Language Awareness in Italian Secondary Schools How Do Students Approach Language Awareness Tasks and What Kind of Language Awareness Emerges from Their Reflections?

Abstract

The present paper aims to explore how students of Italian secondary schools approach linguistic tasks and what sort of knowledge about language emerges from their analyses. These questions arise from the observation of the results of the Invalsi tests. In order to examine how students construct their answers to a sample of language awareness questions, they were asked to explain how to answer them by making a tutorial video. The videos were discussed during a semi-structured interview. The data were transcribed and analysed by means of Qualitative Content Analysis. The results indicate that the principal difference between students relates to the stability of their “engagement with language” and their ability to switch their attention between different levels of linguistic analysis.