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O artigo apresenta o projeto de ensino da produção escrita Osservare l’interlingua (Observar a interlíngua), que, desde 2007, envolveu dezenas de professores e centenas de alunos do ensino fundamental em Reggio Emilia (Itália) e região. Por meio de sessões de formação de professores e da atividade de pesquisa-ação conduzidas nas aulas, o projeto visa a promover uma educação linguística eficaz e inclusiva para todos os alunos e não somente para subgrupos específicos, como, por exemplo, estudantes monolíngues ou multilíngues, nativos ou não nativos, com habilidades de escrita mais ou menos desenvolvidas. O artigo ilustra os princípios teóricos e metodológicos que alicerçam as propostas didáticas do projeto, a partir da própria ideia de “interlíngua” que está no nome do projeto: para planejar e realizar percursos pedagógicos coerentescom as trajetórias evolutivas dos alunos, é necessário, antes de mais nada, partir da análise pontual das produções e das estratégias de escrita de cada um. Propõe-se uma avaliação de tipo formativo que valoriza a evolução do aprendizado, facilita a identificação das causas dos aspectos críticos e, consequentemente, permite o planejamento deintervenções didáticas pontuais. Além de apresentar a organização geral de Osservare l’interlingua e alguns de seus percursos pedagógicos, o artigo relata, de forma sintética, os principais resultados dos estudos experimentais que são periodicamente conduzidos sobre as produções orais e escritas das crianças, para verificar os efeitos das intervençõesdidáticas sobre as habilidades de escrita e sobre a motivação para escrever. Ambos os tipos de estudos confirmam a eficácia do projeto, que recebe também um retorno muito positivo por parte de todos os atores envolvidos (docentes, estudantes e famílias).

This paper presents the results of a study that shed light on how English language students and teachers in Chinese higher education experienced a set of interculturality-oriented teaching materials developed by the European RICH-Ed project (Resources for Interculturality in Chinese Higher Education). The investigation involved 2,267 students and 41 teachers, who had tested one of the teaching modules put forward by RICH-Ed to stimulate intercultural development in a non-essentialist perspective. Participants were asked their opinions either by means of interviews or questionnaires. Data were analysed thematically. Results show that participants expressed a need for: (1) better detailed step-by-step instructional procedures and learning guidelines; (2) theoretical explanations of non-essentialism made vivid through examples and cases; (3) increased use of audio-visual and web resources as teaching materials. Findings indicate that participants resisted the idea that there are no right and wrong answers when talking about cultural groups, and that learning is contextual, since it depends on the students’ situated meanings and interpretation. While these results are linked to Chinese higher education, they are relevant in a plurality of contexts, considering that the systemic integration of intercultural learning – especially from a non-essentialist perspective – in language education is still incomplete in many educational settings.

I bambini imparano a scrivere nella scuola primaria ed è importante riflettere su quali siano le strategie più efficaci per promuovere questo compito cognitivo complesso. Il volume presenta i risultati della sperimentazione Osservare l’interlingua, un progetto di didattica della scrittura che nel corso degli anni ha coinvolto decine di insegnanti e centinaia di alunni. Dopo avere offerto un’ampia panoramica teorica, il volume illustra i principi metodologici del progetto e presenta i risultati dello studio, che ha coinvolto sette classi sperimentali e sette di controllo. L’analisi dimostra che una didattica della scrittura basata sul lavoro di gruppo e su un approccio attivo e riflessivo produce vantaggi tangibili: i testi dei bambini coinvolti nel progetto sono più informativi, dettagliati, comprensibili, meglio articolati e coesi di quelli dei coetanei del gruppo di controllo. Inoltre, nelle classi sperimentali, gli alunni multilingui raggiungono risultati particolarmente positivi, e questo fa sì che diminuiscano le disuguaglianze.

Just over ten years ago, Block (2007, p. 2) called the increasing attention that second language researchers – and social scientists at large – were giving to the construct of ‘identity’ an “obsession”. Since then, the identities of those who use, learn or study a language have been investigated in greater detail (e.g., Benson, Barkhuizen, Bodycott & Brown, 2013; Clarke, 2008; Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2009; Edwards, 2009). It may seem that intercultural language education is lagging behind this tendency. However, a number of publications (e.g., Kramsch, 2009; Rivers & Houghton, 2013) suggest that, considering contemporary global societies, the intercultural goals of language learning and teaching can be better promoted by replacing the notion of ‘culture’ with that of multiple ‘identities’ or ‘subjectivities’. More specifically, language education can aim to make students capable of selecting the language resources available to them in order to express their (developing) desired identities and, at the same time, to recognise the multiple identities that their interlocutors put forth in a given context (Borghetti, 2016). To make the case for this ‘identity-related intercultural language education’, the article reviews and discusses a number of studies which, from different perspectives, have already argued for a more prominent role of the construct of ‘identity’ in the field of second language education.

This article reports on English-Italian code-switching in a Facebook group of university students. The aim of the study is to describe the students’ interactional practices and their alternate use of English and Italian as lingua francas. 773 posts and comments written by 81 members of the group were analysed in a pragmatic and conversational perspective. The study shows that code-switching was ruled by precise norms of interaction and served to manage participant constellations. It also facilitated mutual understanding among students with different degree of language competence, and contributed to the creation of the plurilingual ‘small culture’ of the group.

