A Brief History of the Concept of Language Education in Italy

Ristret

The concept of “language education” (educazione linguistica) is one of the fundamental concepts of Italian educational linguistics. Born in the Italian educational and linguistic cultural sphere a century and a half ago and defined, in its current contours, from the 1960s and 1970s onwards, it identifies – in its broadest sense – a process involving the teaching/learning of Italian and of other non-national mother tongues and of foreign, classical and ethnic languages. In this contribution, we intend to trace a brief history of the evolution of the concept of language education in Italy over the last century and a half, highlighting how, over time, it has been defined through theoretical, pedagogical, didactic and linguistic reflections, often ahead of their time, proposing extremely modern and current visions of language education