Ins lingua i

now Minister of Education.
Allow me to comment on the wisdom of introducing more than one
foreign language by the fifth year. It is based on the recognition of the
world-wide role of English as a lingua franca and language of
international scientific and technical communication. But this
recognition is also extended to the existence of other languages, the
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Foreword

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need to learn them, and start learning them from early childhood.
The whole of Europe is committed to intensifying the learning of several
languages in both schools and continuing education. The more
traditional teaching methods can result in an acceptable level of initial
learning, especially if we can succeed in guaranteeing an adequate
mobility of language teachers and native speaker assistants. But,
without resorting to stays abroad, almost the only other way to reach
higher levels of mastery is by means of the approach suggested here:
through teaching and learning a part of curricular contents in and with
a foreign language.
There are already many instances of successful experimentation in this
direction in higher education. In various countries bilingual Lyceums
also confirm the success of this approach at the secondary level. In a
publication like this we can also see concrete examples of how it works
at primary level.
We must hope that in Italy, and Europe as a whole, the value of these
guidelines will be recognised and that the culture of the young