Plurilingualism, multilingualism and innovation in foreign language teaching.

: A l i s , a Continuous Professional Development Project - An example of good practice at system level?

Sandra Lucietto Dipartimento Istruzione e Universit di Bolzano

PART I
1. Context and Project background
Trentino is an Autonomous Province in Northern Italy, near Austria, whose local government, the Giunta Provinciale1 (GP), has authority to take different decisions from the rest of Italy in many fields, including education. The local politicians have always been very aware of the key role of foreign languages in the curriculum for the development of fully equipped future generations of citizens. A first modern foreign language (MFL) was introduced in primary education (Y1-5, age 6-11) from Y3 (age 8) in 1972. For political reasons2, German was the only option. German was also studied in lower secondary education (Y6-8, age 11-14) and beyond. In the late 1980s some lower secondary schools, mainly in Trento and Rovereto, the two main cities, were allowed to introduce a second foreign language, nearly always English. Only in 1991 did Italian legislation introduce a first MFL in primary education (mainly, but not mandatorily, English). In Trentino, German continued to be the main MFL. Parents, however, insisted that their children should study English from the start. Their plea was driven by practical considerations, English being the lingua franca in intercultural communication. After years of public and political debate, parents insistence and the publication of the European Union White Paper on Education and Training Teaching And Learning, Towards The Learning Society (1995), new MFL legislation was introduced in 1997. The new Provincial Law (LP 11/97) stated as mandatory that all children should study German from Y1, adding a second foreign language (normally English) from Y6. In the rest of Italy a second mandatory MFL from Y6 was introduced by the so-called Moratti Reform (from the name of the Minister for Education) only in 2004. Following the developments of continuing internal demand and EU Recommendations pleading for early individual plurilingualism3, in August 2004 LP 11/97 was modified, introducing a second mandatory MFL, English in most cases, from Y3 (age 8). The Comitato Provinciale di Valutazione del Sistema Scolastico e Formativo Trentino4 (Comitato), responsible for a triennial Report to the GP, produced a first analysis of the impact of LP 11/97 in their Fourth Report - Un laboratorio in attesa (1998). The Comitato then appointed a working group, who produced a qualitative analysis as an internal document (1999) and a quantitative survey (2001), and mandated the Department of Sociology and Social Research of the University of Trento to carry out a qualitative survey on teachers and headteachers perceptions of the MFL situation in primary education (2000). Parallel to the work of the Comitato, IPRASE del Trentino5 carried out quantitative research on achievement in MFL in Y5 (2000), and in Y8 (2000 and 2001).

The Cabinet of the Provincial Council Trentino belongs to the Autonomous Region which includes the bilingual (Italian-German) Autonomous Province of Bolzano 3 European Commission, 2003, Promuovere l'apprendimento delle lingue e la diversit linguistica: Piano d'azione 2004 2006, Bruxelles, 24.07.2003 4 The Committee established in 1991, responsible for the evaluation of the results in education in Trentino
2

The Provincial Institute for Teacher Training and Educational Research, also established in 1991

The detailed results of the first IPRASE study and of the MFL qualitative survey in primary education were published in a volume edited by the Comitato, Lingue Straniere verso lEuropa, 1 Rapporto sullimpatto della legge n. 11/97 per linsegnamento delle lingue straniere nella scuola dellobbligo (December 2000). The results of IPRASE second research study are contained in synthetic form in the Fifth Report of the Comitato, Oltre la qualit diffusa (December 2001). The Reports highlighted that the levels of achievement in MFL of pupils aged 11 and 14 varied greatly according to MFL starting age, geographical location and sociological status. If the system as a whole could be seen as getting a pass mark, there still was a great need for improvement, especially in distant areas where teacher turnover added as a factor to the difficulties generally encountered by pupils. The Reports also remarked that after a wealth of training initiatives in the 1980s and mid 1990s organised by the Italian Ministry for Education, one example being the Progetto Speciale Lingue Straniere (PSLS) which offered the opportunity to attend 100-h or 50-h in-service training courses for teachers of all MFL all over Italy, no important and coherent Programmes for in-service MFL teachers had been put in place by the Province of Trento after the Italian government delegated the responsibility over the management and education of all teaching staff to the local government in 1997. The Giunta Provinciale took seriously into account the conclusions contained in the Reports and mandated IPRASE to plan a systemic and coherent set of Actions aimed at the professional development of the teachers of MFL in the whole of Trentino, with specific reference to innovative approaches and methods (July 2002).

