Educazione linguistica

Abstract

The notion of language education can be defined by focussing on two aspects: the first one is the nature of language education, i.e., the voluntary act of helping a human faculty (the faculty of language, which is specific to homo loquens) emerge (the word ‘education’ derives from the Latin e ducere, ‘let out, let emerge’); the second one, the fields of language education in school systems, i.e. the teaching of the mother tongue (rather than ‘teaching’ other terms could be used, such as ‘perfectioning’, ‘developing metalinguistic awareness’, as the mother tongue has already been acquired when school starts), of modern languages (foreign languages for all students; second and ethnic or community languages, in some cases) and of classical languages (Greek, Latin, Arabic and so on).