The native speaking EFL teacher in the Italian State School

Giovanna Baglione, and Susanna Licciardi. Italy
(parts 1 and 2 were written by Giovanna and part 3 by Susanna)

[Editorial note: the friction between State School teachers and native speaking teachers of the target language is not confined to Italy, the country this article deals with. What you will read here is the work of two State School teachers; if you want to look down the other end of the telescope go to A short rant- on being a foreign teacher in China, by Daniela Cammack, HLT, Year 5, Issue 3, May 2003]

This article falls into three parts. In the first part we look at the mother tongue EFL teacher as in institutional figure in Italian State schools. We look at both the mother tongue language assistant and the qualified mother tongue teacher.
In the second part of the article we go into the advantages and downsides of paired-teaching and the sometimes fraught relationship between the two people involved. The pairing discussed in this article is between a native speaking teacher and an Italian curricular teacher.
Part three looks at the pairing of native speaking teachers and Italian State teachers in a middle School in Cagliari, Sardinia.

Part 1
A. The mother tongue language assistant (LA)

The LA is usually a student, often without a degree, or a recent graduate in the language/culture of the host country, in this case Italy.
The reasons for coming to Italy as an LA may include:
- a desire to improve their Italian and to complete a thesis without too much financial outlay,
- a desire to teach and thus get to know the institution of school from the inside (of course a person thus-motivated demonstrates interest in the institutional, administrative, pedagogical and didactical aspects of the institution)

Administratively their relationship with the host institution is poorly defined and their status is vague:
- whose control are they under?
- What should they be able to?
- What are their duties?
- Who will evaluate their actions?

They will probably only stay for one year, they sometimes arrive in the middle of the school year, so their involvement and commitment are mainly subjective and their relationship with the Curricular Teacher they're working with is often an uneasy one because of their precarious presence.
Though they are normally very good at the language, they often lack meta-linguistic competence, and this means that the LAs may not be able to look at the language from outside and may not be in a position to draw comparisons between the two language systems. The LAs are certainly expert in different forms of slang, register and current codes, since they are young adults, brought up using the language in its native context and subject to it. They are witnesses to the language being in continuous evolution and they are the ambassadors for this continuous change.
For the same reasons, their cultural competence has been conditioned by the representations of the target ( for them, native) culture that they have built up in their own country, representations that require a long process of reflection to come to the surface of consciousness and therefore become knowable and usable. In any event, they are witnesses to their own culture, aware of fashion and contemporary phenomena, able to decode what is implicit in the culture with reference to social and political events.

Part 1
B. The native speaking teacher (NST)

Typically, this person is a full adult, educated in their own country, who has then come and settled in Italy.
The NSTs' level of education may vary, according to the courses they have taken; in fact they may be pedagogically qualified and/or graduates.
Their linguistic and cultural competence will depend on their social background, on the level they have reached in their studies, and on when they arrived in the host country. So their competence in decoding what is implicit in the target culture( English) , is high in areas linked to memory, history and to the culture shared by an intellectual class, but less high for contemporary phenomena, due to their distancing from their native country.
In contrast to the Young Language Assistant, the NST is a permanent/non permanent teacher linked to the institution of school. The NST is an expert on how school works in their native country.
The NST status are different from that of the LA, as the NST should be an integral part of the schools where they work in Italy, with equal rights/duties and responsibilities towards the institution.

NSTs seem to frequently share the following characteristics:
- They may not necessarily be competent in slang and current lexis in L2
- They may not necessarily be well informed about current social and political events.
- Their attitude towards the mistake, either linguistic or cultural, is an individually-evolved one, perhaps because they learnt the foreign language not only at school, but through experiences different from their guided learning (they learnt it in order to live in the outside world, not in the classroom). For them the mistake has often represented a learning experience and it has shown itself helpful in building up a linguistic and cultural competence and, most of all, an awareness of language.
- They will introduce the target culture to students in a complex, dialectic, problematising way, avoiding stereotyped interpretations.
- They will facilitate an approach to and knowledge of the institutional reality of the target country.
- They will facilitate dialectic experiences, such as preparing students to get to know the foreign country directly, projects of trans-national co-operation, creation of glossaries that may be shared and compared with analogous items created by representatives of the home culture of the students.
- They will encourage the concept of pluri-lingualism.
- They will act as spokespersons for an idea of citizenship seen as inclusion and pluralism ( having experienced diversity and plurality first-hand)
- They will have the opportunity to reflect on the various teaching styles they come into contact with, and will be able to offer a useful mirror and feedback to the Italian Curricular Teacher.
- They will offer a different point of view on the learning process in the class, thanks to their mediating competence and their habitual use of reflective analysis.

