L'inglese nella scuola italiana. La questione negata della varietà-modello

In recent years the debate over the teaching of English in Italian schools has mainly focused on matters related to the most effective methodologies (i.e. the how) and on the best age learners should be to start studying it (i.e. the whom), thus reaching significant and innovative results. Much less investigated has instead been the matter of which English should be taught (the what), which, on the contrary, elsewhere around the world, once acquired and consolidated the former two aspects mentioned above, has considerably grown in importance, as a consequence of the role English now plays on the international scene. In this paper, after a short introduction to the concept of ‘World English’, we will try at first to draw a profile of the English language teacher in Italy today, and afterwards, we will put forward some hypotheses and suggestions on the criteria to be adopted to single out and present in the classroom as many variety-models as possible, also explaining the positive effects of this choice.