Should children start to learn Italian at the primary level?

Abstract

My dissertation asks the question of whether or not primary children should start learning Italian at the primary level. For this reason, my research is planned to examine to what extent Gozitan pupils in primary schools (age-group 8 -10 years), understand Italian. The research will be conducted in 6 primary schools, 4 of which are state schools and the other 2 are private. A questionnaire will be distributed to gather the basic information about each child (randomly chosen from each school), as well as to identify the favourite television programme in Italian. The text of the said programme will serve to identify the pupils' linguistic abilities in Italian. This is done so as to test for the passive ability of a language; give the meaning of words, which will consist of nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, pronouns and articles. In addition to this, they have to use the translated words in a context, that is writing short sentences. To do this task they will be given pictures to help them formulate such sentences knowing that knowledge rests solely on what is acquired from television. Besides the pupils will also sustain a free expression test in Italian which will also be analysed. On the other hand this is done to test for the active ability of a language since the pupils have to say something in Italian, as long as it is a word, a series of words or preferably short phrases, invented by them on any area that interested them. The results together with a vast bibliographical research as well as previous local research in the field, will help me to arrive to answer the main question behind this dissertation: "Is there any place for the Italian language in the primary curriculum?".