This article illustrates the “ELF and ICC” project, which was carried out in three primary schools in the Verona area (Italy) and aimed at fostering the development of Intercultural Communicative Competence through English. Starting from the presence of English(es) in the pupils’ environment, the project developed through different activities within the broad thematic areas of Christmas traditions and trees. A number of cultural perspectives were included, from those of non-Italian origin pupils, to local, national and international settings. One class exchanged letters with other European primary school classes using English as the main language of communication; another worked on trees in a cross-curricular perspective; in the third the promotion of ICC was developed mainly in connection to trees and to a multilingual story-telling activity. The resulting diversified mosaic of activities contributed to foster ICC knowledge, attitudes and skills, as well as promoting the use of English as a lingua franca to communicate in intercultural contexts. The Project represents thus an attempt to move away from a target-culture reference model towards an intercultural speaker perspective, by trying to respond to the differentiated roles of English(es) as well as to its increased function of international lingua franca of communication.
English(es), ELF, Xmas and trees: ICC skills in the primary classroom
VETTOREL, Paola
2010-01-01
Abstract
This article illustrates the “ELF and ICC” project, which was carried out in three primary schools in the Verona area (Italy) and aimed at fostering the development of Intercultural Communicative Competence through English. Starting from the presence of English(es) in the pupils’ environment, the project developed through different activities within the broad thematic areas of Christmas traditions and trees. A number of cultural perspectives were included, from those of non-Italian origin pupils, to local, national and international settings. One class exchanged letters with other European primary school classes using English as the main language of communication; another worked on trees in a cross-curricular perspective; in the third the promotion of ICC was developed mainly in connection to trees and to a multilingual story-telling activity. The resulting diversified mosaic of activities contributed to foster ICC knowledge, attitudes and skills, as well as promoting the use of English as a lingua franca to communicate in intercultural contexts. The Project represents thus an attempt to move away from a target-culture reference model towards an intercultural speaker perspective, by trying to respond to the differentiated roles of English(es) as well as to its increased function of international lingua franca of communication.
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