This chapter reports on a small-scale study, which was carried out at a large HEI in Italy, within the frame of the European project ATIAH (Approaches and Tools for Internationalisation at Home, https://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/atiah/). The aim was to investigate how the local university community (students, academic and non-academic staff, policy makers) conceptualised Internationalisation at Home (IaH) in terms of existing practices, desiderata and possible future scenarios. The chapter addresses the themes of the volume by focussing on those internationalisation policies and strategies, which, according to Beelen and Jones’s definition of IaH, aim at “the purposeful integration of international and intercultural dimensions into the formal and informal curriculum for all students within domestic learning environments” (2015: 69). Since contemporary European universities are international by their own nature, the challenge is investing on local diversities in order for the entire HEI population - not only mobile minorities – to be given opportunities for intercultural learning on campus (Teekens, 2007). However, intercultural development is not an automatic outcome of diverse people being together (Leask, 2004), just as much as it is not a result of living abroad (IEREST, 2015); precise and contextualised strategic interventions are needed. The study presented addresses IaH from the point of view of the university community. Data were collected through nine interviews and two focus groups (respectively with staff and students), and were analysed thematically. Results show that most interviewees, regardless of their role, perceived IaH as synonymous of promoting interculturality and multilingualism, as well as an opportunity for the university to renew curricula and teacher training in an intercultural perspective.

L’italiano L2 e l’internazionalizzazione delle università A cura di Fabiana Rosi e Sergio Lubello

Within the field of applied linguistics, a new trend in research can be envisaged which links study abroad and intercultural learning (Beaven & Borghetti, 2016): while in the ‘90s much research measured the students’ language gains as a result of their sojourn abroad (Coleman, 2015), after the so-called ‘social turn’ (Block, 2003), the field saw a substantial change in perspective; it shifted the focus towards students’ language socialisation abroad, with the aim of understanding what personal and social factors impact on the students’ language learning (Kinginger, 2009). This is the ground on which applied linguistics and the established domains of intercultural communication and cross-cultural psychology dedicated to SA meet; students’ language use abroad is situated in interpersonal relationships, which have the potential to influence the individual’s intercultural development as much as his or her second language acquisition. Thus, also in agreement with the so-called ‘cultural turn’ in language education (Byram, Holmes & Savvides, 2013), SA as a domain of enquiry within the field of applied linguistics is paying now much attention to intercultural issues concerning study abroad, clearly within a mainly language-oriented perspective (Beaven & Borghetti, 2016).

Per offrire assistenza agli studenti universitari nel corso dell’esperienza di mobilità, è importante capire il loro punto di vista riguardo il soggiorno all’estero. Questo articolo si concentra su un gruppo di studenti (N = 990) iscritti a corsi di studio vari, che si trovavano in fasi diverse della mobilità al momento dello studio (alcuni non erano partiti, altri si trovavano all’estero, altri ancora erano già tornati). La domanda aperta posta loro chiedeva di menzionare i tre fattori che più di altri determinano il successo dell’esperienza all’estero. Questa domanda faceva parte di un questionario somministrato in Europa dal progetto IEREST (http://ierest-project.eu). Una procedura di analisi dei dati mista e sequenziale ha portato all’identificazione di sei temi: lingua e comunicazione, contatti sociali, questioni pratiche, sviluppo personale, vantaggi accademici, e viaggi. Questo articolo presenta l’analisi dei primi tre temi, e mostra che, sebbene la competenza linguistica sia l’aspetto più frequentemente menzionato, gli studenti attribuiscono particolare importanza allo sviluppo personale (all’“apertura”) e ai contatti sociali (tra cui le amicizie). All’interno di IEREST, questi risultati sono serviti a sviluppare materiali di educazione interculturale per studenti Erasmus, ma offrono indicazioni utili a educatori e ricercatori anche in riferimento ad altri contesti di mobilità studentesca. In order to provide better support for students in higher education throughout a mobility experience, it is important to understand their point of view regarding stay abroad. This paper analyzes the responses of pre-departure, while-abroad, and upon-return students of different academic backgrounds (N = 990) to an open question that asked them to name the three most essential factors for making their stay abroad experience successful. This question was part of a wider online questionnaire distributed in Europe by the IEREST project (http://ierest-project. eu). A sequential mixed-method procedure identified six themes that were frequently cited: language and communication, social contacts, practicalities, personal development, academic advantages, and travel. This paper presents a more detailed analysis of the first three themes. It shows that although language proficiency was the single most frequently mentioned aspect, students attached particular importance to aspects of personal development (in particular with respect to openness) and social contacts (crucially including friendship). These findings informed the development of teaching materials within IEREST for supporting intercultural learning in the Erasmus context and may also be relevant to educators and researchers in various other study abroad contexts.

