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Italian university switches to English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Immersion, Schools & Certificates |  | |
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5842 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 1 of 13 17 May 2012 at 12:11am | IP Logged | ||
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The Politecnico di Milano 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. There are opponents to the change and i liked the analogy one professor made. '"Speaking Italian to our countrymen is like watching a movie in colour, high definition, very clear pictures. On the contrary, speaking English to them, even with our best effort, is, on the average, like watching a movie in black and white, with very poor definition, with blurred pictures," says Professor Matricciani.' Personally I find it sad that English is displacing other national languages more and more, even ones which have a relatively high number of speakers. Probably a wise move from a global viewpoint, but sad nontheless. According to the article there are more than 4,500 university courses now being taught in English in continental Europe. Italian university switches to English 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| COF Senior Member United States Joined 5841 days ago 262 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English* | Message 2 of 13 17 May 2012 at 12:20am | IP Logged | ||
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Wow, that is a very strange. I can see why universities in the Netherlands or Scandinavian countries would want to teach in English, as those languages are only spoken by a small number of people and most people in those countries, particularly at the university level are fluent in English.
However, this is absolutely not the case in Italy. Italy has one of the lowest rates of English proficiency in Europe, and the vast majority of Italians do not speak English particularly well when compared to the Netherlands and Northern Europe in general. I can't understand why they would do this. They're one of the biggest universities in Italy and by making this decision they've just excluded the majority of Italians from attending their courses. Edited by COF on 17 May 2012 at 12:22am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ellsworth Senior Member United States Joined 4967 days ago 345 posts - 528 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Irish | Message 3 of 13 17 May 2012 at 12:23am | IP Logged | ||
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Terrible. You can have no idea how stuff like this bothers me. If Italy starts, what about the countries with even less native speakers, like Lithuania?
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5463 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 4 of 13 17 May 2012 at 1:05am | IP Logged | ||
Maybe they want to attract foreign students and charging them high fees rather than having lots of Italian students who are not paying? I don't know if this is the case. Or maybe they just think that it's necessary in a globalized world? Edited by tractor on 17 May 2012 at 1:06am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kman543210 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4674 days ago 26 posts - 73 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, German | Message 5 of 13 17 May 2012 at 1:56am | IP Logged | ||
I believe you are correct. Here is a quote from the university's rector, Giovanni Azzone: "Universities are in a more competitive world, if you want to stay with the other global universities -- you have no other choice," the BBC quoted the university's rector, Giovanni Azzone, as saying. "We strongly believe our classes should be international classes -- and the only way to have international classes is to use the English language." Here is a BBC news article which expands on this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17958520 Edited by kman543210 on 17 May 2012 at 1:58am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6669 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 6 of 13 17 May 2012 at 2:13am | IP Logged | ||
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Hmm.. In Sweden we speak Swedish when everybody understands Swedish and English if we have an exchange
student in the room. But never would someone speak English to someone if they both are Swedes, that's silly. Though all literature and some lecturers are English only (one would not expect a professor from South Africa to hold his lectures in Swedish, hehe). I've got no idea whether there's ever been a decision in regard to this... 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| eilis91 Bilingual Tetraglot Newbie France Joined 4586 days ago 28 posts - 54 votes Speaks: English*, Irish*, French, Italian Studies: German, Yoruba | Message 7 of 13 17 May 2012 at 11:08am | IP Logged | ||
This is terrible! If a foreigner wants to study in Italy, it is their responsibility to learn Italian. If this language switch is a way of trying to attract foreign students, I think it's very sad that a university would go to such culture-destroying lengths in order to boost their numbers. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mausi15 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4907 days ago 24 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, French | Message 8 of 13 17 May 2012 at 12:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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This is really terrible! Surely, as eilis said, it should be the foreigner's responsibility to learn Italian if they wish to study there. I don't see why English has to take over all the time. I dread to think what things will be like in 20 years.
3 persons have voted this message useful |
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