La competenza scritta in italiano L2 di apprendenti vulnerabili

The high number of low-literate vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers among L2 Italian learners requires a rethinking not only of approaches and teaching methods, but also of assessment strategies. The present study aims to investigate the effectiveness of two different rating scales in the assessment of writing skills for this peculiar target of learners, a Standard Evaluation Scale and a Functional Adequacy Scale. Application of the two assessment methods on a corpus of about 450 written texts produced by 50 refugees and asylum seekers from 16 different countries, with an Italian A2 level competence, demonstrated that a Functional Adequacy Scale can be a more reliable and efficient tool than a Standard Evaluation Scale for valorising also poor writing skills, instead of underlying the limits of low-literate productions.