‘Lettori per l’italiano’ (Italian Language Assistants) is a new in-depth column from italiana with interviews with language assistants, the new ambassadors of the Italian language in the world. The language assistants, spread out all over the planet, actually contribute to the dissemination of Italianness at a ‘glocal’ level and to its appreciation from an intercultural and multilingual point of view.
In modern universities, the language assistant is a teacher whose job it is to work alongside the literature professor and get students involved in hands-on practice. The Italian assistant sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation is, on the other hand, a permanent secondary school teacher, who, when transferred abroad, becomes the full professor of the subject, working across courses in Italian Literature, History, Conversation, Writing and Culture.
This is an opportunity to learn more about this multifaceted kind of teacher, by discovering new and less traditional contexts in which Italian is establishing itself as an emerging language.
The project is kicking off in the East, with an event dedicated to teaching the Italian language in the city of Hanoi. Then it will continue by looking at Italian education in one of the oldest universities in Teheran. It will resume with the Mediterranean and the age-old charm of our language at the Manouba Campus in Tunis.
Educational strategies and teaching methods, motivations and aspirations of young students who choose to study the Italian language, collaborations and synergies with the local and Italian cultural network, moving from the challenges imposed by the pandemic to new horizons of rebirth and redemption. These are the issues that will animate the column and provide us with a renewed image of the scenarios of learning and dissemination of an increasingly attractive and current language.
