This article examines the impact that an arts project had on the relationship between a group of asylum seekers and the Italian town where they live. The project brought together local youth and asylum seekers to engage in dance workshops and video-making workshops. This article combines interviews with project participants and teachers with an…

This article addresses key issues related to diverse cases of migration to complex multilingual environments within Europe. Data came from three case studies carried out within the scope of the MIME project: (ex-)Yugoslavian refugees to South Tyrol (Italy); Portuguese work migrants to Andorra; and international managers in Vasa (Finland). Data…

In this paper a context where receptive multilingualism represents a communicative strategy of adjustment in a context of second language acquisition is discussed. The traditional scope of receptive multilingualism has been extended to multilingual environments resulting from an experience of mobility, namely transnational adoptive families.…

The increasing use of English in higher education around the world has prompted a large amount of research into the causes, effects and perceptions of this phenomenon, particularly relating to the introduction of English-medium instruction. While most previous research has focussed on institutions that have effectively 'added' English to existing…

This study brings together two previously largely independent fields of multilingual language acquisition: heritage language and third language (L3) acquisition. We investigate the production of fortis and lenis stops in semi-naturalistic speech in the three languages of 20 heritage speakers (HSs) of Italian with German as a majority language and…

The present study investigates whether exposure to multilingual pedagogies enhances emergent bilingual children's narrative abilities. These abilities are among the most reliable indicators of children's literacy skills. We compare two groups of emergent bilingual children with migrant background attending the fourth and fifth grade of a public…

The report presents the results of an experimentation of an intercomprehension (IC) workshop, delivered in blended mode for Italian and Brazilian PhD students, and activated at the Language Center of the University of Ferrara during the academic year 2021-22. The general objective was for participants to learn a methodology that enables…

The present study investigates third language (L3) learners' processing of Chinese subject and object relative clauses in a supportive context. Using a self-paced reading task, we tested native Italian L3 learners of Mandarin Chinese and native Chinese speakers. The results showed that the L3 learners read significantly more slowly than the native…

The present paper investigates the acquisition of L3 Polish by L1 Italian university students of L2 Russian. The participants had never studied the L3 prior to the experiment, but took a meta-linguistically explicit course in Slavic Linguistics focussing on Polish/Russian contrastive grammar. The main research question is whether or not the…

The present volume constitutes a singular contribution to its field on several counts. First and foremost, it is an outcome of a joint research effort by members of various European higher education institutions who have cooperated within the framework of the European Campus of City Universities Project (EC2U). It is an initiative that brings…

Intensive language programs have increased in popularity in recent years. They are perceived as a means to help current or prospective university students improve their language competencies and academic skills in their medium(s) of instruction in a short amount of time prior to enrolment and/or parallel to their degree courses. However, there has…

The present contribution aims at describing the main phases of implementation of a Transformative Action-Research project named 'L'AltRoparlante'. This project began in school year 2016/2017 and is still being implemented in five Italian multilingual schools. Its main purpose is to acknowledge students' individual and collective multilingual…

Although some research has been conducted on the importance of mediation in language learning and teaching (Dendrinos, 2006; González-Davies, 2020; Piccardo, 2012, 2020; Scarino, 2016), there is still scarce research on the integration of plurilingualism, mediation, and technology. Through qualitative and quantitative methodology, this paper…

The present study looks into the effects of early multilingual education by investigating linguistic knowledge and metalinguistic awareness in young learners at the primary level. The study aims to establish whether children in multilingual education programmes perform higher on a measure of metalinguistic awareness and with regards to their L1…

Due to globalisation and migration, multilingualism has become both a reality and an aim of education systems across Europe, affecting how language education is shaped. To improve the ways in which schools cater for language education in diverse settings, research is required on the potentials of multilingualism in order to design curricula that…