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Part of
Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching: Historical perspectives
Edited by Richard Smith and Tim Giesler
[AILA Applied Linguistics Series 20] 2023
► pp. 137–161

Chapter 8
“Reflection on language”

Innovation and tradition in ELT textbooks in Italy in the 1980s and 1990s

| University of Milan

At the end of the 1970s, the conservative Italian scenario of foreign language teaching witnessed various innovations. The process of change was prompted by a reform of the national school syllabus for lower secondary school that advocated a new and comprehensive approach to language education. After an overview of the main tenets underlying this approach, the chapter focuses on “reflection on language”, one of the cornerstones of the reform. It then reports on an investigation of how reflection on language was implemented in a corpus of communication-oriented ELT school textbooks published in Italy in the 1980s and 1990s. In an attempt to understand the perspectives of those involved, leading figures and textbook authors of the period were also interviewed. In spite of the authors’ claims about introducing new features of language reflection, textbook analysis shows how their implementation in fact swung between innovative and traditional options.

Article outline
  • A new, broader perspective on language education
  • “Reflection on language”: A cross-curricular approach to grammar learning
  • “Reflection on language” in Italian ELT lower secondary school textbooks
    • Research design
    • “Reflection on language”: Stated intentions
    • “Reflection on language”: Implementation
  • Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 27 June 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aals.20.08ped
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