This level of professionalism, however, cannot be taken for granted. In order to achieve real professional resources, a training process is necessary, be it a self-training one, during which the teacher learns how to identify practices and transform them into didactic schemes and pedagogical behaviour.

Part 2
The advantages and disadvantages of paired-teaching or team-teaching

The Italian Ministry of Education (Ministero Pubblica Istruzione) in its circular n.°28,L.n.°124, 3-2-2000, defines paired teaching as: "The concrete presence, in the classroom, of two teachers with different expertise, working together for the same goals (linguistic, communicative and cultural)" and adds:
"The action of two teachers working in a team has to be synergetic, so that it results in real co-teaching, through a combined choice of the objectives, a coherent and shared definition of the reciprocal areas of expertise and action, a shared choice of materials, instruments and evaluation criteria, and appropriate linkage between the two evaluations."

Both the teachers, the foreign Native Speaker and the Italian Curricular one, are asked to contribute to team-teaching from their respective areas of expertise.
They are different individuals, with different backgrounds, social and cultural, and their ideas on school may be different. Team-teaching can offer our students, an example of the coming together of different points of view, different cultures and different approaches.Students can only benefit from the varied communicative and linguistic competencies of the two teachers.

The NST may perhaps lack full competence in teaching methodology, a field in which the Curricular Teacher (CT). is a real expert, but on the other hand, the CT may lack total mastery of the language, may indeed lack fluency and immediate access to suitable vocabulary.
The two teachers may well be reciprocally enriched and complementary to one another, but there are rules which they must follow for the project to really be brought to fruition.
Teachers working as a pair makes it easier for the students to follow the lesson and gives students the opportunity to listen to spontaneous conversations between competent speakers, even if only one is a native. L2 is used in real communicative situations, for real, useful purposes.
Working as a pair also facilitates a pluralistic approach to culture, and a greater objectivity towards students.
The NSTs have been subject to fundamentally different educational and cultural training from the CTs. .Growing up and becoming an adult are important experiences, which follow different paths in the different realities; the NSTs have borne witness to their own reality and can pass it onto their students, as first-hand experience. They can make comparisons, since they live in Italy and know our reality too. Synergy must be the key-word: the chance to be reciprocally enriched.
The CTs have studied the L2 in a formal way, they know its system, they have experience of the target culture, but their competence is mainly related to advanced study (e.g. of the literature); they know the areas of interference, the difficulties in learning vocabulary, in fact they share the students' mother tongue and can therefore operate selectively.

NSTs and CTs should combine their areas of expertise and experiences and let them merge constructively to form a unique plan with the same objectives.

Here are their respective profiles:

Their areas of expertise and intervention are clearly identified in the following grid:

How about the difficulties in paired teaching?

In stating the objectives of this article, mention has been made of the sometimes difficult relationship in this partnership.
The CT often complains about the NSTs'inadequate competence in methodology and didactics, and would like to see them sharing their own efforts, commitment and responsibilities in the planning of all the activities.
We shouldn't forget, though, that the existing Ministry regulation has established that the NSTs are " technical-practical teachers"("insegnanti tecnico pratici") level 6. *

Let's consider this ministerial assignation of rank for a moment.
In the definition of the areas of expertise, as we have seen, the NSTs should obviously develop audio-oral competence, while the CTs should deal with structural and cultural content.
We need to ask the question: "Is audio-oral competence less important than literature and grammar?"
Are we to make a distinction between an inferior and a superior culture?
Are we to assign the former to the NST and latter to the CT?
We know that for students to achieve audio-oral competence is the more difficult task, because it is implicit, behavioural, often part of communication modalities.
We know that audio-oral abilities, particularly the productive ones, are the most difficult to develop, demanding talented animation and an ability to motivate students in the pseudo-authentic context of the classroom.
In assigning NSTs to the level of " technical-practical assistants ( "assistenti tecnico pratici"), the Institution seems to give them to a secondary role, sees them as minor professionals.
But the law 124, May 1999 and the following circular letter no.28 (quoted above), aims to enhance the status of the NSTs, asking them to co-evaluate, assigning them a more important and responsible role.
Evaluation is part of planning, so co-operation of the two teachers in the teaching/learning process becomes inevitable.

But the reality of 18 hours with 18 different classes and 4 or 6 different CTs to work with, makes it virtually impossible for NSTs to act responsibly.
Such NST-CT collaboration requires specific spaces and times, without which it is not feasible.
If they can't plan together with the CTs what is the value of the NSTs' work?
Their interventions remain isolated, precarious, without continuity, with themes chosen in a non-planned way, a non-cohesive discourse, the effects of which aren't easily identifiable.

How can we solve the above mentioned problems?
- changing the regulations,
- assigning a larger number of hours to planning,
- removing the anomaly that seems to establish the CT as the NST's opponent
- finding new ways to better exploit this resource.