L’articolo presenta i risultati di uno studio condotto sulle narrazioni scritte di bambini di due classi quinte della scuola primaria coinvolte nel progetto Osservare l’Interlingua. Lo scopo della ricerca era valutare gli effetti di una sperimentazione educativa incentrata su attività di osservazione delle proprietà linguistico-discorsive di testi orali e scritti (letterari e prodotti dagli alunni stessi) sulle scelte dei bambini in merito all’uso del discorso riportato. I risultati ottenuti, messi a confronto con quelli di due classi di controllo, mostrano che chi ha parteci­pato alla sperimentazione scrive narrazioni più vivaci, anche perché fa maggiore uso del discorso diretto. Lo studio dimostra quindi l’efficacia di percorsi di educazione linguistica che attribuiscono agli alunni un ruolo attivo, “da piccoli ricercatori”, coinvolgendoli in attività collaborative di osservazione e manipolazione di testi propri e altrui., Italiano a scuola, Vol 1 (2019)

Il capitolo presenta uno studio sperimentale sugli effetti di un percorso didattico di riflessione sulle versioni orali e scritte di testi narrativi. La sperimentazione educativa è stata proposta all’interno del progetto Osservare l’interlingua, promosso dal Comune di Reggio Emilia in collaborazione con l’Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, che attualmente coinvolge 12 scuole primarie e 3 secondarie di primo grado, con 28 insegnanti e 32 classi, per un totale di circa 650 alunni. Il percorso didattico inizia con la narrazione orale e scritta di una storia a partire dalla visione di una sequenza video, tratta dalla versione cinematografica di T. Burton de La Fabbrica di Cioccolato di R. Dahl. Segue una serie di attività in cui gli alunni trascrivono le loro produzioni orali e le analizzano, confrontandole con quelle scritte e con la versione letteraria. In questo modo i bambini riflettono sulla variazione linguistica nelle diverse modalità comunicative e, a partire da ciò, individuano strumenti per una narrazione efficace, tanto all’orale che allo scritto. Seguono attività, ispirate all’approccio del process writing (White, Arndt 1991), per sviluppare le sotto-componenti del processo di scrittura, quali l’ideazione e l’organizzazione del testo, la redazione e la revisione. La relazione presenta un’analisi qualitativa e quantitativa delle produzioni scritte prima e dopo il percorso didattico in due classi sperimentali e due di controllo. I testi sono stati analizzati rispetto ad alcuni indici quali la lunghezza, chiarezza, completezza e organizzazione del testo, e la complessità linguistica (cfr. Housen et al. 2012). La presentazione dei risultati sarà accompagnata da alcune riflessioni circa le possibili implicazioni applicative.

This paper focuses on intercultural language learning and on the methods to study it. The discussion is divided into two parts. In the first theoretical part, intercultural language learning is defined as a linguistic and discursive practice, according to a non-essentialist approach. In the second methodological part, the paper overviews the limited number of studies which, coherently with a language-use-based definition of intercultural learning, have employed forms of linguistic analysis to detect traces of such learning in class interaction. Finally the analysis of one extract from a class-based student-student interaction is presented, in order to showcase how different forms of linguistic analysis can be adopted to investigate the discursive and interactional features of intercultural learning., Studi e ricerche

Il contributo si concentra sul ruolo che la manualistica svolge – o può svolgere – nel promuovere forme di apprendimento (inter)culturale nella classe di lingua. Sulla base di un approccio non essenzialista alla cultura, enuclea otto principi per l’analisi dei manuali, con particolare riferimento ai contesti di insegnamento dell’italiano come L2/LS.

Study abroad research has shown that intercultural preparation – before, during and after - helps students make the most of their intercultural experiences abroad. However, the impact of such preparation still needs investigation. The present chapter focuses on classroom interactions in the context of an intercultural communication course for mobile students carried out during their international study programme at the University of Bologna. The aim of the study was to explore, using conversation analysis and on the basis of student-student interactions, if it was possible to identify Potential Intercultural Learning Sequences, and what classroom dynamics may have encouraged (or hindered) the intercultural development process of the learners.

L’utilizzo della sottotitolazione interlinguistica a fini glottodidattici è stato ampiamente studiato negli ultimi dieci anni. Si registra però la mancanza di studi dedicati alla creazione dei sottotitoli per l’educazione interculturale. Questo articolo è un primo tentativo di verificare su basi empiriche il potenziale della sottotitolazione nell’ambito dell’educazione linguistica interculturale. L’articolo presenta un case study condotto presso un’università irlandese con quattordici studenti di italiano (livello A2/B1) che hanno frequentato il modulo sperimentale come parte integrante del loro corso di lingua. Lo scopo dello studio è quello di verificare se la creazione di sottotitoli può offrire agli studenti opportunità di sviluppo della consapevolezza culturale e interculturale. Lo studio si avvale di vari metodi di raccolta dati: due questionari, interviste, registrazioni audio delle lezioni, schede didattiche, appunti dell’insegnante, i sottotitoli prodotti dagli studenti. L’intero corpus è stato analizzato tematicamente. I risultati dello studio confermano che gli insegnanti ricoprono un ruolo decisivo nel favorire lo sviluppo della consapevolezza culturale e interculturale degli studenti quando stimolano l’interazione tra pari; nondimeno, i risultati mostrano anche che l’utilizzo della sottotitolazione può offrire occasioni di apprendimento interculturale anche quando la mediazione dell’insegnante è limitata. Interlingual subtitling has been extensively investigated for language learning and teaching purposes in the last decade. However, there is a lack of research into the creation of subtitles as a means of intercultural learning. This article is a first empirical attempt to verify the potential of subtitling for intercultural language education. It reports on a case study carried out at an Irish University with fourteen A2/B1-level students of Italian, who attended a subtitling module as a regular part of their language course. The aim of the study was to investigate whether the creation of subtitles can offer language students opportunities for learning in terms of cultural and intercultural awareness development. A multi-method approach was employed to collect data through initial and final questionnaires, interviews with participants, class audio-recordings, teaching forms and notes, and students’ interlingual subtitles. Thematic analysis of the collected data was then conducted. Findings confirm that teachers play a major role in enhancing students’ cultural and intercultural awareness development fostering class interaction and discussions; however, they also show that the use of subtitling tasks offer conditions in which students can better develop intercultural skills even when teacher mediation is limited.