2. The A l i s Project: overview

The A l i s Project was developed in 2003 by IPRASE del Trentino in consultation with a selected group of stakeholders representatives which convened at a Round Table: teachers of MFL of all school levels, headteachers, the local inspector for MFL, tutors and directors of vocational training, and Services and Offices of the Education Department of the Autonomous Province of Trento (PAT). The University of Trento and their Teacher Training School were also invited, but after the first few meetings they ceased to be involved. As stated above, IPRASE had been mandated to submit a coherent plan for initial teacher training (in kindergartens) and for in-service professional development (in primary, lower and upper secondary education, and in vocational training) addressed to the existing 750 teachers of MFL of Trentino (both permanent and non permanent) with the long-term aim of developing quantity (in kindergartens) and quality of MFL provision in the province. The original Project, passed by the GP in 2003, included many objectives (cf. Paragraph 3) and Actions (cf. Paragraph 4). In order to reach the stated objectives, the Actions were to be developed over a period of five calendar years (2004-2008). Unfortunately, delays and unforeseen difficulties in the allocation of the budgeted European Social Fund (ESF) financial resources meant that most Actions ran for only two years (2006-2007) and the Project underwent major organisational changes. At the moment (April 2008), only the Action for kindergarten teachers is continuing. The management of the A l i s Project from the institutional point of view was also very complex, as many different Provincial Offices, Services and Institutions were to work together for the first time to implement the Project objectives and planned Actions: o IPRASE o the Executive Office for Education and Youth (Assessorato allistruzione, formazione e politiche giovanili); o the Department for Education (Dipartimento Istruzione); o the two Offices responsible for the kindergarten sector: the Provincial Service (public) and the Federation of Kindergartens (private); o the Office for Vocational Training (Servizio Formazione Professionale);

o o o o

the the the the the

Office for Education (Sovrintendenza Scolastica), who financed the sabbatical for

A l i s teacher trainers (cf. Paragraph 6);

Service for Innovation in Education (Servizio Innovazione); European Social Fund Provincial Office; Headteachers of Locally Managed Schools.

The institutional relationships among all these different stakeholders were in some cases to be built anew, and in some instances witnessed the false starts and misunderstandings that characterise complex system management.

3. Project Objectives
On the basis of the individual and system needs that were highlighted both in the meetings of the Round Table mentioned above and in the Comitatos Reports, many objectives were identified. Here, the ones that were pursued after the Project lifetime and budget changes are illustrated: 1. developing the foreign language communicative competence of permanent and nonpermanent MFL teachers working in schools and in the vocational sector. The objective was pursued by aiming at the individual attainment of an international language certificate calibrated to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR, 2001) levels6; 2. developing/updating the pedagogical competence and teaching skills of MFL teachers; 3. selecting a group of experienced MFL teachers representing the different languages taught in schools and belonging to all school levels, and educating them as teacher trainers/educators who would act as tutors in the Actions aimed at reaching objective n. 2; 4. developing the foreign language knowledge base and competence of non-language teachers, in order for them to be able to take an active part in innovative school-based projects (CLIL). This objective also aimed at the individual achievement of an international language certificate calibrated to the CEFR; 5. educating in-service kindergarten teachers as MFL teachers (development of language competence and teaching skills) alongside their existing educational role, in order to widen the number of kindergartens where an additional language could be offered. This objective also aimed at the individual achievement of an international language certificate calibrated to the CEFR. These objectives were pursued taking as starting point the awareness that in the field of Teacher Education (TEd) recent and authoritative literature sees as most effective for teacher development and system change not so much the models that offer top-down training where teachers are shown or taught what to do, but those that see the practicing teacher as the reflective practitioner (Schn, 1983). In these models the teacher learns by acting, reflecting upon her own practice, experimenting and further reflecting with the help of a supportive and non-judgemental peer group, and in so doing arrives at a more coherent and effective understanding and conceptualisation of her own pedagogical theory and teaching practice (Underhill, 1988; Richards and Lockhart, 1994; Richards and Nunan, 1990; Wallace, 1991; Richards, 1998; Ur, 1999; Woodward, 2004). It was with these authors and concepts as points of reference that the Actions aimed at TEd and development were organised.

4. Project main Actions

There were expected language levels for MFL teachers which had been identified at the Round Table mentioned in Paragraph 2. The stakeholders had envisaged that language competence was a component of huge importance for the quality of MFL provision, and they had fixed as desirable the following levels: between B1 and B2 for kindergarten teachers; B2 or above for primary teachers; C1 or above for lower secondary teachers; C2 for upper secondary and vocational training teachers.

