Hi I am Antonella , I am from Italy and I teach English in a secondary school. I can speak 4 languages and I am learning another foreign language interacting with a mother tongue speaker avoinding usings books and specific courses. Notwidstanding this, I cannot define myself as a language - aware teacher:  Even if I am conscious of the importance of language awareness I still have problems in making my students aware of the importance of learning a second or a third language. Many foreign students who are socially integrated in my country completely reject their “mother tongue” and their parents’ culture because they perceive themselves as Italian.  They considered their difference not as a richness but as a kind of “ punishement" which makes them feel different from the other Italian students. 

On the contrary, many other students use their first language as a "secret code" in classroom in order to not being understood by the other students and the teachers. 

I think that this course could be very helpful to me to understand the dynamics of language acquisition and awareness 

As a L2 teacher I have a lot of problems not only with my foreign students who have to learn a third language, but also with my Italian students because they all  perceive the foreign language not as a  way to communicate their ideas and eventually meet new friends, but as a sort of mathematics of which they have to learn all the grammar rules to solve the exercises.

It is not so easy to teach a foreign language avoiding to explain the grammar rules as we don’t have much time to make the students acquire the language in a “natural way”.  Moreover , it is also very difficult to explain the grammar rules to my students because sometimes they are not conscious of the linguistic structure they use also in their mother tongue.

That’s why I try to use original materials  ( videos, recorderd conversations) as much as I can, and as the majority of my students are not of Italian origins, I always avoid to use the translation exercises contained in our course book.

 

It  could be a good idea to design  a presentation activity to involve all the students and to exchange their different cultural experience. I have never thought about this opportunity. 

I only asked them to introduce themselves in L2 and make them change their seats periodically in order to mix the classroom 

In her video, Daniella mentions that language competence is a key tool for communication within multilingual societies and the work environment. How do you think this can be related to language awareness? Share your views in this Padlet.

I think that language awareness could help students to learn new languages. Knowing how a language works, could be helpful to improve student's competence in a foreign language. Language awareness should not be referred only to foreign students who have to improve their skills and abilities in communicating in the language used at school but also to local students who have to learn a second language.

I think it is not necessary for a teacher to study all the foreign languages the students use in the classroom but only to undertsand the basic pronciples on which these languages works. Foreign students could help to show and translate typical or idiomatic expression in their language in order to furnish a basis on which it is possible to start a discussion about cultural differences. 

Talking about cultural differences could be a way to fight prejudice and a way to encourage foreign students.

However, because of the increasing number of foreign students attending my school, I usually try to take a look at the grammar structure and at the phonological structure of their mother tongue in order to help them. As I cannot learn all the languages spoken in the classroom, I cannot understand all their problems. 

I avoid to use translation exercises because I think that it will be harder for them to translate from English into their mother tongue and from their mother tongue into Italian.

Even if managing more than a language could be a good cognitive exercise, I think that their mother tongue should be a resource and not an obstacle for my students, that's why I avoid translations.

I prefer to help them in analysing their common mistakes due to the mother tongue interference.

It is possible to let them use their language in controlled activities where they can share some common and simple expressions that can be easily translated with the help of internet.

It is also possible to allow them to study some topics in their language but if they were asked any questions they should be able to answer in the language used at school.

The only activity that comes up to my mind is that of sharing common phrases that also the other students can easily understand and analyse them in a cultural context in order to overcome prejudices

This implies a strict collaboration between the technical teachers and the language teachers as often technical teachers don't have the linguistic competence and the L2 teachers don't have any technical knowledge. This collaboration often implies management problems as changes in the school timetable, buying tools and materials and so on.

This means that it could be difficult to organise CLIL PBL projects in those schools in which CLIL is not planned in the school organisation.

I was only involved in a mechanics project by a colleague with the aim of teaching students tech vocabulary.

If I had to start this collaboration or any collaboration again, I would ask my colleague to design this activity together in order to use CLIL approach during the different activities of the project and not only to teach vocabulary after that all the activities were completed.