Questo articolo dà conto dei risultati di un progetto di ricerca-azione in scuole primarie italiane. I principi centrali sono la valutazione della formazione, l’orientamento al processo della scrittura, l'apprendimento cooperativo e l’approccio inclusivo che non separa gli/le apprendenti in base alle loro capacità linguistiche o di scrittura. A questo studio hanno partecipato apprendenti di età compresa tra gli 8 e gli 11 anni, in sette classi sperimentali (N = 106) e in sette classi di controllo (N = 118). I loro testi sono stati esaminati sia olisticamente attraverso scale di efficacia comunicativa, sia mediante misurazioni analitiche. Il confronto tra alunni monolingui e multilingui, sia nelle classi sperimentali sia in quelle di controllo, mostra una serie di similarità in termini di competenza testuale e anche alcune differenze, in particolare per quanto riguarda gli aspetti più linguistici della scrittura, come la coesione verbale. Un risultato importante mostra che la partecipazione al programma ha avuto un impatto maggiore sulla qualità del testo degli/delle apprendenti rispetto alle loro condizioni iniziali di monolingui o multilingui. This article reports on the results of an action-research project in Italian primary schools. Its main principles are formative evaluation, a process orientation to writing, cooperative learning, and an inclusive approach that does not separate pupils according to their linguistic or writing skills. Pupils aged eight to eleven years old participated in the study in seven experimental (N = 106) and seven control classes (N = 118). Their texts were examined both holistically, through scales of communicative effectiveness, and by means of analytical measurements. The comparison of monolingual and multilingual pupils in both experimental and control classes shows a number of similarities in terms of textual competence, as well as a few differences, especially regarding the more linguistic aspects of writing, such as verb tense cohesion. A remarkable result is that students’ text quality seems to depend more on their participation to the program than on their monolingual or multilingual status. Este artículo informa los resultados de un proyecto de investigación-acción en escuelas primarias italianas. Sus principios más importantes son la evaluación formativa, una orientación al proceso de escritura, aprendizaje cooperativo y un enfoque inclusivo que no separa a los estudiantes según sus habilidades lingüísticas o de escritura. Los alumnos de entre ocho y once años participaron en el estudio en siete clases experimentales (N = 106) y siete clases control (N = 118). Sus textos se examinaron de manera holística por medio de escalas de efectividad comunicativa y mediciones analíticas. La comparación de alumnos monolingües y multilingües en las clases experimentales y de control muestra un número de similitudes en términos de competencia textual al igual que algunas diferencias, especialmente con respecto a los aspectos más lingüísticos de la escritura, como la cohesión del tiempo verbal. Un resultado notable muestra que participar en el programa tuvo un mayor impacto en la calidad del texto de los estudiantes que sus condiciones iniciales mono- o multilingüe.

This paper explores higher education students’ beliefs and attitudes concerning language learning and use in the context of learning mobility, when lingua francas – including English – are used. Data were collected through a questionnaire administered to 141 Erasmus students at an Italian University. The open-ended questions were analysed using a constructivist grounded theory approach, and findings checked against the quantitative data. The analysis distinguishes between respondents’ beliefs, that is, overt convictions influencing learning behaviour, and attitudes operating below the level of awareness. Findings address three main issues: (1) the apparent contradiction between the respondents’ attitudes and beliefs regarding the opinion that lingua francas offer valuable language-learning opportunities; (2) their implicit questioning of the language-culture nexus; and (3) the study sheds light on code choice and negotiation. Questo articolo esamina le convinzioni e atteggiamenti degli studenti universitari in materia di apprendimento e utilizzo delle lingue in contesto di mobilita, quando tali lingue – compreso l'inglese – vengono usate come lingue franche. I dati sono stati raccolti attraverso un questionario somministrato a 141 studenti Erasmus presso un'universita italiana. Le domande aperte sono state analizzate con un approccio costruttivista ispirato alla grounded theory; i risultati sono stati quindi verificati sui dati quantitativi. Lo scopo dell'analisi era distinguere le convinzioni degli intervistati (le credenze esplicite che influenzano le modalita di apprendimento) e gli atteggiamenti che operano al di sotto del livello di consapevolezza. I risultati riguardano tre aree: (1) l'apparente contraddizione tra cio che gli intervistati credono (convinzioni) e i loro atteggiamenti per quanto riguarda le opportunita di apprendimento linguistico offerto dal comunicare tramite lingue franche; (2) la loro implicita messa in discussione del nesso lingua-cultura; infine, (3) le dinamiche connesse alla scelta e alla negoziazione del codice

This chapter investigates a teaching activity from the European project Intercultural Education Resources for Erasmus Students and their Teachers (IEREST), which is titled 24h Erasmus Life and was conducted at the University of Bologna with 33 participants. Students and teachers worked online for six weeks using forums, videoconferences, chat rooms, and a course blog. The authors gathered data from the blog postings and employed thematic analysis, focusing on the students’ language experiences, including identity-related features of language proficiency, linguistic self-concept, and second-language-mediated personal development. The outcomes of this study contribute to understanding the multifaceted nature of second language identity development during study abroad and its links to intercultural learning within a non-essentialist theoretical framework. Some pedagogical implications for mobile student preparation are also considered.

