L'AUTONOMIA NELL'APPRENDIMENTO DELLE LINGUE. UN'INDAGINE SULL'ITALIANO L2 IN CONTESTO UNIVERSITARIO

The aim of the thesis is to investigate the development of autonomy in language learning at university. The work consists of two parts. The first deals with the concept of learning autonomy from a theoretical, historical and methodological point of view. After a review of the main reference models and an excursus on how the same subject has been addressed in the documents and projects of the Council of Europe, the study focuses on the function and organization of self-access learning centers, on the transformation they are undergoing from physical spaces to virtual environments and on the role of language advisors. The second part of the work concerns two case studies, carried out at the Centro per l’Autoapprendimento (CAP) of Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, with international students of Italian L2. The first case study examines how the students make use of the Center and of the language advising activities. The second describes a didactic experiment on the collaboration between language advisor and language teacher, aimed at bringing a selected group of international students closer to autonomous learning of Italian. The results of the two case studies are analysed and commented to reflect on the activities of the CAP in order to improve them and to propose good teaching practices useful for the development of autonomy in Italian L2 learning.