Adult Education
by Cristina from ITALY
The foreign adults , men and women , who have attended language courses in Italian Permanent Territorial Centres in 2001-2002 were 76 819 .
It ' a number growing, and that does not include all those who have learned and are learning Italian, outside of the public system of Adult Education , courses organized by the vocational training institutions , individual municipalities and districts , by voluntary organizations social secular and religious , to political organizations and civic initiative , recently also by individual companies with a high percentage of foreign workers.
The adults who study Italian women and men are different from each other for ages , the language or languages , cultures in which we can recognize , levels of education, work and social placement in the source country and in Italy . Some of them , about a third according to data cited ministerial , have finished high school or college and have good study skills , but another third has only a primary school or have not studied at all. Some live and work in close contact with Italian , others attend almost exclusively of compatriots and have very limited opportunities to use the Lister , and some have children placed in Italian schools , others intend themselves undertake the work of education or vocational training . And the differences do not stop there .
There are also different reasons why the Italian study , the attitude they have towards the Italian and Italians who speak it , the goals that arise when you approach the formal and systematic study of the language. They motivations and linguistic needs which in turn will change over time , with the experiences and needs related to various biographies .
A teaching of standardized and unique is always inadequate. But it is even more so in the face of such a wide diversity of skills, knowledge , attitudes, and motivations . The teacher of Italian as a second language in adult education has the constant need to revise their teaching tools in order to adapt to the training that goes by agreeing with their descendants.
The materials published and to be published in this space want to respond to this request for a flexible and modular teaching .
These materials are targeted to specific groups of learners : adults and adults in vocational training , job seekers , illiterate or more. They are oriented towards specific educational objectives : dealing with issues related to the experience of immigration , such as the search of the house or the job interview ; raise the understanding and / or use of specialized languages , such as administrative or bureaucratic language of the technical ' computing, aimed to support the development of language skills , promote metalinguistic awareness by observing and practicing some aspects of lexical , morpho-syntactic or pragmatic.
They are intended as teaching aids that the teacher can integrate into classroom lessons or may suggest to the students and the students , individually or in small groups , which require individualized because they have personal interests and specific , or can not follow the calendar with a constancy lessons or simply want to learn more and review for yourself the work done in the classroom.
The materials are arranged in the form of short interactive learning modules . We tried to take into account the advantages dall'ipertestualità , which disrupts the linear , sequential and classical learning module allows the user to create their own pathways . What hypertext is an approach that responds well to an individualized teaching -oriented and communicative needs of those who learn the language, is supported by both the language teaching of adult learning .
The theoretical and applied research in the fields of adult learning and teaching of languages are the background materials that we propose here . They are aimed at developing the communication skills of men and women who act through the language socially and pursue their goals of integration, personal growth , professional and emotional .
Therefore, the learning paths are started by communication problems , such as seek advice from a computer technician, and have its own center authentic texts collected directly in situations of language use to prepare such phone calls, songs, administrative forms, job interviews registered in employment agencies , advertisements in newspapers , to name a few .
The proposed activities from the text are intended to strengthen the mastery of vocabulary and grammar ( linguistic competence ), but also the ability to use vocabulary and grammar in a way appropriate to the situation and effective in relation to their communicative intent ( pragmatic competence ) and the ability to express themselves with varying degrees of formality and understand texts expressed in languages other than Italian daily use ( sociolinguistic competence ) . Where it is necessary for the understanding of the texts, have been explained references to people, events , facts, institutions , customs and value systems cited in the text or implied in it , what to promote intercultural dialogue.
The observation of linguistic facts in examples of actual use can give rise to a confrontation between mother tongue and second language and contribute to the metalinguistic awareness of structures and uses of Italian.
Those proposed here are integrative tools to work in the classroom . So have all been tested in different teaching situations . Teaching and testing are inseparable : they welcome the suggestions and demands of those who use these learning units .