Language teaching, after the 'intercultural turn' of the 1990s which more recently made it possible to speak of Foreign Language Education or Intercultural Foreign Language Education (IFLE), proposes broadening the aims of language education to include among its main concerns students' intercultural competence (IC), personal growth, and intercultural critical citizenship. This educational broadening of language-teaching horizons raises delicate and controversial issues, first of all concerning the relationship intercultural objectives have with communicative objectives at both curriculum and methodology levels. This issue, crucial since teaching a foreign language is clearly a priority for IFLE, is addressed in the present article through a proposal to integrate two models: the Methodological Model of Intercultural Competence (MetMIC) (Borghetti 2011), and the Teaching Unit Model (TUM) (Freddi 1975, 1994; Porcelli 1994; Zorzi 1995; Balboni 2002). These two frameworks, each within its own area of application (intercultural education in the case of MetMIC and foreign language teaching in the case of TUM) are focussed on curriculum planning and put forward methodological suggestions for teachers. Their integration, as suggested in this article, can be carried out on three levels (general and educational, ‘macro’ or curricular, and ‘micro’ or methodological) and allows for coherently pursuing intercultural and communicative objectives through theoretically-informed methodological choices about curriculum structure and teaching methodologies.

Assessing intercultural competence (IC) is one of the hot-button issues within intercultural language education research today. Even if there are “more questions than answers” (Sercu, 2010) about this matter, it is generally accepted that assessing IC is somehow possible and necessary. This conceptual paper shifts from possibility to ethics, and discusses some reasons why assessing IC may not be considered opportune from an ethical perspective. Moreover, it casts doubt on whether assessing IC is truly necessary in language education. The paper presents four issues which appear problematic: The weaknesses of the existing models of IC with respect to assessment; the relationship between IC and interculturally competent performance; the context-based and relational nature of IC; the affective dimension of IC.

Il presente articolo, di stampo pedagogico e operativo, descrive e commenta un’attività di educazione interculturale per studenti Erasmus sviluppata nel contesto del progetto europeo IEREST (http://ierest-project.eu/). L’attività “24 h Erasmus Life” mira a far riflettere gli studenti sul quattro aree tematiche: i possibili risvolti emotivi del percorso di mobilità, le differenze comunicative che caratterizzano ambienti accademici differenti, la dimensione sociale dell’esperienza all’estero, e i risvolti identitari dell’uso linguistico. Nell’autunno 2014, l’attività “24 h Erasmus Life” è stata sperimentata da alcuni insegnanti dell’Università di Bologna con due gruppi di studenti: il gruppo A, composto da 18 studenti internazionali, ha seguito l’attività in aula tramite lezioni faccia-a-faccia. Il gruppo B era formato da 23 studenti dell’Università di Bologna che, al momento dello svolgimento dell’attività, si trovavano in Erasmus; per questa ragione il gruppo B ha partecipato all’attività in modalità a distanza, tramite un Learning Management System. Il presente articolo ripercorre le fasi in cui si articola l’attività , si sofferma sulle esperienze degli studenti, e commenta alcuni estratti tratti dalle trascrizioni delle lezioni (gruppo A) e alcuni esempi tratti dai blog e dai forum dell’attività online (gruppo B). In generale, l’articolo intende mostrare come si è svolto l’insegnamento nei due casi considerati. This pedagogical paper describes and discusses a teaching activity of intercultural education for mobile students developed within the European IEREST project (http://ierest-project.eu/). The activity is titled “24h Erasmus Life” and aims at making students reflect on four interrelated areas of their sojourn: the emotional impact of living abroad, the understanding of how communication works within a different academic community, the broader social dimension of the experiences, and the identity-related language issues. In Autumn 2014, the activity was tested with two different groups of students by teachers at the University of Bologna (UNIBO): the first group (A) was formed by 18 international incoming students and was taught by face-to-face teaching in Bologna; the second group (B) comprised 23 UNIBO students who were doing their study abroad in a variety of European countries, and participated in the activity by means of a Learning Management System. This paper traces the main instructional phases of “24h Erasmus Life”, and comments on the students’ learning experiences by reporting extracts from transcribed peer-to-peer class interactions (group A) and from class blog and forums (group B). Overall, the paper aims to describe how the teaching took place in the two cases considered.

In agricultural calcareous soils, hydroxyapatite (APA) may well represent an important support for urease immobilisation and could be present in both mineral and organo-mineral complexes. In this paper we studied the formation of APA-urease-humic acid (HA) complexes after the addition of urease either before or after HAs. We then proceeded to evaluate the role of HAs on the activity and stability of the complexes as compared to the APA-urease complexes and free urease. When increasing amounts of HAs were added after urease, they did not affect the activity of the enzymes that had already adsorbed onto the complexes. On the contrary, adding the same amount of HA before the enzyme caused a significant reduction in the amount of enzyme adsorbed. However, when urease adsorption onto the APA-HA complexes was carried out in the presence of NaCl, the enzyme activity of the complexes increased sharply to 86% of the initial activity. The immobilisation of the enzyme on the support increased urease stability against pronase treatment as well as directly in soil over time. The inhibition of urease activity by Cu2+ was reduced by urease immobilisation. However, the presence of HA did not alter the stabilisation capability of APA when alone.