For example using the NST as a resource for the whole School.
Their competence and their work (as stated above) should be part of the general plan of the Institution.

Here are some suggestions:
- Working on pluri-disciplinary modules
- Working on trans-national projects
- Working on extracurricular activities: exchanges, theatre...
- Collaboration with teachers of other subjects: CLIL
- Use of various forms of media
- Certification
- The NST as a different voice, witness of a different point of view.

Part 3
Peer-teaching in a middle school in Sardinia

This is a report about a difficult relationship that turned into an excellent experience in a co-teaching project. The project has been under way since 1996 in Sardinia, an Italian island where school represents the only place to live in an inter-cultural atmosphere.
The school, a secondary school for 11-13 years old students, brings together students from different social classes, all eager for education and linguistic competence.
The project, A native speaker in the class, consists of having a FL native speaker in the classroom for part of the school year and focuses on making communication fluent and stress-free.
We had noticed that, although students were used to travel, the feeling of the intensely local and conservative community and the rare contacts with foreigners, didn't help natural communication in the FL , but rather created a feeling of outlandishness.
Here is the project as it was planned.

PROGETTO MADRELINGUA IN CLASSE
A native speaker in the class

Since the year 2000, ten more hours conversation have been added and reserved for the best students from each classes, generally three per class. These privileged students gather once a week to form a temporary new group, called Masterclass.

A native speaker in the class-Masterclass

After three years ( the period a student spends in middle school), a good student will have experienced 40 hours real language and at least five different approaches and accents. As for the others, they will have on their portfolios 30 hours real language with at least three accents. (The foreign assistants do one hour a week in all the English classes)
When the project was started, it appeared almost revolutionary , but after some years it can be said the project has turned out to be a major success.
98% of the families choose this school because of the great satisfaction their children get from the experience.
It must be said that it took some time to convince everybody of the usefulness of project. The language teachers involved, native and not native speakers, had to work hard to find their right roles in the experiment.

Co-teaching is not that common in Italy. Teachers don't get any training in co-teaching even if invited, from many quarters, to seriously consider the method.
The teachers in the school, the CTs, though open-minded in understanding the possibilities that the project offered them and the students, didn't want to give up their leading role , which meant considering the NSTs to be merely their doubles, with no personality!
The NSTs , on the other hand, were used to always being considered experts, and were proud of it. They didn't want to, in any way, adapt to the requests, even the most simple, made by the school. It felt like it was below their dignity.
Some of the NST teachers resigned, some others "were resigned".

Today we can say we have found our style.

After some years relying on our students' ability to adapt and our ability to adjust any mis-matching between our work and the NSTs' work, we decided to meet our co-teachers at the very beginning of the school year: we now spend many hours talking, exchanging ideas, negotiating, planning and checking.
We plan ten model lessons per class and we agree to leave the floor to the NSTs to carry out the lesson, but we prepare the class some time in advance and we follow up with more activities.
We generally stay at the back of the classroom: we monitor the work in progress and we help if help is needed. Students and NSTs generally forget about us, even if, for many, our presence there is reassuring.
We have two teachers, one Italian and one foreign, who are rapporteurs for all the others involved in the project : every now and again the two of them meet to compare notes about their monitoring around the school, listening to all opinions and comments, from the students, as well.
Lately, since we noticed differences in performance over the ten hours , we are considering evaluating even in this short period of time and our next objective will be that of specifying the what and the how.
For now, what we are very proud of is having introduced something new, something that is now widely imitated in many schools of whatever level, something we feel we can offer you realistic suggestions about:

-have clear objectives

-ask for regular, trained teachers : not just native speakers on holiday.

-meet the NSTs in advance

-organise time for meetings : planning is vital

-ask for materials to be shared in advance

-agree on some didactic points : if these are not respected don't hesitate to complain

-plan lessons in detail

-prepare the Ss for this experience and for the freedom to speak

- insist on strict discipline : students may see these classes as "time off"

-never leave the NST alone in class

-ask the NST to speak L2 all the time : it's more professional

-help your students, but the NST, too

-be tactful : don't appear to correct the NST in front of the students even if you are doing so!

-keep pair and group work to the minimum : too time-consuming and reduces contact time between the NST and the students

-plan your own follow-up lesson for next day : Students know your style and and benefit from your revision of the NST's lesson content

-keep in contact with everybody also working with NSTs

-don't expect to see another YOU in L2 : The NST belongs to another culture and will do things in her own way.

-trust the project : Sometimes you feel it's a waste of time. It does work!

[Editorial note: The term " technical-practical" in the coded language of an Italian State bureaucrat or in the coded language of the Italian University, means, roughly, " lowest known form of life". What is theoretical is beautiful; what is practical is best not spoken about. What is theoretical merits a high salary; what is practical deserved much reduced monetary and status recognition]