Multilinguismo, CLIL e innovazione didattica - Libera Università di ...

Edward Bressan
can contribute in an expert way and can benefit the other students by offering
a unique perspective.
5.2.4 An authentic task that drives curiosity
It is important to recognise that not all students will share the same enthusiasm
for cross-cultural explorations and that any task which requires students
to push the boundaries of their normal lived experiences can be challenging,
exhausting and at times infuriating.
Despite a proliferation of engaging teaching materials on global issues and
increasing levels of curiosity, we cannot take for granted that students will
share the institutional enthusiasm for global citizenship. Therefore, in setting
the task, we will need to ignite the intellectual curiosity of students. Are they
more likely to be interested in banking reforms or corruption in Italy, the
Australian carbon tax or sustainability of the planet?
5.2.5 A task which draws on the background knowledge and interest of
each of the students
In order to ensure that each member of the group retains the confidence of the
others, the task should be presented in such a way that each member of the
group commands respect and authority. The task will not only be in some
way partly situated in each student’s lived experience, but it will also allow
them to evaluate, assess or consider an issue of relevance and of interest to
them within this frame. For example, one cannot assume that somebody from
Thailand is necessarily interested in the costs of pollution in Bangkok.
5.2.5 A task which cannot be performed as successfully without explicitly
involving each member of the group
Once the needs analysis has been fully conducted it will be possible to determine
how best to exploit the cultural, intellectual and affective capital of the
members of the group. In addition to identifying skills which are common to
all cultures, it will also be necessary to work out how the task will be framed
within the cultures of all students in the groups. As well as using specific
instructions which ask students to provide culture-specific information which
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