The study presented in this article aims to explore if and how intercultural learning may take place in students’ class interaction. It is grounded in the assumption that interculturality is not a clear-cut feature inherent to interactions occurring when individuals with presumed different linguistic and cultural/national backgrounds talk to each other, but that interculturality is co-constructed during interaction. In other words, every ‘interdiscourse interaction’ is potentially intercultural. We have assumed this perspective while investigating student–student class interactions that took place in an intercultural education course aimed at enhancing students’ intercultural learning in view of their sojourn abroad. Interactional data were analysed from the perspective of conversation analysis. Then, drawing on the notion of séquence potentiellement acquisitionelle as well as on a constructivist approach to intercultural learning, we conclude that, in interaction with their peers, learners can co-construct ‘potential intercultural learning sequences’ (PILS), which present recognisable interactional and discursive features.

Fundamento La prevalencia de asma en los avicultores es mas elevada que en el resto de ganaderos.El objetivo del estudio fue definir los contaminantes ambientales a los que esta expuestoel trabajador avicola y determinar la prevalencia de asma ocupacional en ese colectivo. Pacientes y metodo Estudio transversal de una muestra de los avicultores de Espana que trabajabanen el interior de edificios de confinamiento y participaron en el Estudio Europeo de SaludRespiratoria en la Agricultura y la Ganaderia, a los que se realizaron mediciones de contaminantesambientales (amoniaco, polvo total, endotoxina y microorganismos), sintomas,pruebas cutaneas con alergenos comunes y alergenos relacionados con la avicultura, y pruebasde provocacion bronquial especifica. Se utilizo el coeficiente de Spearman para estimar la correlacionentre contaminantes ambientales. Resultados Un total de 14 de 15 avicultores participaron en el estudio (indice de respuesta:del 93,3%). La concentracion (mediana [rango intercuartil]) de contaminantes en los edificiosde confinamiento fue de 7,5 (5-20) ppm para el amoniaco, 2,6 (1,8-4,6) mg/m3 para el polvototal, 137,1 (58,6-243,9) ng/m3 para la endotoxina y 7.600 (907-27.750) × 103 unidades formadorasde colonias/m3 para las bacterias. La concentracion de endotoxina se correlaciono conla concentracion bacteriana (r = 0,69, p Conclusiones Una tercera parte de los avicultores que trabajan en edificios de confinamientotiene sibilancias, y esta sintomatologia en parte es atribuible a asma ocupacional por sensibilizaciona acaros de almacenamiento.

Activation of peripheral blood neutrophils (PMN) was investigated in order to determine whether they might contribute to the inflammatory process during active advanced tuberculosis. Receptors for the Fc portion of IgG (FcγR) (FcγRI, FcγRII, and FcγRIIIB), CD66 (degranulation marker), and receptors for tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-R55 and TNF-R75) were analyzed on PMN obtained from normal controls and tuberculosis patients (TB-PMN). Functional parameters such as cytotoxicity, superoxide anion generation triggered by N-formyl-methionyl-leucyl-phenyl-alanine (FMLP), and TNF-α and IL-1β production were evaluated. A high expression of TNF-R55, CD66, and FcγRIIIB and the appearance of FcγRI were detected in TB-PMN. In addition, cytotoxicity, superoxide anion release, and TNF-α and IL-1β production were enhanced in TB-PMN. Thus, in tuberculosis, the activation of PMN outside the focus of infection strongly suggests the possibility of a systemic inflammation that could modulate the inflammatory response. Fil: de la Barrera, Silvia Susana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Academia Nacional de Medicina de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Investigaciones Hematológicas ; Argentina Fil: Sasiain, María del Carmen. Academia Nacional de Medicina de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Investigaciones Hematológicas ; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina Fil: Alemán, Mercedes. Academia Nacional de Medicina de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Investigaciones Hematológicas ; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina Fil: Beigier Bompadre, Macarena. Academia Nacional de Medicina de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Investigaciones Hematológicas ; Argentina Fil: Borghetti, Claudio. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Hospital de Infecciosas ; Argentina Fil: Abbate, Pablo Eduardo. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Hospital de Infecciosas ; Argentina Fil: Isturiz, Martín Amadeo. Academia Nacional de Medicina de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Investigaciones Hematológicas ; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina

A high prevalence of asthma has been reported in poultry farmers. Our aim was to determine air contaminants in poultry confinement buildings and the prevalence of occupational asthma in these workers.Spanish poultry farmers who participated in the European Study Prevalence and Risk Factors for Airway Obstruction in Farmers, who worked inside confinement buildings, were enrolled in a cross-sectional study that included the measurement of air contaminants (ammonia, total dust, endotoxin and microorganisms), symptoms, skin testing with common and poultry-related allergens, and a specific bronchial challenge. The Spearman correlation coefficient was used to assess the correlation between air contaminants.14/15 poultry farmers participated in the study (response index: 93.3%). Concentrations of air contaminants in the confinement buildings [median (interquartile range)] were: 7.5 (5-20) ppm for ammonia, 2.6 (1.8-4.6) mg/m3 for total dust, 137.1 (58.6-243.9) ng/m3 for endotoxin and 7,600 (907-27,750) colony-forming units/m3 * 103 for bacteria. Endotoxin correlated with bacterial concentration (r = 0.69, p0.01). 5/14 poultry farmers reported wheezing and/or asthma within the last year (35.7%), and in 2 of them spirometry demonstrated current asthma (14.3%). Specific bronchial provocation confirmed the diagnosis of occupational asthma in one subject with current asthma sensitized to the storage mite Lepidoglyphos destructor (7.1%).One third of poultry farmers working inside confinement buildings reported wheezing, that is partly attributable to occupational asthma caused by storage mites.

PAISA' is a Creative Commons licensed, large web corpus of contemporary Italian. We describe the design, harvesting, and processing steps involved in its creation.

The article offers some reflections on the so-called ‘intercultural perspective to the teaching of modern languages’ or ‘intercultural linguistic education’. It focuses in particular on a relatively recent development of the discipline, linked to the attempt to adopt a non-essentialist definition of ‘culture’ in glottodidactics. Unlike the well-known culturalist paradigm, the non-essentialist one challenges the idea that it is appropriate to set up the development of intercultural competence by leveraging only the international dimension of diversity. Non-essentialist principles are currently on the margins of intercultural linguistic education; but they are an opportunity to question some of the assumptions on which much of the theoretical reflection and didactic practice dedicated to the intercultural aims of learning and teaching languages are based., Studi di glottodidattica, V. 7, N. 2 (2022): Special Issue

La comunicazione commenta uno dei risultati ottenuti nel corso di uno studio di caso condotto presso l’Università di Bologna, nell’ambito del progetto europeo ATIAH (Approaches and Tools for Internationalisation at Home). L’obiettivo complessivo era indagare come la comunità universitaria locale (studenti, personale accademico e non accademico, responsabili delle politiche educative) concettualizzasse “l’internazionalizzazione a casa” in termini di pratiche esistenti e di prospettive future. L’analisi dei dati – raccolti tramite 9 interviste e 2 focus group – evidenzia che l’internazionalizzazione è percepita dagli intervistati come sinonimo di multilinguismo e di valorizzazione della lingua italiana. Commenteremo questo risultato alla luce del dibattito scientifico sull’internazionalizzazione delle università. Internationalisation in italian? The point of view of the academic community on multilingualism at the University of Bologna This paper comments on one of the results of a case study conducted at the University of Bologna as part of the European project ATIAH (Approaches and Tools for Internationalization at Home). The overall objective was to investigate how the local university community (students, academic and non-academic staff, educational policy makers) conceptualized “internationalization at home” in terms of existing practices and future perspectives. The analysis of the data – collected through 9 interviews and 2 focus groups – shows that internationalization is perceived by the interviewees as synonymous with multilingualism and the enhancement of the Italian language. We discuss this result in light of the scientific debate on the internationalization of universities., Italiano LinguaDue, V. 12 N. 1 (2020)

Questo articolo esamina le convinzioni e atteggiamenti degli studenti universitari in materia di apprendimento e utilizzo delle lingue in contesto di mobilità, quando tali lingue - compreso l’inglese - vengono usate come lingue franche. I dati sono stati raccolti attraverso un questionario somministrato a 141 studenti Erasmus presso un’università italiana. Le domande aperte sono state analizzate con un approccio costruttivista ispirato alla grounded theory; i risultati sono stati quindi verificati sui dati quantitativi. Lo scopo dell’analisi era distinguere le convinzioni degli intervistati (le credenze esplicite che influenzano le modalità di apprendimento) e gli atteggiamenti che operano al di sotto del livello di consapevolezza. I risultati riguardano tre aree: (1) l'apparente contraddizione tra ciò che gli intervistati credono (convinzioni) e i loro atteggiamenti per quanto riguarda le opportunità di apprendimento linguistico offerto dal comunicare tramite lingue franche; (2) la loro implicita messa in discussione del nesso lingua-cultura; infine, (3) le dinamiche connesse alla scelta e alla negoziazione del codice. This paper explores higher education students’ beliefs and attitudes concerning language learning and use in the context of learning mobility, when lingua francas - including English - are used. Data were collected through a questionnaire administered to 141 Erasmus students at an Italian University. The open-ended questions were analysed using a constructivist grounded theory approach, and findings checked against the quantitative data. The analysis aimed at distinguishing between respondents’ beliefs, i.e. overt convictions which influence learning behaviour, and attitudes operating below the level of awareness. Findings address three main issues: (1) the apparent contradiction between the respondents’ attitudes and beliefs with regard to the opinion that lingua francas offer valuable language-learning opportunities; (2) their implicit questioning of the language-culture nexus; finally, (3) the study sheds light on code choice and negotiation.

