L’Italia vista da fuori. Piccola indagine sulla percezione dell’Italia secondo gli insegnanti di italiano nel mondo.

The essay deals with the foreigners’ perception of Italy according to a corpus of Italian teachers across 24 countries. Two main topics are discussed: a) what foreigners think of Italy which is (no longer) true, and could be corrected by teachers and textbooks of Italian (and by Italian cultural institutions abroad); b) what foreigners do not know about Italy, and should be highlighted by teachers and textbooks of Italian (and by Italian cultural institutions abroad). In the sentences above the reference to Italian cultural institutions is in brackets because the survey involved teachers and did not involve people from such institutions. The essay discusses the different aspects of untold or badly told Italy, and point out six topics that can help teachers and textbook authors to tell Italy correctly and fully, as the are the ‘ambassadors’ of Italy for over 2 million students of Italian.