La didattica dell’italiano L2 per lo studio per apprendenti cinesi in contesto universitario

The paper proposes a reflection on the challenges of teaching Italian L2 for study purposes to Chinese-speaking university students. Such type of teaching is relatively recent in Italy and is currently object of great interest by researchers, teachers, and course managers, since the population of Chinese-speaking university students constantly grows. Specific courses are provided in order to prepare non-native students to access academic texts and lessons, and to develop learners’ expositive and argumentative skills. Peculiar linguistic structures of the language for study purposes are here addressed from both a teaching and learning perspective, by integrating methodological assumptions and comments on students’ data. In particular, the paper focuses on deagentivization strategies, such as passive constructions, which are structures not so frequent in everyday language and quite complex to acquire, but fundamental in the use of language for study purposes.