“The other in the words, the words of the other”: a curricular proposal for language teaching in secondary school, based on narratives and the topic of otherness

Abstract

The problems related to integration are becoming increasingly important in our complex and multi-ethnic society. There is an evident relationship between this phenomenon and the lack of awareness of inclusive language, which should be developed by education. The present paper aims to answer the question how to educate children to use an inclusive language by proposing two learning paths. The first, developed for lower-secondary school, starts from the reality of a classroom, and is based on the perception and the expression of the difference in the language of adolescents. The second, projected for first-grade students of upper-secondary school, is based on the reading of novels and related interviews, in order to raise students’ awareness of diversity, in cultural and linguistic term.