Italian in the mainstream schools of the bilingual border area of the Slovenian coast: language policy, teachers’ perspectives and a vision for the future

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Italian language in the ethnically mixed coastal area of Slovenia is an official language, regulated by the principle of ethnic autochthony, which recognizes the rights of linguistic minorities regardless of their number of speakers. Slovenia has been always very sensitive toward its two national minorities (Italian and Hungarian) and set up models of bilingual schools along its borders. In the official Italian-Slovenian bilingual area the “Littoral school system model” has been in place since 1959, requiring, in addition to establishing minority Italian schools, the compulsory teaching of the Italian language in all mainstream schools (Italian as L2), the teaching discussed in this paper. Nevertheless, Italian is not perceived as the language of the territory any longer; indeed, students at the end of elementary/middle school (15 years) typically reach a very low level of proficiency in Italian. Through an explanatory study based on the perceptions and perspectives of mainstream elementary/middle school Italian teachers we tried to identify the possible areas of investigation so as to understand the reasons of this decline and discover potential new ways of teaching. Moreover, examples of newly tried teaching approaches are introduced as new possible teaching and learning methods.