Teaching (in) Italian to Immigrant Students in a Low-Immigration Area - Emotions and the Teaching Practice of the Teachers of the Istituto Comprensivo of Puos d’Alpago

Abstract

This research is an investigation on the emotions and the teaching practice of the total number of teachers working with immigrant students in the Istituto Comprensivo of Puos d’Alpago, in the province of Belluno, an area which is still not much inhabited by immigrant people, whose distribution is, moreover, not equal on the territory. The first chapter will deal with immigration in Italy, with how the immigration has spread in the last 25 years and how Italy as a country has dealt with this phenomenon (1.1). In parallel we will analyse how the same phenomenon has spread in the Alpago area and schools and what the Istituto Comprensivo has done to face it (1.2). The second chapter is built around the figure of the teacher: from how this figure has been seen and how it evolved through the centuries (2.1) – focussing the attention on the last 70 years, when language teaching became a true science and object of study – to the delineation of a model for the (Italian) L2 teacher, that of the facilitator (2.3); also, we will be looking at how this figure differentiates itself from the figures of the Italian, language and other subjects teachers, who only work with Italian students (2.2). The third and fourth chapters are about the research. The third chapter will explain the aims (3.1), the questions (3.2), and will describe the location (3.3). Also, the tools used for the research (questionnaire and focus groups) and the participants will be analysed and described and what the expectations are about the answers will be discussed (3.4). The fourth chapter will be an analysis of the answers of both questionnaire (4.1) and focus groups (4.2) and a discussion of the results. The conclusion (chapter 5) will sum up the research and will suggest ideas to further improve the situation of teachers who have to teach (in) Italian to immigrant students in an area which is subject to still little immigration with respect to other areas of Italy.