In the A l i s Project, Actions aimed at the development/updating of both linguistic competence and methodological skills of in-service MFL and non-language teachers were planned, together with actions especially thought for prospective teacher trainers/educators. They can be summarized as follows: 1. Action for the selection and education of teacher trainers/educators for teachers of the main FLs taught in Trentino. English (EN), French (FR), German (DE) and Spanish (ES) teachers applied. They belonged to all sectors of education: kindergarten; primary, lower secondary and upper secondary education; vocational training. Most of the 22 selected teachers (11 DE, 10 EN and 1 FR) belonged to primary to upper secondary education, one to kindergarten and one to vocational training. Some of them withdrew after their 6-month Professional Development Programme, others were forced to resign during the running of the project by family or school commitments. At the end of the Project, 12 are remaining. They have offered, managed and run Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Modules targeted at mixed-language and mixededucational level groups of fellow professionals. (This action will be illustrated in some detail in Paragraph 6). 2. Action for the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) of in-service MFL teachers. This action was implemented through CPD modules run by the teacher educators referred to in 1 above. Quite a few innovative decisions were made by IPRASE which make the model unique and still unparalleled in Italy in so far as TEd is concerned. (This action will be illustrated in some detail in Paragraph 7). 3. Action for the development of foreign language (FL) competence and professional skills of in-service non-language kindergarten teachers (both English and German were identified as target languages). Their prospective role was to start using a FL language (IPRASE preferred not to call it language provision for this age group) alongside with Italian when interacting with children, following a pedagogical approach which respected the affective, cognitive and social developmental stages of children aged 3-6. The teachers were not forced to adhere by their Provincial Offices, but were given the opportunity and entered the Programme voluntarily, choosing the language they preferred to learn/develop. To the development/consolidation of their FL skills and competence all the teachers on the Programme attended either 100- or 200-hour FL courses in Trentino according to their individual entry levels. The courses were especially designed to enable them to take a language exam at the end of the two-year period, aimed at the attainment of a language certificate issued by an ALTE Language Tester Organisation (Cambridge Esol for English; Goethe Institut and WTB Testsysteme for German). The expected levels of language competence at the end of the Programme varied between B1 and B2 of the CEFR. Each individual teacher was also entitled to spend a two-week language and methodology course abroad (Nile Norwich, UK, for the prospective English teachers and Tubingen Language School, DE, for the German teachers), where experts in the field of offering a foreign language to Very Very Young Learners (VVYL) developed their awareness of what their role would be and explored with them the repertoire of strategies and options they could apply when interacting with children in a FL. 4. Action for the development of a FL competence (EN or DE) for non-language (content) teachers. The original aim of the objective which generated this Action was creating a wider language knowledge base in schools so that a greater number of teachers could take part in international projects, partnerships, study weeks, school exchanges and innovative approaches, amongst which CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning). This was in fact one of the Project objectives which was mostly affected by the Project changes: when the Project started the Action was indeed addressed to the same target group, but with the explicit aim of encouraging content teachers to start CLIL modules in their classes, as greater language competence would allow them to

take a much more active role than had been the case so far and to work alongside their FL colleagues in Teaching Teams in CLIL provision. Again, teachers adhered to the specific Programme (120 hours of FL provision over a period of two calendar years plus a language exam at the end aimed at an international language certificate) on a voluntary basis. The number of prospective participants was so high that IPRASE had to take some unpopular decisions after testing everybodys language skills: only teachers whose language competence was between A2 and B1 were admitted to the Programme, the ones being A1 or lower being considered at too low a level to be able to arrive at the minimum exit level of B1, the ones being already at B2 or higher being already competent to be able to start CLIL modules with their FL colleagues. The teachers who attended the Programme had the opportunity to ask IPRASE for free consultancy aimed at the planning and preparation of CLIL modules in their schools. Some schools submitted this request, and were helped by IPRASE consultants. To the same aim, a more traditional CLIL introductory course open to all teachers (20 hours of methodological input, discussions and illustration of existing good practice in the province and beyond) was organised twice by the Dipartimento Istruzione, one of the institutional stakeholders mentioned in Paragraph 2. (The results of the consultancy work will be illustrated in some detail in Paragraph 8). 5. Action for the development of a FL competence (EN or DE) for in-service MFL teachers, with the aim of raising the level of individual language competence by one or more CEFR Levels in two years. Again, teachers adhered voluntarily to the Programme, which had been planned as follows: at least 120 hours of FL provision over a period of the two calendar years (2006-2007), plus a language exam at the end aimed at the attainment of an international language certificate. This Action was also deeply affected by Project changes: in the end the Programme ran for only one year (2007). The objective was therefore reorganised as aimed at either certifying the existing level for the teachers who were already at levels C1 and C2 of the CEFR by means of attending very short (12-hour) exam preparation modules, or at raising the language competence of one CEFR level for all the others by means of attending 60-hour modules (followed by 30 more hours wherever possible).

