Dall'autonomia nell'apprendimento delle lingue straniere allo sviluppo della competenza plurilingue : una ricerca nella scuola secondaria.

Notwithstanding the numerous existing works on plurilingual education and on language learner autonomy, very few studies have focused on the connection between these two fields and young students. The aim of this investigation is to research possible correspondences between the greater development of language learner autonomy and acquisition of plurilingual competence in middle and upper secondary school Italian pupils. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data collected through pupil and teacher questionnaires has investigated the level of the pupils’ language learning autonomy, their use of formal and informal settings for language learning and whether it was possible to highlight any variable connected with the development of language learner autonomy which could improve the plurilingual competence. Findings have shown that the influence of autonomy on the development of plurilingual competence is to be found in affective factors like pupils’ attributions and motivation towards plurilingualism and autonomy; a problematic issue concerns the lack of metacognitive skills as it has been seen that conditions of potential plurilingualism do not lead to the development of plurilingual competence if not supported by learning awareness.