THe importance of English in Italy, Esercizi di Lingua Inglese

Scarica THe importance of English in Italy e più Esercizi in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity! THE IMPORTANCE OF ENGLISH IN ITALY (an essay in Academic Writing by Nicole Cobio) The importance of the English language is already known by everyone/ widely recognised. It is considered as a “passport for the world”√; therefore, it is quite obvious that learning it is very important for both our public and private life. English is the language most widely spoken as a second language in Italy; as Pulcini (1994) states in her article, it has penetrated into the Italian language since the XVIII century and from that moment on it has reached almost the same level of use in every day communication as the Italian language. English has arrived in Italy not only through education but also thanks to the mass media, music, art, culture and literature. √ Nowadays, more and more people are spending time studying English as a second language; like many countries, Italy also includes English in its school programmes and children are starting to learn it at a very younger age. The impact of the English language on Italian culture is undeniable, although its “rooting” in the Italian peninsula has also encountered several problems. √ Therefore, the aim of this essay is not only to explain and describe the widespread of the English language in the public and private life of Italian people, i.e. how it works, how it affects our life and why it is so important, but also to underline the most burning problems related to this phenomenon. It would have been nice to divided the essay into 2-3 sections and use section headings at the start of each one First of all, in contrast to the previous ages, in the last period?/few decades, parents are being more aware of the importance of the English language for their offspring. That is why, when they cannot enrol their children into an English course or are unable to find an English-speaking kindergarten, they try to find a private teacher for them or a babysitter who is an English speaker so that the child can get used to it (and hopefully start speaking it) from an early age. Moreover, the majority of the parents use the so-called "one person, one language" approach in order to raise their children as bilinguals: in this method, each parent speaks only one of the two languages to the child. Another approach is the one called "Time & Place", in which parents separate the languages used with the child either by time or by place or both: for example, they use one language during the day and another one during the evening, or one on weekdays and the other one at the weekend, or they use one language at home and the other outside it, and so on. A very simple approach to learning English at an early age is to watch animated cartoons in English since childhood: this is due to the fact that children have more free time to spend and this method is not boring for them because they can enjoy the moment watching cartoons while unconsciously acquiring the language. At the same time, they are learning a new language which, definitely, can help them in the future. √ Today, thanks to the Internet, it is easy to learn English because everything around us is in this language or has been translated into it. It must also be said that the music industry has contributed mostly to the spreading of the English language all around the world but above all in Italy, because young people as me have started to be interested in the English language thanks to the music they listen to and the new singers who became popular in that period; the latter is also a good method to learn a foreign language because as we know is easier to learn words in a song than learn by heart words to add in your vocabulary. √ Younger generations, in particular, seem to have more frequent opportunities to use the English language in communicative situations, whether in real or virtual life. English can be seen to represent a common code allowing interaction, which can be employed to share interest related both to local and global cultures and subcultures. √ For instance, communication on the web is frequently done through a foreign language, 36% in the EU and 25% in Italy (Eurobarometer 2012). √ This active use of foreign language better prepares future generations to communicate successfully in a more multilingual and multicultural Europe, where the knowledge of at least two foreign languages should be a skill possessed by all European citizens (Vettorel, 2012). √ this seems to be the beginning of a new section, right? The English language has influenced the Italian language since the first day?/for a long time and today a lot of Italian words have been substituted by English words/ones such as start-up, target, outfit, and so on; however, these borrowed words are predominantly being used by the new generation. / Additionally, the spreading of English is not appreciated by everyone. For example, the experts at “Accademia della Crusca”, which is one of the principal landmarks for researchers on the Italian language, have defended the purity of the Italian language, arguing that the Italian language is facing a possible extinction and the risk of being completely substituted by English .?/ This viewpoint could be justified to a certain extent because it is important to preserve one’s identity (and language being an essential part of this identity) since this is what differentiates us from the others. At the same time, it is important to understand the necessity of the English language for working and studying today. For instance, today it is not possible to apply for a course at university or a job without having a basic level of English, and your Curriculum Vitae will not be considered at all unless it includes foreign language skills. Therefore today, English has a primary role in the life of everyone (not just Italians), and while there are still some people who do not use it that much in their life, for the majority of the population it affects a huge part of their life because they constantly have to face different challenges related with the knowledge and use of the English language. √ a new section here too? However, as every phenomenon, the one related to the constant rise of the impact of the English language also faces a series of problems. The first encounter with the English language is in school, where – because of its importance – children start to learn it from kindergarten, but when they come to middle school, they do not find any further motivation in learning it. For example?/ One explanation for this lack of motivation could be that every new phase of their school career always starts with learning the basics of English - e.g. expressions such as “What’s your name?”, “How old are you?”, etc. so this brings to a lack of attention in the students; that is why students start to lose interest in the English language and they do not reach a good competency level in English in contrast to other teenagers in different parts of the world. √ To make matters worse, in middle and high schools not all the professors have a good preparation in the English language. But what has to be changed above all is the Italian educational system, which tends to focus on students' acquiring theoretical knowledge rather than the practical application of it; in other words, teaching of English is only focused on the acquisition of grammar, which obviously is important when learning a foreign language, but at the same time it is also important to know how to communicate with other people in that language, in order to learn different shades of the language? /the native speakers' idiomatic way of expression and be prepared, for example, for a trip abroad.√ That is why the majority of Italian people face difficulties in having a conversation [with someone else] in English: i.e. this happens because at school they practised only the grammar of the language (usually through written exercises, class tests, etc.), therefore they have difficulty to express their opinion in an oral discussion. In 2012, according to Censis1 (Amabile, 2012), 66,2% of Italians claimed to know foreign languages, but the number drops if we look at how many people can actually use them: only 23.9% declare to have a level good enough to hold a conversation and only 7.1% declare to have an excellent level.√ In addition, there is a huge difference between Northern and Southern Italy in terms of language knowledge: the number of Italians who know English in the South is lower than the national average (63%), whereas, in the North the average is approximately 69.3%. √ In 2015, according to ISTAT2, the main channels for learning English were school (79.4%), studying or working abroad (14.9%), studying on one's own through self-study books, DVDs, etc. (11.8%) or just going abroad for a trip (9.6%).√ The spread of English is highly visible in Italy, particularly in the fields of advertising, the media and in the linguistic landscape. It is impossible to listen to TV commercials or read a 1Censis (Centro Studi Investimenti Sociali) 2 Istat (Istituto Nazionale di Statistica)