Caterina Gasparini

As an Italian teacher of English I think I would like to change the question into "What does technology have to do with English?" or rather into "What does technology have to do with other languages?". I have been recently asked to translate technical terms from English into Italian for a glossary on electronics and I have wondered if it really makes any sense trying to find Italian equivalents for Input/output, browser, intranet, internet (either with small or capital "I"), host, etc. Maybe my slightly "provocative" message could find its location in another thread, but I think that through IT, English has really become the most frequently used language for professional communication in the world. The presence and use of IT in every kind of job and business implies that all working people necessarily use the English language at least some times a day now, maybe much more often in the future. Will English become the language of all technology?

My name's Caterina Gasparini and I am not a History teacher. John asked me if I would like to become an associate member of the E-HELP project and I find the aims of the Project, which attempts to “shape and redefine school history for a new generation”, extremely challenging, also because not many projects are concerned about our students as the future citizens of the world. I'm a teacher of English in an Upper Secondary School in Italy: it is an Industrial Technical Institute which, by the way, decided many years ago that English should be the only foreign language to be taught (no more than one can be taught by the Italian Curriculum, anyway!). I teach ESP (English for Special Purposes), that is English for Aeronautics, Electrotechnics, etc. in a highly “technical-technological” environment, from every point of view. I have been an ENIS (European Network of Innovative Schools) project coordinator for a few years and I have been on the editorial staff of the new Italian ENIS web site, which was launched last May. I started working with computers about twenty years ago: it was just some Basic at the beginning, but I soon went on searching the Web for educational material. I came across some very good sites and materials and then I got involved in the rush of ICT for education. I’m interested in how ICT and the Web can be best used to improve our teaching. I think the tools we have at disposal are powerful but we only use a small amount of their potential, maybe because we don’t always know how to exploit them adequately. I have tried different e-Learning platforms or environments, experiencing their strengths and weaknesses. I don’t think distant teaching will ever replace traditional teaching but all our students are using a blended approach to information which has already forced most teachers to change their methodology. At present I am working with my students on producing educational resources on the topics they are studying: it cannot be considered educational material because many aspects are still missing but we hope to improve it in the future. I'm looking forward to working with you.

I use Mozilla for email, Dreamweaver and Fireworks for web pages, but I happen to use Explorer for browsing more often than a few years ago (I started browsing with Netscape). I also experienced problems with Front Page before installing Macromedia software.

I remember Sons and Lovers because it was one of the books we had to read in our second year at university and I loved it because of the setting, the social issues, the psychological study of the characters, etc. Some years ago I happened to visit Lawrence's birthplace and I saw the school he went to and other places which appear in his novels. I also read The White Peacock, Women in Love, Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Rainbow, etc. but I think Sons and Lovers is my favourite one. We had to read so many novels at university, including David Copperfield (950 pages in a pocket Penguin edition!), Vanity Fair (really amusing and historically interesting, they have just made a film out of it), Tom Jones, Pride and Prejudice, The Mill on the Floss, Adam Bede, Crome Yellow, The Dubliners, and so many others. I didn't like all of them, but reading so much in the original language had two effects: first of all it made me understand and appreciate the development of the English novel, which has been so important for the other national literatures. Second, it developed my love for reading in general. It sounds funny, but I must have read more novels by English, American or Australian writers than by Italian ones: has my job influenced my reading so far or are English-writing novelists simply better?

Thank you, David. A very good article indeed, and what it says about Italy is unfortunately true. Italians should also start considering immigrants from another point of view, but this is a big issue for many Italians and not a simple question for Europe in general. Am I wrong to think that British immigration is something apart from what happens in countries which are not part of a greater political/economical entity (Commonwealth) or did not have many colonies in the past?

I agree it is absolutely meaningless to regret a past which, anyway, may have been worse than our present, in some aspects at least. Personally, I have never seen the FAMILY as the heart of society, but rather as the first social group in which most of us happen to live the first part of their lives and where we usually learn the basis of our "social behaviour". The members of this group are linked by mutual feelings which will often include hate and love, attitudes which will include understanding and uncooperative behaviour, oppression and help, but also violence and abuse, as it happens among all people. What we become in our lives will be greatly influenced - but not necessarily determined - by our family experiences. Can anyone suggest how to replace this period of our "education" with something different and better?

