9 - ‘Too Much Workload in Technical Schools!’: Luigi Pavia and the Teaching of English in Italian Technical Schools on the Threshold of the Twentieth Century

Summary

Abstract

This chapter illustrates the work of Luigi Pavia by examining the pamphlet Le Lingue straniere negli istituti tecnici e l’eccessivo lavoro scolastico, published in two editions: 1888 and 1906. Pavia discussed the role and mission of the state school teacher, and, in particular, the difficult task of matching the official requirements of the curricula and everyday classroom practice. Excessive hours spent at school and the eclecticism of the curriculum did not allow for in-depth learning, but could only provide a general, broad understanding of the mechanisms of English grammar. Pavia had a holistic view of education and testified to the difficulties encountered by a teacher facing teenagers at the beginning of the new century.

Keywords: Luigi Pavia; Italian technical schools; ELT; Nineteenth-century language teaching; scientific curriculum

Public Language Education for the Working and Middle Classes

In 1888, Luigi Pavia published a pamphlet entitled Sull’insegnamento delle lingue Straniere negli Istituti Tecnici e relativi Programmi ed Istruzioni Ministeriali. In 1906, the text was reissued with the more controversial title Le Lingue straniere negli istituti tecnici e l’eccessivo lavoro scolastico. The first addressed the current legislation and the state of language teaching in technical schools, while the second addressed the teacher's role more specifically. The two pamphlets shed light on a period of change and describe a new scenario for the teaching of foreign languages.

In the last decades of the nineteenth century, the Italian school system included scientific-technical curricula in which language teaching was a distinguishing feature: while French was studied as part of the literacy requirements at all school levels, English and German were seen as a necessary skill for those involved in business and technology. Rather than addressing methodological issues relating to adults learning diverse languages, or innovative grammars, the documents bring us into a teenage classroom with problems related to age and, in part, their social backgrounds. The students described here are not middle or upper-class learners willing to broaden their view of politics and culture by reading news and books in a foreign language. They are youngsters trained to become artisans and skilled workers.