5. Project numbers
The A l i s Project has been very popular with both language and content teachers in the whole Province. Most teachers realised that the Project was offering opportunities which they had been waiting for years and were unparalleled elsewhere in Italy. The generous ESF funding allocated by the GP meant that all the opportunities were offered free of charge, including coverage of the fees for the language certificate exams. All these considerations must have played a part in convincing them to take part in one or more of the Actions provided, in spite of the tight schedules and the difficulties deriving from the natural overlapping of both school and family commitments. Admission to some of the Actions, as mentioned above, had to be carefully planned by IPRASE in terms of eligibility criteria, as the demand was much bigger than the actual supply. These are the total numbers reached by the Project: 80 courses (both language and/or methodology); 5000 hours of tuition (670 of which abroad); 919-time teachers reached in the whole province (750 being the approximate total number of permanent and non-permanent MFL teachers), among whom 165 new MFL teacher in the kindergarten sector; More than 200 language certificates exam taken.

Now that the project is over, except for the action for kindergarten teachers, as mentioned above, IPRASE is collecting data for its evaluation. The impact of its Actions will probably not be measured directly via pupils achievement standardised tests, but through more transversal 5

and indirect measures, as for example a research study which could bring to light any differences in the numbers, types and levels of language certificate exams that will be taken by pupils and students during their school career in the future two to three years from now. Any major changes, together with other data, might be taken as an indirect piece of evidence that the Project has helped develop/update MFL teachers professional skills: it is assumed that teachers who are not themselves confident in their foreign language competence and who are not familiar with or do not see the benefits of language certificates external to school assessment will not suggest that their pupils should take them (Lucietto, 2004:52).

PART II
In this Part, some individual Actions of the A l i s Project, with particular reference to the ones that contained the most innovative elements, will be illustrated.

6. The Action for the selection and education of teacher trainers (TT) / educators
6.1 Prospective Trainer selection The selection procedure was carried out in May 2004, and was open to all MFL permanent teachers in the province. Sixty-four applied, who represented four of the five MFL taught in Trentino schools at that time: English, French German, and Spanish (Russian, which was taught in one upper secondary school, was not represented). The selection criteria were determined as aimed at finding out: o motivation to become a TT (how much and why); o FL competence level; o FL methodological competence; o interpersonal skills and competence. To these aims, three were the selection phases the applicants went through: o a first shortlisting procedure on the basis of a Teacher Portfolio containing evidence of a professional career: a cv, academic and professional qualifications, any other documents considered relevant by the candidates (previous TT grants or work, institutional collaborative work with Universities and TT colleges, materials produced as a result of school/Comenius/Leonardo projects, articles, publications). This phase was aimed at shortlisting the teachers who had been particularly active in either attending or giving training courses organised and funded by individual schools or by the Agencies responsible for it in Trentino or elsewhere. o an individual interview in the MFL taught by the shortlisted candidates, at the presence of a committee composed of: the Director of IPRASE; one of the external consultants who had had a role in writing the Project - Prof. Umberto Capra (Vercelli University); a representative from the Cultural Agency corresponding to the candidates chosen language (British Council, Goethe Institut, Alliance Franaise, Consejeria de Educacin); o a task-based groupwork (in Italian) in mixed-FL groups observed by one of the committee members. This phase was aimed at finding out individual organisational, social and emotional skills of effective group members and leaders by seeing them in action. This sequence of stages was a complete novelty in Trentino, but was also unprecedented in the rest of Italy: selection procedures for prospective TTs would typically include one step, i.e. the interview (accompanied by a cv, but with no shortlisting). This had been the case, for example, in the selection for prospective PSLS trainers (1974-1996), or for the Norwich Course - a Programme for prospective TTs funded by the British Council in agreement with the Italian Government which ran for 25 years (1981-2006). The prospective TTs were selected taking also into account, whenever possible, the following additional system needs: 6

the need to balance the number of representatives of the four foreign languages according to their respective weights in education in Trentino: in the end 10 teachers were selected for English, 11 for German, 1 for French (no one qualified for Spanish); the need to balance the number of future TTs according to the number of in-service teachers in the various sectors of education: 1 teacher was selected for kindergarten, 5 for primary, 7 for lower secondary, 8 for upper secondary and 1 for vocational training.; the need to balance the number of prospective TTs living and working in different areas of Trentino, so that it would be relatively easy to activate decentralised courses once the methodology Programme would start.

