Effetti dell’intercomprensione sulla motivazione allo studio di LS in studenti di scuola secondaria di secondo grado

During the last 30 years there have been numerous attempts to include intercomprehension within formal contexts. If the space that can be carved out in the university environment is more flexible, the curricular inclusion of intercomprehension in high school continues to meet with resistance, despite the fact that Italian language education has always been attentive to the multilingual dimension, for historical and socio-political reasons. This gave rise to the idea of fostering familiarisation of secondary school students with the intercomprehensive approach by carrying out a course of intercomprehension, during the school years 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23, in two different secondary schools in Italy, namely a Technical Institute in the province of Brescia and a High School in Belluno, involving third, fourth- and fifth-year pupils, for a total of 5 classes and 95 students. The action was accompanied by a qualitative data collection in order to investigate the evolution of the students' awareness. This was monitored through the administration of anonymous surveys or through questions in anonymous applications (Wooclap) at three different stages of the course: before the beginning, half-way and lastly at the end of the exposure to intercomprehension. The data were triangulated with what emerged from the field notes and with the data collections carried out with the teachers. In this paper, particular consideration will be given to the portion of qualitative data collected in the three experiences that allowed for the manifestation of evidence regarding the change in students' awareness of foreign languages as a result of the course, often leading to an increase in their motivation or openness to studying them. In spite of the limitations of the research in terms of differences in context and recipients, clear similarities emerged in the action that intercomprehension has on the students' beliefs and the openness it creates towards languages unknown to them, thus acting favourably on motivation and creating strong engagement.