Abstract
The project Racconta – Narrative competences and literacy development between internal variation and plurilingualism investigated narrative skills during the process of maturation of communicative competences in the years of junior secondary and upper secondary school. The questions motivating the research concern how narrative competence develops during adolescence, how narrative skills vary across different dimensions (age, sociolinguistic setting), what is the role of increasing literacy during the school years, and what is the impact of multilingualism and heritage languages on narrative competence in adolescence. The focus on narrative skills is motivated by the observation that they constitute a natural bridge between the use of oral language in spontaneous communicative situations and the use of language in school contexts. This observation is supported by a long tradition of studies (among the most influential works, Berman 2009; Berman & Slobin 1994; Strömqvist & Verhoeven 2004; Hickmann 2004; Gagarina et al. 2016), which have shown how narrative skills are based on the ability to use linguistic strategies of textual cohesion and contextualization that are also essential for other production and comprehension tasks. In the words of Gagarina et al. (2016: 12), “[n]arrative skills are important for academic success because they are an important discursive form through which academic information is disseminated and acquired.” Explicit training of narrative skills in school has been shown to be instrumental for their development (Snow 1983). The scientific study of narrative skills, therefore, allows for the combination of a theoretical interest in the macro- and microstructural aspects involved in textual production with an applied interest in the educational implications of the research. These two aspects built the pillars of the Racconta project, which (i) on the one hand, created an original corpus of spoken Italian narrative texts elicited under semi-naturalistic conditions by Italian teenagers with mono- and multilingual backgrounds and developed pilot studies on referential and other cohesive strategies in these texts; (ii) on the other hand, capitalized on this dataset to develop a framework for teachers’ training, which was applied with the groups of teachers involved in the project.
Results achieved
During the project, the two research teams involved collected 450 oral productions elicited in a naturalistic setting by a total of 231 participants and created a corpus of transcriptions, cross-linked with sociolinguistic metadata. This textual corpus is now available to scholars upon password request (thus complying with Open Access principles, as far as this is compatible with Data protection principles and with the current stage of the research). Different options for its expansion and linking with existing corpora are currently being evaluated and may be pursued in parallel, depending on future funding opportunities and the consolidation of collaborative partnerships. As planned, data collection was carried out in selected junior secondary and upper secondary schools, both in Bologna and in Torino, with which specific agreements were reached. In addition, we ensured the collaboration of a Chinese-language community school in Bologna, in order to complete the data collection with Mandarin Chinese heritage speakers. The research unit in Torino completed the data collection with Moroccan Arabic heritage speakers in the involved junior secondary schools as planned. Productions were elicited by adapting and applying the protocol developed by the RUEG project (FU Berlin, Research Unit ‘Emerging Grammars in Language Contact Situations’). This protocol, based on the ‘Language Situations’ method (Wiese 2020), was selected in order to experimentally manipulate contextual conditions connected to situated register choices in narration. Our application of the protocol ensured broader comparability of our data and results with those of the RUEG corpus, fulfilling a specific project goal in this respect. On the basis of the collected data, the research teams carried out various pilot studies on selected dimensions, as foreseen by the project’s workplan: study of internal variation in the investigated population of teenagers (comprising conditions on register and multilingual repertoires); study of reference tracking strategies (with a particular focus on referent introduction); study of further cohesive and discourse-structural devices specifically connected to the story grammar of narrative texts. These studies have been presented at national and international conferences and have been published in the conferences’ proceedings or are currently under preparation for publication. Furthermore, the collected texts were used to prepare the material designed for the teacher training activities, which were articulated into various meetings and which addressed teachers involved in the experimental part, their colleagues in the visited schools, and more broadly teachers in Bologna and Torino who had been reached thanks to the collaboration of the USRs (Regional School Offices) and of GISCEL Piemonte and GISCEL Emilia-Romagna. A central objective of the Racconta project has been to translate research findings into concrete pedagogical practices through the co-design of teaching materials and training activities. This goal has been pursued through a bottom-up, participatory approach that actively involved teachers throughout the research process, fostering a productive exchange between empirical investigation and classroom practice. This collaborative framework has contributed to enhancing teachers’ awareness of the complex factors underlying the development of narrative and literacy skills, particularly in multilingual and socially diverse classrooms. Special attention has been devoted to the challenges faced by second-generation students, including the role of multiliteracy and the uneven access to communicative practices in the language of schooling. At the same time, the project has emphasized that such variation is not limited to multilingual learners, but also affects so-called monolingual students, thereby supporting an inclusive pedagogical perspective that addresses the entire classroom rather than distinguishing rigidly between L1 and L2 learners. The co-participative nature of the project has also led to tangible pedagogical outcomes. In collaboration with teachers, the project has contributed to the development of a teaching protocol aimed at enhancing oral narrative competences in Italian and in students’ home languages. Finally, the training activities were intended to promote a shift in teachers’ attitudes and practices, encouraging a more systematic and informed observation of students’ linguistic and textual performance, as well as the implementation of classroom activities specifically aimed at fostering narrative competence in multilingual settings. In this respect, the project has contributed to strengthening teachers’ preparedness -widely recognized as a key factor in literacy development- and to creating the conditions for a positive interaction between school language and home languages within the educational process. The project hosted a closing workshop, which was advertised internationally and which allowed the research teams to plan for future activities and collaborations. The Racconta project opens several promising avenues for future development, both in linguistic research and educational practice. Building on the corpus of oral narrations in varying language situations and on the methodological framework developed during the project, a first perspective consists in a targeted expansion of the dataset to a more diverse population, enabling more robust generalizations and cross-community comparisons, especially with respect to different curricula in secondary schools and to different heritage language communities. This appears to be instrumental for further deepening the understanding of multilingual narrative competence and cross-linguistic influence, as the current sub-corpus, while validating the effectiveness of the protocol and providing interesting data for the analysis of individual profiles, is too small and diverse to allow for solid generalizations. At the theoretical level, the project lays the groundwork for refining models of linguistic and textual competence by integrating sociolinguistic variation, literacy development, and dependence on language situations. From an applied perspective, the teaching protocols and training practices co-designed with educators can be further applied and disseminated across different educational contexts, contributing to more inclusive and effective language teaching in multilingual classrooms. In the longer term, the resources produced –such as annotated corpora, elicitation protocols, and pedagogical materials– could support the development of improved assessment tools and inform educational policies addressing linguistic diversity. Overall, Racconta has the potential to evolve into a scalable, interdisciplinary research and training model with significant impact on both the scientific community and the school system.Dettagli del progetto
Responsabile scientifico: Chiara Gianollo
Strutture Unibo coinvolte:
Dipartimento di Filologia Classica e Italianistica
Coordinatore:
ALMA MATER STUDIORUM - Università di Bologna(Italy)
Contributo totale di progetto: Euro (EUR) 130.622,00
Contributo totale Unibo: Euro (EUR) 65.311,00
Durata del progetto in mesi: 24
Data di inizio
12/12/2023
Data di fine:
28/02/2026
