While the achievements of the school are immense, they do beg the question as to whether the children participating in the school’s bilingual program will have the opportunity to carry on similar learning practices at a secondary level.

Currently, there are no secondary schools in the Brunswick area which offer a similar learning approach, at least for Italian, meaning that Brunswick South Primary School students may have to put their contact with the Italian language on hold until they reach tertiary education.

For those who do not continue with their studies beyond secondary school, their time at Brunswick South Primary School may very well be their first and last encounter with the Italian language to such a great extent.

Fortunately, this is not the case in all areas of Victoria: Gladstone Park Secondary College and St Monica’s College in Epping are two schools which have adopted the CLIL approach to allow their students to be immersed in the Italian language.

CLIL, which stands for Content and Language Integrated Learning, is an approach which involves the teaching of content in a foreign language, to allow students to learn subject matter while also being exposed to another language and culture.

Gladstone Park Secondary College first trialled this teaching approach in 2010 and, due to the high level of interest among students, fully implemented the program with two Year 9 classes in 2012.

“I still remember the excitement in both our students and teachers,” Italian program manager Max Tosi said.

The program has since been extended and offers students from Year 7 to Year 9 the opportunity to learn history, geography and maths in Italian, making up to 50 per cent of their curriculum.

Five years since its inception, the school’s CLIL program now involves eight teachers and is undertaken by around 130 students.

“My colleagues are wonderful and the families of our students strongly advocate the program,” Tosi said.

Gladstone Park Secondary College is invested in providing students a continual experience of the Italian language, working with Italian teachers at local primary schools to improve students’ transition to secondary school, and offering senior Italian studies from Year 10 onwards, which around 70 per cent of students opt for.

Tosi was inspired by his own experience of bilingual learning in Europe and wanted to offer the same opportunities to his students, a decision which has certainly paid off.

The ambitious teacher and his colleagues have noticed the many benefits of the CLIL program, such as students’ improved communication skills and awareness of how languages work.

“Because our students are exposed to a unique methodology, once they realise they can be successful at it, they develop great confidence and ability to speak in public,” he added.

“For this reason, I believe, CLIL students not only score very high in Italian and English but also are more motivated to learn and take student leadership positions with great pride, such as being SRC representatives or school academic captains.”

Coordinator of the CLIL Italian Program at St Monica’s College, Katy Destro-O’Reilly, has also noted myriad positive results of this teaching approach, including students’ ability to problem solve and communicate, and enhanced cultural awareness, creativity and self-resilience.

“From a more personal perspective, students have affirmed that the CLIL program has also positively affected their private lives,” Destro-O’Reilly said.

“In their view, it has helped them to connect more with those grandparents who are monolingual speakers of Italian and reach out to members of the Italian community.”

St Monica’s College adopted the CLIL approach in 2012 as part of a state-wide research project to trial and evaluate its effectiveness in classrooms, teaching a group of Year 8 students the topic of Antarctica in Italian.

The program was officially launched in 2013, and is currently offered from Year 7 to Year 9, while students have the opportunity to study an advanced Italian class in Year 10.

Seven teachers are involved in the delivery of content for religious education, geography and history in Italian, while Italian classes are also taught in the foreign language to expand students’ vocabularies and assist them with their comprehension of other subjects taught in Italian.

While few secondary schools have been able to successfully incorporate a CLIL approach into their curriculum, Destro-O’Reilly hopes to see more schools take on the program in the future.

“The CLIL immersion program addresses the needs of 21st-century learners for the globalised and multicultural environment in which they live; bilingual and multilingual education is a reality that cannot be ignored,” she said.

“I wish more secondary schools would share the same vision of prosperity, and emotional and professional growth in young people by embracing immersion programs as a starting point.”

Tosi also believes that more schools should seek to introduce the CLIL program, in order for students to remain competitive in the rapidly evolving job market.

“Flexibility, communication skills and intercultural understanding will be the key to a successful career,” he affirmed.

“If you speak English, you can surely buy lots of things around the world and that’s fine, however if you don’t speak the local language would you be able to sell anything?”

Both coordinators of the successful CLIL programs at Gladstone Park Secondary College and St Monica’s College agree that the absence of secondary bilingual learning opportunities in areas such as Brunswick is a result of several factors.

According to Tosi, schools that aim to implement the program require enthusiastic teachers who have sufficient qualifications in both the subject matter and the Italian language, along with open-minded administration staff who have some understanding of the process.

Destro-O’Reilly added that many schools have perhaps hesitated to pursue this avenue with the belief that it may hinder students’ success.

“Currently, latent misconceptions about bilingual programs are inhibiting the number of schools from including immersion programs in their curriculum,” she said.

“Many people think of these programs as teaching approaches that deprive or hold our students back from advancing with their English language or from learning the content subject properly.”

In reality, students are taught the same topics and undertake the same assessments that any “normal” secondary school students would, while the Italian aspect is gradually introduced so as not to “bombard” students with information in a foreign language.

Destro-O’Reilly also highlights that the CLIL program offers a dynamic mode of learning which stimulates students and increases their concentration and eagerness to actively participate in class.

While Gladstone Park Secondary College and St Monica’s College continue to thrive on their unique bilingual approach, it seems inevitable that others will follow in their footsteps in years to come, perhaps in Brunswick or other areas of Victoria.

After all, Destro-O’Reilly sums it up perfectly:

“Why not provide our learners with the opportunity to broaden their horizons?”