Congress of the Cluster ‘The Role of Language in Teaching Foreign Literatures’

Congress of the Cluster
 The Role of Language in Teaching Foreign Literatures

Humanities Department, University of Trento
Inter-university Research Centre “LinE – Language in Education”

13-14 November 2025

Plurilingual education fosters linguistic diversity, enhances cognitive abilities, and promotes intercultural understanding. It is actively supported in national and international policy-making, which encourages the promotion of competences in different languages in education. While the use of English as a Foreign Language is becoming increasingly widespread in Italian universities, the presence of other foreign languages is quite rare, with the exception of the context of teaching foreign literatures. In such contexts, different languages can constitute the vehicular language, together with Italian L1, and the question of the use of learners’ L1/s, the language of the taught literature and other languages is relevant.

It is also crucial to investigate linguistic and communicative strategies of plurilingual teaching of foreign literatures at school in Italy and of Italian literature in non-Italian universities.

The Cluster LinE is carrying out a survey on these topics among lecturers and teachers of Italian universities and schools and non-Italian universities.

The Congress will be the first occasion to discuss the survey’s results and to share ideas with survey’s participants.

The Congress will take place in a blended format (in person + online).
Further information and updates will be provided.