assistants in the school.

The project was launched in February 2010, starting with testing the language skills of teachers from 6 schools in Lombardy. The schools were selected from 42 that had applied to take part in the project. In this start-up phase various preparatory training activities were organized for school principals and teachers, and British Council offered special training. Furthermore, particular importance was given to the Jolly Phonics Teachers’ Training. Jolly Phonics is a multi-sensorial methodology. It is “a fun and child centered approach to teaching literacy through synthetic phonics. With actions for each of the 42 letter sounds, the multi-sensory method is very motivating for children and teachers, who can see their students achieve. The letter sounds are split into seven groups” ( http://jollyreading.com/introduction-to-jolly-phonics/ ).Children can read through segmenting and blending since the very first days and they are taught to read and write in the most natural way, through songs, actions and visual aids. It is amazing how children react to this. They can achieve independent writing since the first months of primary schools and they read and understand the first words, also associating them to pictures.  

The IBI/BEI project also launched a 100% CLIL approach, with learning part of the curriculum in English. Each school had to offer 7 hours per week in English since year one. In the years some school decided to change to 5 or 6 hours per week.Once the project officially ended (5 years of primary school with BEI + 3 years of junior secondary school with CLIL Excellence), each school decided what to do. Some schools ended the project due to a critic Board of Teachers opposing the specialists (the problem was that “specialists split the timetable”), other schools invested on the project (e.g. Diaz School in Milan) incrementing the hours in English to 8 hours per week. Headteacher Dr.Debora Izzo, and her wing, teacher Marina Lauricella (primary school) together with teacher Enrica Giusti, are going on working on the project also participating in many projects.One of the historical IBI/BEI teachers, Dr. Angela Panzarella, after being invited to UCL London (with headteacher Dr.ssa Laura Longo) worked in the COMPANION Research (Ministry of Education, INDIRE, Council of Europe) and, after the end of second part of the BEI project, sh launched a new experimental project in her new school “ICS Padre Pino Puglisi”, with bilingual education, CLIL and technoCLIL since primary ages in Robbiolo Primary School, in Buccinasco (Milan). This project was strongly supported by headteacher Dr. Antonella Lacapra.

Bilingual Education, Internationalism groups, eTwinning Projects and Erasmus+ Projects are being supported in these two schools (Diaz and Robbiolo) and the opportunities given are enormous, and other schools are joining the adventure of experimenting bilingual education in terms of promoting a language enhancement since primary ages. Pre primary schools and primary schools can experiment a new curriculum if the Headteacher and the Board of Teacher work together with specialists in a wider vision, that is, the future of our students. It is important that schools invest on vertical curriculum too, thus promoting the acquisition of a second language through chants and songs since pre primary school and working in team for CLIL modules at A2+/B1 level in junior secondary school, too.As specific results of the action-research on the project, children in year 1 of primary school learn to read in blending their first Jolly Reader Book (Red Level) before Christmas break. They achieve a certified level of A2 at the end of primary school (with higher level in some descriptors) and during junior secondary school they achieve KET and PET. We are waiting for other schools to join the adventure and we are here to share best practices and offer our expertise. It is important that schools invest on language improvement of teachers and of students if we want to better our educational system concerning foreign language acquisition. We can do that!

Angela Panzarella

Picture credits: 

< Independent writing in year 1 primary school, November 2019

(Matteo, Class 1A, Robbiolo Primary School)

Sentence formation and reading comprehension in year 1 Primary school, January 2020 (Robbiolo Primary school) 

Angela Panzarella (02/08/1978), laureata in lingue e letterature straniere moderne (inglese e serbocroato) con indirizzo filologico letterario, un’ulteriore laurea in lettere (storia delle tradizioni popolari) presso La Sapienza di Roma, master in traduzione, abilitazione SSIS (A345/A346), master CeCLIL (Ca’ Foscari) e Metodologie CLIL nel XXI secolo (IUL Firenze), benemerenza in Filologia (Philology Sila Trophy, per il saggio “As You Like Her…”), expertise in bilingual education since primary years, dopo anni di docenza nella scuola secondaria di secondo grado, insegna inglese nella scuola primaria per la sperimentazione e il proseguimento dell’esperienza bilingue (IBI-BEI, istruzione bilingue, bilingual education, CLIL & technoCLIL) nella provincia di Milano. E’ formatrice riconosciuta dall’USR Lombardia (per corsi linguistici e metodologici CLIL, technoCLIL e webtools per la didattica) e certificatrice Cambridge Young Learners (International House) ed ESOL (Cambridge, International House, English Speaking Board). Referente per l’Internazionalizzazione, è anche esperta eTwinning, Erasmus+ ed Europrogettazione, con partecipazione a seminari multilaterali in Italia, Europa e Paesi del Mediterraneo. Attiva con pubblicazioni anche su Scientix e per Stem Discovery Week. Ha scritto per i suoi “gnomi” (come si diverte a chiamarli, e per i quali è Miss Angela), la collana completa di testi per la didattica bilingue 100% CLIL e technoCLIL per la scuola primaria.Last but not least, è una bassista con esperienze musicali in ambito nazionale e internazionale.