Reading beyond a language family - Intercomprehension and reading strategies from Romance Languages to EFL for the early teaching of plurilingualism to young learners

Abstract

To foster more impactful cross-linguistic education, this qualitative research explores the effectiveness of implementing Romance Intercomprehension (RIC) modules in the Italian middle school. To this aim, the study investigates the possibility of a spontaneous transfer to non-Romance English of a series of comprehension strategies developed in a RIC context. Two groups of Italian pupils, different in age and exposure to RIC (n.=12+12, age=11-14), completed online the same EFL reading comprehension task, in pairs. The analysis of transcriptions shows that all the strategies that were identified in the RIC classes are also spontaneously applied to the texts in English. Beside characterising such strategies, this study explores the various degrees of awareness pupils show when applying them. A comparison carried out between the two groups seems to further indicate that repeated exposure to RIC over time corresponds to an increased and more aware recourse to these strategies.