Da Centri Linguistici di Ateneo a Centri Linguistici e Interculturali di Ateneo: un’evoluzione possibile

The reasons for this work are twofold, and they should be remembered while going through the various steps of this essay. The first refers to language/culture teaching, where the cultural dimension takes up an everincreasing central role in non-English language teaching as well as in teaching English as a lingua franca – and as such “deculturated” – which, being an international language, must take into account the global international communication sector that has seen a significant growth in high profile research. The second reason refers to language teaching at university level with its focus on University Language Centres. Language schools are everywhere; there are myriads of often poor quality online courses – a fact which is known to specialists only. There can be several opportunities for learning when travelling on an Erasmus+ or similar programmes whilst universities have to cut their costs and redistribute resources. As University Language Centres are not one of the priorities, they could be replaced by private cooperatives or by native language teachers, previously employed as Language Centre staff. University Language Centres might be able to survive budget cuts if they become indispensable – and working on the internationalisation process may make them indispensable if they make the most of their internationalised teachers’ potential in order to provide an intercultural advisory service on the nature and procedures of universities around the world, on the different cultural implications that differentiate apparently similar words such as university, professor, tutor, test, knowledge, teaching and so on – rather than just being involved in language teaching, like private schools and associations. We will first briefly define the meaning of intercultural communication, and then focus on its role in the two above mentioned situations.