Usare le lingue seconde nell’educazione linguistica: una sperimentazione nella scuola primaria nello spirito dell’Éveil aux langues

In this study the design of and first results from the project Noi e le nostre lingue are presented. The project took place during the school year 2016-2017 in multilingual classes of primary schools located in Turin (Italy) Following the suggestions of the Awakening to languages program (Candelier, 2003), the project offers a discovery path through linguistic similarity and diversity based on languages not taught in school but available among the pupils’ heritage languages or even unknown to all of them. Through active listening and manipulation of sounds, words, sentences and short texts, offered by native speakers of different languages in the role of linguistic witnesses, the children’s capacity for epilinguistic activity is stimulated as well as a positive attitude towards linguistic variety, as shown by results from interviews and comprehension tests after first exposure to an unknown language, performed in experimental and control classes.