Teaching the history of Italy in an Italian course as foreign language (LS)

Abstract

The article presents a part of an Italian history project for foreigners who, outside Italy, study the Italian language and culture. Considering the difficulties and characteristics of the students, I propose to provide tools and knowledge useful to study the Italian language through some sources, traditional and not, that transmit and preserve the historical memory and allow a targeted thinking, aiming above all to promote the cultural pleasure of this experience. Neglecting here the more strictly linguistic aspects, I choose to give space to the transmission of historical knowledge in LS classes, to the specificity of Italian history and its repercussions in the language, to the skills relating to historical knowledge in this context, to the problem of Italian history textbooks for foreigners, to the teaching plan based on activities, strategies and “texts” properly chosen.