Understood- I was just letting Zuppa Inglese know about the new law being proposed in the camera.

For the sake of argument let me play devil's advocate for a moment. To say that stranieri (non Italian-as-a-first-language) children have the right to be in the same class as everyone else is like saying I have the right to shoot myself in the foot. If students don't understand the language being taught in well enough their learning will suffer. If the class has to slow down it's teaching pace to try to make-up for this, the italian-as-a-first-language kids suffer. It's a lose/lose situation. So, if there is a class tailored specifically for those not fluent in italian, kids in that situation would benefit greatly from being in that class as opposed to the italian-only "regular" class. In turn the "regular" class can move at it's normal pace, which benefits the kids in that situation. It's a win/win proposal in theory...

Now that I'm done playing devil's advocate, my question would be: In practice, would this "stranieri" class actually be designed and run in a way that is as beneficial as possible, or would it end up being what amounts to no more than a day-care center?

Lega Nord is proposing it. Draw your own conclusions.

Yep... the idea of a 'stranieri' class being nothing more than daycare, in all it's moral and logical absurdity, is by no means beyond the believable scope of the LN.

I have mentioned this before, but some Italian schools (both that my son has attended- one in Trieste and the one he currently attends in Torino) offer Italian as a second language a few times per week.
Whether a school district chooses to offer this class is a different issue, just an example of some of the alternatives to segregation.

Justin B,

Having been born and raised in the Bronx, NYC, I'm familiar with bilingual language programs. The schools I attended all had these programs in place. With the influx of Spanish speaking students in the 1960's, this was a hotly debated topic. The NYC program was not overly successful in it's early years due to both an inexperience in developing it and half hearted support from the city government (many did not believe this was the right approach to education). Over the years it has become quite successful and the mainlining of students often takes no more than two years. NYC first dealt with Spanish speaking students and since developed programs for other languages. I'm not sure what language(s) would be appropriate for Italy at this time. Not living in Italy, but reading the posts on Expat's, leads me to believe the greatest obstacle to the success of bilingual education will be the attitudes and political will of the ruling party.

Thanks for the insight aruff!

At the end you say:

quote:

...the greatest obstacle to the success of bilingual education will be the attitudes and political will of the ruling party.

Unfortunately I fear that for non-italian children in the current environment in Italy, that is a huge obstacle indeed.