Sensible pragmatism...

[imatfaal]

Italian university switches to English

 

 

 

From opera at La Scala to football at the San Siro stadium, from the catwalks of fashion week to the soaring architecture of the cathedral, Milan is crowded with Italian icons.Which makes it even more of a cultural earthquake that one of Italy's leading universities - the Politecnico di Milano - is going to switch to the English language.

 

The university has announced that from 2014 most of its degree courses - including all its graduate courses - will be taught and assessed entirely in English rather than Italian.

 

 

I can understand the reasoning completely - I have collaborated with Italian academics and to my shame all correspondence and communication has been in English, I probably use more ancient Greek than modern Continental European Languages. A lingua franca is incredibly useful in academic discourse; in science, to an extent, maths is that common tongue and the "local dialects" spoken by the scientists are secondary anyway, but in non-scientific discourse maths becomes less/un-important and expression through the written word is crucial. I can appreciate that students joining the Politecnico will be under great pressure to learn English - but I can also predict that they will have a distinct edge in the jobs market upon graduation.

 

But two problems arise immediately (and I am sure there are others) - placing a hurdle in front of all students which has very little to do with their chosen area of study, and the creeping domination of English over other languages and, in turn, cultures.

[Xittenn]

Italian Engineers produce many products for the global market. As much fun as I have reading Italian manuals, I don't believe most people would know that a punte candela is a brad point tip. The reality is, to be competitive in the global setting English communication is now required and expected. I find it surprising how quickly Asians have adopted English to the extent they have, and yet Latin derived language speaking countries still avoid moving forward much of the time. It is much to their advantage to do so.

[Joatmon]

During my time I have been an instructor in the Forces (many foreign students), Civilian instructor teaching foreign technicians, College lecturer with the odd foreign class.

In other words teaching technical matters to students who mostly were not of "degree standard".

Even at this level the standard of English, even the technical content, was always so good that it was never a problem. The nationalities involved included Iranians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Argentinians, Libyans and Omanis.

I am ashamed to say I speak no foreign languages at all. If the Italian establishments want to attract students from other countries, who are prepared to pay for tuition, then my experience suggests using English may be a good idea.

Edited May 17, 2012 by Joatmon

[zapatos]

But two problems arise immediately (and I am sure there are others) - placing a hurdle in front of all students which has very little to do with their chosen area of study, and the creeping domination of English over other languages and, in turn, cultures.

I don't know that I would call the creeping domination of English a problem. I believe having a common language is beneficial, and while many languages would suffice, circumstances are simply right at this time for it to be English.

 

I once worked on a project that involved contracts between companies in Japan and Thailand. The two groups involved always did their contracts in English.

 

Language terms:

 

Ability to communicate in multiple languages - Multilingual

Ability to communicate in two languages - Bilingual

Ability to communicate in only one language - American