6.2 The

A l i s Model of Trainer Education

The first phase of the education of the prospective trainers, and by far the longest one, was carried out before the A l i s Project received its own funds, and was financed by the Local Government (GP) through the Office for Education. Most of the Programme, organised in modules, was provided while the trainer trainees were on a 5-month sabbatical period (September 2004-January 2005). This enabled IPRASE to take advantage of an unforeseen and unprecedented flexibility in the organisation the training activities, some of which were carried out in Trentino, others abroad. The model comprised quite a few innovative elements, the first one being that the Trento training modules saw all the trainees working together in Italian, irrespective of their FL or school level. The Programme started with a 4-day residential module at the beginning of September whose explicit aims were allowing the trainees to get to know each other (some of them had never met before) and start jelling as a group, setting the scene and framework for the entire 5-month period and carrying out the first theme module. After that, trainees were normally based at home, but they would come to IPRASE for a one- or two-day weekly module. Their typical organisation would see individual and group task-based input and reflection used flexibly according to the groups previous knowledge, needs, and wishes. A lot of group meta-cognitive activities were organised where trainees would reflect on the input and would begin to see and discuss the new light it cast on their established teaching practice in mixed groups. Reflective activities also characterised the feedback that trainees were individually asked to put in writing, and possibly share, after each module. This way of working enabled the 22 trainees to really develop as one group, and when they went abroad to two different countries (Austria and the United Kingdom), procedures were carefully selected and put in place in order for them not to lose the sense of belonging that they had achieved (see below). The themes of the modules were selected after a careful analysis of the competences that teachers and trainers alike need in their profession, based on international literature guidelines and on the experience of the Project coordinator, herself an experienced teacher educator. The tutors for the Trento modules were carefully chosen among experts in specific fields who shared similar approaches to teacher and trainer education, and whose aims were to enable trainees to discover or refresh concepts by being involved in group activities and by reflecting on them rather than by being exposed to lectures. These were the themes that were explored in Trento (in brackets, the names of the tutors): o the role of ICT in MFL classrooms (Umberto Capra); o learning strategies and learning styles (Luciano Mariani); o the MFL curriculum and its relationship with the whole curriculum (Martin Dodman); o effective communication, group work and group dynamics, classroom observation, collaborative learning models for teachers (Sandra Lucietto); o the European Language Portfolio (Paola Tomai); o using ICT in the MFL classroom (Diana Eastment). The training Programme in Trentino was complemented by two 3-week periods abroad which took place from mid-October to the beginning of November and in December 2004. Trainees whose working language was English (+French) went to the Norwich Institute for Language 7

Education (NILE, Norwich, UK), the others to the University of Innsbruck (AT). The two Agencies were carefully selected on the basis of very clear guidelines and objectives that IPRASE sent with the call for proposals. They had done previous collaborative work, which undoubtedly contributed to their approaches resulting very similar. In Norwich, the trainees worked with very experienced tutors, among whom Alan Pulverness, Simon Smith, Dave Allan; in Innsbruck, with Carol Spoettel, Barbara Hinger, Paul Rusch, Wolfgang Stadler. In both places, they worked following the guidelines of a generative framework for designing training courses and sessions: conceptual frameworks for planning, and a rationale - not recipes, not fixed patterns, but flexible open sets of ways of formulating plans, looking at possible different starting points, and from there at permutations and re-combinations, as Pulverness7 put it in an interview collected in 2007 as part of the whole Project evaluation where he also made reference to the literature that most densely and concisely represented the approach to trainer training they had followed and applied (Britten, 1998; Ellis, 1986; McGrath, 1997; Schn, 1987). The subdivision of the period abroad into two tranches of the same length was also an innovative choice of the A l i s Project, as the traditional model chosen by the Italian Government working with foreign Agencies both before and during the A l i s Project (I am referring here to the discontinued PSLS Programme, to the still on-going Norwich Course and to the new governmental Programme for primary new language teachers launched in 2004) would only consider one period abroad, however extended. The choice proved very effective, popular and successful for the following reasons: o the two periods were less disruptive for the trainees private lives than an uninterrupted 6-week period, easing off any tension that the prospect of being away from home might cause; o the two sub-groups did not spend too long apart so as to develop new group identities to the detriment of the sense of belonging to one big group; o the trainees were able to share what they had done abroad in the two weeks in between the stays abroad and after the two stays were over, thanks to sharing sessions that were specially organised in Trento by the Project coordinator, where they worked in mixed-language groups in order to acquaint each other with what had been done elsewhere and to reflect on similarities and differences. This way of working was highly appreciated by the trainees, who underlined its effectiveness in contributing to keep the group together as one and to learn from each other. The most effective feedback on this training organisational choice again comes from Pulverness, who in his interview also said: [] they [the trainers] seemed to make a marked progress. We had the advantage of seeing them on two different occasions, and the second time they were here it showed that they had time to reflect, to consolidate, to try out some things. This made it a much more satisfying project for us. With a follow up, you can see the effect the first stage of development has had. The second time they were here, ideas were becoming more coherent, understanding was more grounded, and so did their competence and confidence. We were much more positive with them going back the first time, because we knew they would come back. We only see groups once, usually, and we hope they go back and improve. With this group, we had some evidence that they were moving in the positive direction. I would say that the model works very well. A model like this is far more valuable than a model of 6 weeks in a row, where at some point in the course a climax is reached and from then on there is a decreasing curve. All the face-to-face modules were interspersed with private individual readings, for a total amount of hours that varied, in the five months, between 400 and 450 hours of work on the trainees part.