All that you have posted so far is very interesting. The situation here in Italy is a little different: the Italian families have 2.7 members on average. This means that we are below the size of a “normal” family (2 parents + 1 child). 23% of the “families” are made up of one person, mainly people over 60, students or young people who are putting off the moment for getting parents because of their careers (June 2004). Most of the children 0 to 13 have got a brother or a sister (52.5%), but about 25% have no brothers or sisters. This means that many children do not have someone to play or stay with at home. Most of them suffer from it, as my students often tell me. I think their loneliness becomes apparent when they go school. This alarmingly low birth rate may be due to a lot of factors: I don’t think it is a question of selfishness, there are many real problems related to the difficulty in getting a relatively secure job before the age of 25-30 (if not later), the inefficiency of some services, etc. I remember going to school on foot when I was 6; now it would be impossible because of the traffic, or just because children are more absent-minded. Working parents may find it difficult to take more than two children of different ages to different schools by car every day. In a city like mine (about 100,000 inhabitants) no school transport service is usually organized. Quite strangely, this type of service is assured in small towns. As a consequence, we are suffering from being in a constant rush and also in Italy parents are spending less time with their babies and children. I think families tend to spend less time together in general: many children have also music or language classes after school; most of them practise more than one sport and go training nearly every day, etc. Family life has changed in general and most people tend to stay at home for a shorter time than in the past. However, divorces are still less numerous than in other European countries, 0.7 every 1,000 people, while the European average is 1.9. This may be due to the influence of the Catholic faith or to the fact that a divorce must be preceded by a three years’ time separation. Besides, not all separations lead to a real divorce. It is difficult to say how these changes will influence our future: in general our society is getting older and older, and this is rather sad. However, most grandparents and grandchildren have more time to stay together, and this is something positive if the old manage to pass some of their life experience on to the young.

The novel that changed your life: this is really a very good question. I don't think one novel in particular may have changed my life, although I remember Kerouac's 'On the Road', Salinger's 'The Catcher in the Rye' and most of Orwell's and Lawrence's works with pleasure. I rather think I was influenced by Malcolm X's 'Autobiography' and M. L. King's 'Stride toward freedom', which I read when I was 15 and contributed to some aspects of my personality. I think my 'humanity' started at that time, as I got interested in the problem of civil rights in the US. I managed to read a lot of books on the topic in a few years. As for John's questions, I believe some movies can influence the development of personality, but not as strongly as books do. I remember my secondary school Italian teacher saying that, when you read, you also have to 'interpret' what you are reading, filling the gaps between the author's words and your own way of understanding them. This depends on your experiences, view of the world, knowledge, personality, etc. I think that when you watch a movie, little is left to your imagination. There are exceptions, of course, like Kubrick's and other great directors' works.

Is the table published on the Internet? I would like to read it. One of the most reliable newspapers (not many of them) in Italy gave different results by taking into account the number of medals and the GNP of the countries. Russia was first, followed by Australia and Cuba. http://www.ilsole24ore.com/SoleOnLine3/Eco...=20.0.584974189 (In Italian, unfortunately)

I think the name of the forum itself should always remind us of our role as teachers and educators: we should feel even more responsible for what we post and the opinions we express than people who do not work with children or young people.

I'm not a historian, but I agree with most of what has been written on the topic so far, and with Helga in particular. Anyway, I would like to go back to the original theme suggested by John: What should an International National Curriculum be like? I think that we should really try to consider historical events from a global, worldwide point of view. As Europeans, after WW2 we have been constantly working not only to rebuild our countries, but with the more or less agreed or shared objective of realizing the UE, which has just been enlarged and will probably be even further enlarged in the future. The context in which we place all current events has changed: we are used to feeling and thinking “globally”, we are fully aware of how the future of each of us is dependent on global history and it will always be like this in the future. The theme suggested by John means that probably now we feel the need to look at past events from a really international perspective as well. I would suggest enlarging the field of investigation, considering history as a subject to be studied on a worldwide basis and analysing all periods, events, and phenomena from a global point of view which takes into consideration all that happens in the world context on a synchronous axis. I think the period or event chosen is uninfluential, as long as we teach students to evaluate sources and interpret them. They should always be able to place a single event on the timeline, but the investigation of a single period could provide them with the tools to understand all the others: the concepts of change and continuity, of cause and effect, etc.

This is one of the best presentations of a school I have ever read. I have produced some material on acrobatic flight with my students. It is still in progress and we'll develop it in the next weeks. www.malignani.ud.it/aer/aerobatics.html

I do agree with Andrew about the need for filters with young students. The Italian Ministry of Education offers schools advice and information at http://www.istruzione.it/innovazione/tecno...nsapevole.shtml I think it is even very important to debate the issue with older students (16+), who always seem to know more about the Internet than myself and provide me with up-to-date information about the most recent "opportunities" you find on the net.

I have read about the Virtual School Project about aviation and I find it very interesting. I teach English in the Aeronautics Department of the biggest industrial technical school in Italy (www.malignani.ud.it/aeronautica.htm , mainly in Italian at the moment). Italian aerobatic flight was born here and the National Aerobatic Team has its base near our city. Many of our ex-students are military and civilian pilots, engineers or experts in aircraft maintenance now and our tradition in the field goes back to the years 1930s, when our school was founded. We could contribute to the project with the history of the birth and development of aerobatic flight in Italy, but also with more technical contents.

Hi My name is Caterina Gasparini. I'm an Italian teacher of English and I'm also the ENIS Project coordinator of my school (an industrial technical institute), which the biggest secondary school in Italy (over 2,000 pupils). I have been coordinating various projects on the use of ICT in education and I run some sections of my school website (the Aeronautics Department, the News, etc). I'm interested in promoting new kinds of approach to teaching and learning with the use of ICT, so as to improve and increase the pupils' motivation.