Reflections about the curriculum of the Italian language in the primary and middle school level

Abstract

The curriculum of the Italian language needs, nowadays, to face the complexity of the current socio-cultural situation which is deeply characterized by multimodality and multiculturalism, by the technological development and by the effects of globalization. In the contribution the first reflections collected during a qualitative investigation, run by the research group of the department of Education, Cultural Heritage and Tourism of the University of Macerata (Italy), are discussed. The investigation highlights interesting practices, often innovative, but that also show the need to give a new meaning to the concept of curriculum.
Teachers show consciousness of the effects on the teaching/learning process of the Italian language caused by the current class context’s complexity. Their reference to class activities and strategies they usually promote to actively involve students are numerous and include the students’ enciclopedia (language-subject) and their multimodal experiences in the interaction with the world (language-world). But, often, such processes are not connected to the curriculum and a step is missing to let teachers acquire the needed full
awareness on the modalities they activate and let them foster triangulation process among the language- subject, the language-world and the language
object, that is, among processes of immersion in the contexts and ability of distancing and reflection.