7 Interview made by Sandra Lucietto at the NILE Office at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, 5th July 2007, 9:0010:00 am.

Towards the end of the sabbatical, a third innovative element was introduced: for the first time in Italian Teacher Education Programmes the trainees were asked to write an individual cognitive autobiography (in Italian), i.e. a document witnessing their development as people, teachers and trainers. Only very general guidelines were given by IPRASE, so that they could freely reflect on their growth and report on the most important stages of their development, freely choosing to underline the elements that had made the greatest impact on them. The autobiographies were individually discussed at an interview with the Director of IPRASE, Prof. Capra and Sandra Lucietto, Project Coordinator (February 2005), which marked their passage from teacher trainees to teacher trainers. In December 2005, when the A l i s Project eventually received its funding and IPRASE was beginning the organisation of its various Actions, a three-day follow up with Graziella Pozzo, one of Italys most experienced and authoritative teacher educators, was organised. The event was aimed at giving the A l i s trainers new energy and at easing off the tension they had accumulated in the months they had not been employed. The three days were very successful and people were enthused by working together again as a group. That the Programme had reached its goals in this respect was summarised in a masterly way by Pozzo at the end of the three days: If I did not have the list in front of me with all your names, language and school level, I would not be able to say whos who in terms of their language specialism or of the sector of education they represent8. Recognising that trainer education, as teacher education itself, is a continuous process of development that needs feeding and reflecting on practice, in August 2007, towards the end of the project, when the trainers had already gone through three cycles of CPD modules addressed to MFL teachers, IPRASE gave the group irrespective of their professional language the opportunity to spend two weeks in Broadstairs (UK) to work with one of the most authoritative teacher educators, Tessa Woodward. There, the trainers further reflected on their practice and explored process options they could use with teachers in CPD sessions.

7.

The Action for the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) of in-service MFL teachers

7.1 The

A l i s Model of Teacher Education (CPD)

This Action potentially targeted all MFL in-service teachers working in the province. Given the way the trainers had been educated, there was bound to be at least a fair amount of coherence between the two models, although the teachers did not have the opportunity of a sabbatical period themselves. The Action was mainly organised in 27-hour modules (9 weekly 3-h meetings). The module structure was jointly developed by IPRASE and Prof. Capra and negotiated with the A l i s trainers. Some innovative decisions were taken which originated a model that had never been thought of before in Trentino or elsewhere in Italy. As such, it represented the organisational and methodological response to the perceived needs of the specific challenges of Trentino autonomous education system and its teachers, which was developed in the light of the most authoritative and recent literature in the field (Bailey, Curtis and Nunan, 2001; Edge, 1992; Freeman, 1998; Head and Taylor, 1997; Willis and Willis, 1996; Woodward, 1991; Woodward, 1992; Woodward, 1996; cf. also Paragraph 3).
7.1.1 Innovative organisational decisions

The first innovative organisational and methodological decision was the creation of Trainer Teams instead of the traditional only trainer: the A l i s trainers planned and ran most modules in pairs all throughout. The reasons were partly pragmatic (the trainers themselves asked for a degree of coherence between training and practice, given that they had always been asked to work in small groups or in pairs during their own development Programme), but also highly political: in Trentino the two most widely taught foreign languages still belong to
8

