Muscle Aches More Condition_symptoms

Serianni, The hour of Italian


between appointments and the other, today I read The Italian now: school and humanities Luca Serianni (USC ito in July by Yale University Press, reprinted in October, bought on the fly Feltrinelli this morning in the price of nine euro).

are usually a bit 'suspicious booklets, pamphlets of this kind. Just over one hundred pages, small format, large type: the content is normally something that would be in twenty or thirty pages of the magazine, and is often recycled in some way. The name is a guarantee Serianni however, and although here we see a haste of production, the circumstances under which the work was made are such as to give special emphasis to the text. Serianni fact he was a consultant for the latest curriculum reform in high school, and his views were then given the opportunity to weigh in an unusual way.

Inside the book there is, in a couple of points (p. 40 and pp. 50-51), the praise of the summary as an educational tool. Fully in line with this, then I try to summarize some speeches more interesting - with a warning that, this being a summary-for-linguists, I leave out the more general (and, as a rule, unanimously shared by the experts) to focus only on those who, to some extent, I am a bit 'more specific, and often more subjective:

• language proficiency, as opposed to literary, lends itself to being measured with questions "closed", so it is easy to verify (p. ix)
• in a context of poor performance of Italian students, "hits the poor mastery of vocabulary and abstract (...) regression of less common vocabulary" (p. x)
• for the teacher, is important "especially" a psychological condition, "which is believed to work and gamble on himself" (p. xii)
  
• first chapter on considerations of common sense differences between humanistic and scientific culture
• second chapter: the need of presence of Science and Letters in the school "
• Gelmini reform" is definitely toward a balance between humanities and science and technology, made even more evident in the overall reduction of hours: a reduction depends on the choice or the need to economize - can not deny it - but also with sustainable pedagogical principle to reduce the hours of attendance of pupils at school, repingendo the correlation more hours = more profit school "(pp. 19-20)
• inevitable increase in English, but" perplexing the rule to predict right now the last year the use of foreign language for the framework does not language ": it is because teachers are not prepared, and because this could lead to the abandonment of some ability to convey science in Italian, and it is unthinkable that in the areas of gender and language of a waiver of sovereignty (... ) contract with a foreign language "(pp. 20-21)
• however, there are reserves on the increase in class size (p. 21)
• now there is" the marginalization of classical high school compared to high school, which is now the choice is not marked for (...) General preparation and then continue his studies "as a result, the classic has been feminized and meridionalizzato (p. 22)
• Latin weakened (and loses hours, in the post-reform programs) for these reasons and for a number of additional factors, including the reduction of prestige (p. 23)
• in fact, beyond many of the speeches for and against, Latin is important for the "historical significance", and in some schools it is good to maintain this "direct contact with the original texts" (p. 28)
• on the other hand, the weight of the classic version should be resized in teaching del latino (pp. 29-36)
• il docente d'italiano nella secondaria inferiore e superiore deve fare diverse cose contemporaneamente: "insegnare la lingua, prima di tutto", stimolare l'interesse per la lettura, avviare alla conoscenza dei classici, alimentare discussioni su temi di attualità (p. 37)
• più che chiedere opinioni su temi difficili da inquadrare bene, i docenti dovrebbero sviluppare nei discenti "i meccanismi dell'argomentazione" (p. 38)
• esempio di "una lezione sul barocco che valorizzi il rapporto con la pittura coeva", prendendo spunto da Mattia Preti - esempio, devo dire, ben poco credibile, in base alla mia esperienza della didattica liceale! (pp. 41-42)
• importanza del rigore nella valutazione (pp. 42-44), anche perché i problemi di lingua impediscono il successo in pratica in qualunque altra materia (p. 44)
• nella scuola dell'obbligo tutti devono essere portati a determinati obiettivi, ma nelle fasce successive occorre discriminare il valore e non cancellare la responsabilità dei singoli (p. 45)
• esempi di esercizi divertenti (beh, più o meno...) per i vari livelli di scuola (pp. 46-50), e di verifiche di comprensione del testo a livello avanzato (pp. 51-52)
• i problemi del tema e quelli delle prove alternative (pp. 53-60)
• sesto capitolo: i problemi delle grammatiche contemporanee, con qualche suggerimento per intervenire sui punti critici (pp. 61-75)
• settimo capitolo: il problema dell'arricchimento lessicale, con progetto di far arrivare tutti i diciottenni scolarizzati al livello di competenza necessario a "capire pienamente l'editoriale di uno dei grandi quotidiani" (p. 77)
• ottavo capitolo: spunti didattici sulla letteratura a scuola, con osservazioni su come alcuni fenomeni linguistici in Dante possano essere illustrati solo in un corso universitario, altri nello studio liceale, e altri ancora debbano essere proposti all'attenzione di tutti (p. 91)
• nono capitolo: insegnamento dei classici, e mantenimento della lettura dei testi più antichi in lingua originale

Gli argomenti presentati sono, come you can see, very varied, as is indeed the varied demands made by the school system for teachers to "Italian." I must say, however, that the examples of teaching provided systematically left me puzzled - they all seem more "toys" creative pieces of a complete education. And, more generally, I think that play a role here a bit 'too peripheral targets for funds in a more De Mauro would give reason to everything: to provide mastery of the language to allow access to information, reasoning about things and communicate effectively.