Concordance-based Data-Driven Learning (DDL) aims to help second language learners infer language usage rules from language usage regularities. A number of DDL pedagogical treatments have focussed on phraseological units such as collocations, widely recognised as a central component of second language learning. This study evaluates DDL effects…

This paper illustrates the use of two language-teaching and learning methods (process drama and theatre) in a class of Italian. Process drama is based on improvisation, over-identification, and dramatisation from a short set of coordinates that students can read just a few minutes before the activity that will be later performed in class (see…

This paper concerns a virtual exchange project between the University of Virginia (UVa), United States, and an upper-secondary school in Pavia, Italy. Centred on the question of gender equality, the project has been designed to take place over three years (2018-2021) with a direct reference to Robert O'Dowd's transnational model of virtual…

This pilot study aims to highlight a) differences in pragmatic function and distribution of discourse markers (DMs) in computer mediated and face to face (FtF) settings and b) any correlation of DM uses and language competence. The data have been collected by video-recording and analysing three speakers of Italian L2 (language level competence:…

A study investigated the linguistic behavior of three groups of speakers in reacting to accusatory complaints: (1) native speakers of Italian residing in Italy (SI); (2) native speakers of Canadian English residing in Toronto (CE); and (3) speakers of Italian residing in Toronto, first-generation immigrants, defined as speakers of Italian as a…

The properties of one of the structures of politeness in the romance languages, the deference system connected with the use of conditional tenses, are analyzed in this paper. Although only Spanish examples are given, the conclusions also apply to French, Italian and Roumanian. The first part of the paper analyzes politeness in relation to its…

Children and adults speaking English, Hungarian, and Italian were asked to describe sets of pictures which manipulated the pragmatic category of givenness. The working hypothesis was that there exist rule-governed relations between the perception of certain categorical aspects of the communicative situation and the use of certain conventional…

This paper considers the problems of the second-year intermediate college language course, the principles that are fundamental to any intermediate class and observations on the content of the course. The limitations imposed by time, the scope of the subject matter, and the varied capabilities and interests of the students constitute the Special…