Graziella Pozzo, Formazione dei Formatori, Trento, IPRASE, 15-17 December 2005

two very different (almost separate) methodological traditions, and relationships between teachers are not always smooth. What a better example for the teachers in the CPD modules than seeing two trainers representing the two languages working together? Second, and consequent, innovative decision: since the modules were open to teachers of all sectors together (this was the third innovative element, already mentioned before, which had been tried in Trentino only once), the two trainers of each pair belonged to two different sectors of education (e.g.: an English upper secondary school trainer working with a German primary school trainer): a model of inter-language and inter-level cooperation which the teachers in training would hopefully pick up. Fourth innovation: the CPD modules were organised over the whole territory of the province, and not only in Trento as it had previously been the case - sometimes in places as far away from the centre as one and a half hours by car. This decision was made possible by the careful selection of trainer teams according to their geographical provenance, and by negotiations with each trainer. Fifth innovation: the CPD modules were supported by IPRASE also by means of a set of three to four coordination meetings that were called at topical moments (after the first meeting, towards the middle of the course, near the end, after the last meeting). The coordination meetings were aimed at getting to know any difficulties and at finding out possible solutions, but more importantly they were continuing the established tradition of the supportive group for trainers. This was highly appreciated by the trainers, who could discuss any doubts and difficulties with their peers and continue to grow together. It certainly was a success factor of the model.
7.1.2 Innovative methodological decisions

The main methodological innovative decision had already been made at the moment of writing the A l i s project in 2003. The CPD modules were very distant from the traditional themebased courses that had characterised the previous IPRASE offer. They were open-ended paths based on professional dialogue and the sharing of professional practice (also presented as case studies) among teachers of all languages and all school levels /sectors together. The not so hidden aim was building mutual knowledge, trust and respect among these professionals, so that they might find it easier than before to continue to grow through continuous professional dialogue with their peers after the end of the A l i s project. This kind of course is obviously much more complex to run and manage than more traditional ones revolving around a predefined theme, with a lot of input from the trainer, where participants can choose, if they like to do so, not to get involved too much. It has to overcome the fences that many teachers put up when they feel challenged by new ideas and new approaches, and respond from week to week to the questions and problems posed by the course participants: everything has to develop from the participants input, with almost no time to design a nice course at a computer desk beforehand. To carry out this challenging task, the presence of a peer trainer, who could act as a mirror, a critical friend, a companion with whom to have a professional dialogue at a peer level, was vital. Such an approach was very innovative in Trentino, where some pioneering courses had been negotiated with individual schools, but never before had people dared try putting all the languages and all the school levels together in one room and base a whole course on the reflection on participants practice. This level of innovation obviously caused some distress in some people: there was some resistance to the fact that the modules were in Italian, and that the trainers did not give out recipes or the gospel. Some (very few in fact) did leave the modules after one or two meetings, only to unexpectedly come back the following year. The trainers did have to keep their own anxiety at bay, but all these efforts paid off, because the end of course feedback from the participants that did manage to resist to the end was very positive and encouraging for the future.

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8. The consultancy Action for the development of CLIL provision