Nowadays participation in study abroad is no longer a privilege for the very few. Thanks to the Lifelong Learning Programme, and now Erasmus +, it is promoted at all levels of higher education (Bachelor, Master, PhD), and even within secondary schools, and has involved millions of students in the last decades; it is also seen as one of the most effective instruments of internationalisation. Spending a period studying abroad is not a new practice: it dates back to antiquity and has always been appreciated as the best way to learn about different countries, cultures, people and languages. What is new regarding student mobility is the growing understanding of the need to be properly prepared for such a sojourn in order to maximise the benefits offered by this experience, also from an intercultural point of view. Still quite often such preparation is limited to providing practical information about the host institution or country (like finding accommodation or buying a SIM-card), or culture-specific information which often transmits a non-problematic and stereotypical view of a national culture (such as “The French are…” or “the Germans are not….”). Indeed, intercultural preparation is very seldom offered to mobile students, partly because of the difficulty in finding appropriate teaching materials which are culture-general, and therefore usable with all students, regardless of their destination. This is the gap that IEREST, the project presented here, aims to fill. Das Studium im Ausland ist heute nicht mehr ein Privileg weniger. Dank der Programme zum Lebenslangen Lernen und jetzt Erasmus Plus werden alle Stufen der Hochschulbildung (Bachelor, Master, PhD) und der höheren Schulen (secondary schools) gefördert, was Millionen von Schülern und Studenten in den letzten Jahrzehnten nutzen konnten; es wird auch als eines der wirksamsten Instrumente für Internationalisierung gesehen. Ein Auslandssemester ist keine neue Praxis: es reicht zurück bis in die Antike und galt immer als der beste Weg, etwas über verschiedene Länder, Kulturen, Menschen und Sprachen zu erfahren. Was neu ist in Bezug auf studentische Mobilität, ist das wachsende Verständnis für die Notwendigkeit, gut auf einen solchen Aufenthalt vorbereitet zu sein, um diesen Nutzen auch aus interkultureller Sicht zu maximieren. Oft noch ist eine solche Vorbereitung beschränkt auf praktische Informationen über die gastgebende Einrichtung oder das Land (wie das Finden einer Unterkunftsmöglichkeit oder das Kaufen einer sim-card) oder kulurspezifische Informationen, die häufig eine unktitische und stereotype Sichtweise der nationalen Kultur vermittelt (so wie „Die Franzosen sind ...” oder „die Deutschen sind nicht ...” ). Tatsächlich wird den mobilen Studenten nur sehr selten eine interkulturelle Vorbereitung gewährt, zum Teil auch wegen der Schwierigkeit, geeignete Lehrmaterialien zu finden, die kulturell allgemein gehalten sind, so dass sie brauchbar für alle Studenten sind, unabhängig von ihrer Herkunft. Das ist die Lücke, die IEREST, das Projekt, das hier vorgestellt wird, schließen möchte.

In this article, we present the multi-facetted interface to the open PAISÀ corpus of Italian. Created within the project PAISÀ (Piattaforma per l’Apprendimento dell’Italiano Su corpora Annotati) [1], the corpus is designed to be free for processing, usage and distribution by the public. All documents included in the corpus are licensed under Creative Commons [2]. They are automatically annotated with lemma, part-of-speech and dependency information. The accompanying interface is designed to provide flexible, powerful, and easy-to-use modes of corpus access, to support language learning, language practicing and linguistic analyses. In our paper, we present in detail the interface’s functionalities and discuss underlying design decisions. First, we introduce the four principal components of the interface, then we present two specialized features that are added to increase the interface's impact for the language learning context. The main search components are (1) a basic search that adopts a “Google-style” search box, (2) an advanced search that provides elaborated graphical search options, and (3) a CQP search that makes use of the powerful query language CQP of the Open Corpus Workbench [3]. In addition, a fourth component for retrieving full-text corpus documents based on keyword searches is available. It is likewise providing the means for building temporary sub-corpora for specific topics. Integrated into each search component, the PAISÀ interface offers a function for restricting search results to sentences of limited complexity, as can be particularly helpful to novice language learners. The selection is based on formal text characteristics such as sentence length, vocabulary, etc. A second innovative feature of the interface is the supply of different display formats for the representation of search results. Besides the established KWIC (KeyWord In Context) and full sentence views, the entire corpus documents can be accessed and visual representations of the dependency relation information as well as keyword distributions are available. These partly interactive graphical representations build on recent developments in information visualization for language data, and are based on a visualization for dependency graphs [4] and one for Word Clouds [5]. Finally, we show how the PAISÀ interface can be employed in different language teaching tasks. In particular, we present a complete unit of work aimed at learners of Italian (level B1 or above of CEFR) and centered on students’ direct use of the PAISÀ interface and its functionalities. By doing so, we be giving concrete examples for targeted searches and interactions with the provided language material, as well as an exemplification of how the use of the corpus can be integrated with communicative language activities in the classroom. [1] www.corpusitaliano.it, co-financed by Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca (MIUR). [2] http://creativecommons.org/ [3] Evert, S. and Hardie, A. (2011). ‘Twenty-first century Corpus Workbench: Updating a query architecture for the new millennium’. In: Proceedings of the Corpus Linguistics 2011 conference, University of Birmingham, UK. [4] Culy, C., Lyding, V., and Dittmann, H. (2011). ‘xLDD: Extended Linguistic Dependency Diagrams’. In: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Information Visualisation, 12-15 July 2011, University of London, UK. [5] http://code.google.com/p/visapi-gadgets/