As mentioned in Paragraph 4, the teachers who wanted to introduce CLIL in their schools had the opportunity to ask IPRASE for free consultancy aimed at the planning and preparation of CLIL modules. Some schools chose to take this option. This gave IPRASE the opportunity to reflect upon CLIL in a complementary way to what the Institute was already doing by means of a research study on CLIL they were carrying out with peer Institutes and universities in the North-west of Italy (Progetto LI.VE.). Methodological, organisational and institutional guidelines that were being discussed in the LI.VE. project were given coherent shape and developed into the IPRASE model for the development and management of CLIL modules. Some innovative organisational and methodological elements made the CLIL model suggested by IPRASE unprecedented in Trentino and further afield. Only the most prominent ones will be mentioned in this paper9. The first innovation was the insistence on having CLIL Teaching Teams composed of content teachers and language teachers working together in all phases of the development of CLIL modules: planning, materials production, delivery (whenever possible), childrens assessment, module evaluation. This element was introduced in coherence with the dual focus of CLIL and in order to respect its nature, which is not that of a foreign language lesson disguised as a content lesson (Wildhage, 2002) but of a new learning environment where content and language interact and inextricably contribute to the learning experience. A second innovative decision was establishing the principle that when CLIL provision is organised within the core curriculum, and not as an optional activity, then it should be delivered within the content lesson timetable, and not in the foreign language class as it is still often the case in Trentino. This is to reinforce the concept that a CLIL lesson is a content lesson in a foreign language and not a foreign language content lesson. This has the inevitable corollary of giving a prominent role to the content teacher in the choice of the learning objectives, whilst the language teacher has the invaluable role of suggesting process options and ways of making content concepts accessible to the learners. This way of approaching CLIL is not always applied in Trentino, where often the language teacher takes up the role of the content teacher with no qualification to do so and works on her own in her own teaching hours, causing professional role confusion, friction in the teachers room, not to mention the likely detriment of students learning. A third constitutive element of the IPRASE CLIL model is the use of a coherent learner-centred methodology where learners become responsible for their own learning and the teacher becomes an organiser, a facilitator. The use of a task-based approach to learning in CLIL provision is widely suggested in the CLIL literature (Clegg, 2001; Marsh, 2001; Coonan, 2006, among others), but IPRASE suggested an innovation taken from the field of education rather than from that of foreign language teaching: using the task-based approach of Cooperative Learning, a much more developed and coherent approach to groupwork and task resolution which can be used in all subjects and puts the content and the language teacher in the position of learning from each other (Lucietto, 2006b). These and other constitutive elements of the CLIL model were applied consistently in five CLIL projects carried out in three schools with the consultancy of IPRASE. The consultancy model10 itself is worth mentioning, as it contains some innovative elements in the Trentino context. The consultant worked flexibly and took different roles, negotiated with the individual school on the basis of their particular needs: in one school she became a real Teaching Team member, and was involved in all phases of the CLIL module. She also observed most CLIL lessons and gave feedback to the teachers. In another school she was involved at all stages, but did not observe
9

For a complete overview and detailed illustration of the CLIL model, cf. Lucietto, S., 2008, Il modello CLIL proposto dallIPRASE. In Lucietto, S., (a cura di), e allora CLIL ! Lapprendimento integrato delle lingue straniere nella scuola. Dieci anni di buone prassi in Trentino e in Europa, Trento, IPRASE 10 For a complete overview and detailed illustration of the CLIL consultancy model, cf. Lucietto, S., 2008, Il modello IPRASE di consulenza CLIL alle scuole. In Lucietto, S., (a cura di), e allora CLIL ! Lapprendimento integrato delle lingue straniere nella scuola. Dieci anni di buone prassi in Trentino e in Europa, Trento, IPRASE

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lessons. In the third school, which was very distant from Trento, making face-to-face meetings much more complicated to organise, her role was more of a supervisor than of a team member. Always, however, the approach responded to schools individual needs and requests, and was not imposed by IPRASE as a take it or leave it whole package. As such, it was very popular with the teachers, who felt respected and supported in ways that they could appreciate, respond to, work with and learn from: in a word, the consultancy configured itself as a school-based and research-based CPD model. The implementation of the CLIL model was very successful in three out of five CLIL projects, quite successful in the fourth, the fifth one experiencing unforeseen organisational constraints to the partial detriment of childrens learning. In spite of the difficulties that some of the teams encountered, the parents and children alike showed great commitment to the experiments and clearly expressed the willingness to continue. The projects are now expanding and involving new teachers and new subjects. All the Teaching Teams were able to reflect effectively on success and partial success factors, to develop highly sophisticated language-sensitive methods and to grow professionally to unexpected heights. All these experiences have been published in a volume11 by IPRASE and are available for free on request.

9. Conclusion
In the article the main Actions of a Project which responded to the political mandate of organising a coherent set of training actions for the professional development of the teachers of MFL in the whole of Trentino, with specific reference to innovative approaches and methods have been illustrated, and the reasons for some important choices have been discussed. Some of the Actions leave intangible but nonetheless important products in the form of expertise and experience that go beyond the life of the project, concluded in 2007. The twelve teacher trainers that have started to apply innovative approaches to teacher education and development will remain as an asset, and it is hoped that future projects, either mandated by political leaders or organised by individual schools or networks, will see them in action again. The professional expertise in CLIL can and hopefully will be disseminated by the Teaching Teams who can act as multipliers. The role of new qualifications (language certificates) in the professional life of language as well as of non-language teachers can only be explored in the near future. In its generative, propelling power for quality in the whole of the provincial education system the A l i s Project will be evaluated more fully in the time after today. For the time being, we can only start considering the differences between the situation before and after its life, and in the perceptions of the actors involved in it they are certainly starting to emerge.

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