Claudia Borghetti

The PAISÀ Corpus of Italian Web Texts

PAISA is a Creative Commons licensed, large web corpus of contemporary Italian. We describe the design, harvesting, and processing steps involved in its creation.

Activity and stability of urease-hydroxyapatite and urease-hydroxyapatite-humic acid complexes

In agricultural calcareous soils, hydroxyapatite (APA) may well represent an important support for urease immobilisation and could be present in both mineral and organo-mineral complexes. In this paper we studied the formation of APA-urease-humic acid (HA) complexes after the addition of urease either before or after HAs. We then proceeded to evaluate the role of HAs on the activity and stability of the complexes as compared to the APA-urease complexes and free urease. When increasing amounts of HAs were added after urease, they did not affect the activity of the enzymes that had already adsorbed onto the complexes. On the contrary, adding the same amount of HA before the enzyme caused a significant reduction in the amount of enzyme adsorbed. However, when urease adsorption onto the APA-HA complexes was carried out in the presence of NaCl, the enzyme activity of the complexes increased sharply to 86% of the initial activity. The immobilisation of the enzyme on the support increased urease stability against pronase treatment as well as directly in soil over time. The inhibition of urease activity by Cu2+ was reduced by urease immobilisation. However, the presence of HA did not alter the stabilisation capability of APA when alone.

Interactions among future study abroad students: exploring potential intercultural learning sequences

The study presented in this article aims to explore if and how intercultural learning may take place in students’ class interaction. It is grounded in the assumption that interculturality is not a clear-cut feature inherent to interactions occurring when individuals with presumed different linguistic and cultural/national backgrounds talk to each other, but that interculturality is co-constructed during interaction. In other words, every ‘interdiscourse interaction’ is potentially intercultural. We have assumed this perspective while investigating student–student class interactions that took place in an intercultural education course aimed at enhancing students’ intercultural learning in view of their sojourn abroad. Interactional data were analysed from the perspective of conversation analysis. Then, drawing on the notion of séquence potentiellement acquisitionelle as well as on a constructivist approach to intercultural learning, we conclude that, in interaction with their peers, learners can co-construct ‘potential intercultural learning sequences’ (PILS), which present recognisable interactional and discursive features.

Interculturality in study abroad

Study abroad (SA) is now a well-established domain of enquiry in applied linguistics and, like the phenomenon itself, is extremely varied. This variety can be traced back to the 1990s, when the bulk of research on SA began to appear (Freed, 1995; Parker & Rouxeville, 1995). Nevertheless, within this multiplicity, three trends in research topics and perspectives can be identified and historically contextualised. First of all, Coleman (2015) points out that, when SA emerged as a subject in applied linguistics, it was approached according to the methodological principles of mainstream research in that period: thus, mobile students’ language gains were mostly measured through preand post-sojourn tests, which tended to focus on the acquisition of discrete language skills (e.g. listening or writing) or dimensions (e.g. morphology or syntax). In addition to interests intrinsic to applied linguistics, explanations for this initial trend in SA research can be found in external broader socio-educational factors: in the 1980s and 1990s, the phenomenon of SA was not yet seen as an important step in formal education – at least in terms of numbers. According to the OECD, in 1975 there were 0.8 million students worldwide enrolled outside their country of citizenship, while they were 4.5 million in 2012 (2015, p. 360). This substantial rise in numbers thus created a widespread interest – also on the part of investors such as international political organisations and educational institutions – in establishing what concrete benefits SA had on foreign language learning based on scientific (i.e. measurable) outcomes. In the last decade or so, SA has experienced a new substantial change in perspective and purposes (Kinginger, 2009). Again, this shift does not represent a break with previous research, but rather can be interpreted as the development of a synergy between more general socio-cultural factors and a new turn in applied linguistics. Affecting the former is a growing – almost avid – interest in student mobility, framed within the politics of internationalisation on the part of higher education institutions. After all, in the context of globalisation, the growing numbers of students spending a period of time abroad has triggered the interests of the various stakeholders, who see mobility as way of increasing the students’ employability potential and global citizenship (Lewis, 2009; Paige, Fry, Stallman, Josić, & Jon, 2009; Schomburg & Teichler, 2011). Within applied linguistics, the increased insistence on the benefits of SA has inevitably brought with it a need not only to evaluate, but also to understand better what factors foster or inhibit students’ learning outcomes. This has also been motivated by the fact that many studies employing preand post-tests seemed to suggest that students’ language gains abroad can be highly variable (e.g. Kinginger, 2011). As a consequence, researchers have been striving to identify what personal and social variables (e.g. type of accommodation, participation in local leisure activities, social contacts in general) foster or hinder students’ second language learning abroad (Dewey, Belnap, & Hillstrom, 2013; Isabelli-García, 2006; Llanes, Tragant, & Serrano, 2012). Coleman (2015) ironically wonders why applied linguistics failed to take into account such crucial factors for so long. When historically contextualised, it appears clear that this shift in perspective was made possible by the broader social turn (Block, 2003) in applied linguistics. Nevertheless, according to Kinginger (2013), there is still a dearth of studies in applied linguistics approaching SA from a sociocultural perspective.

Mobile Students' Appraisals of Keys to a Successful Stay Abroad Experience: Hints from the IEREST Project.

ABSTRACT In order to provide better support for students in higher education throughout a mobility experience, it is important to understand their point of view regarding stay abroad. This paper analyzes the responses of pre-departure, while-abroad, and upon-return students of different academic backgrounds (N = 990) to an open question that asked them to name the three most essential factors for making their stay abroad experience successful. This question was part of a wider online questionnaire distributed in Europe by the IEREST project (http://ierest-project.eu). A sequential mixed-method procedure identified six themes that were frequently cited: language and communication, social contacts, practicalities, personal development, academic advantages, and travel. This paper presents a more detailed analysis of the first three themes. It shows that although language proficiency was the single most frequently mentioned aspect, students attached particular importance to aspects of personal development (in particular with respect to openness) and social contacts (crucially including friendship). These findings informed the development of teaching materials within IEREST for supporting intercultural learning in the Erasmus context and may also be relevant to educators and researchers in various other study abroad contexts.

Exploring Intercultural Learning and Second Language Identities in the ERASMUS Context

This chapter investigates a teaching activity from the European project Intercultural Education Resources for ERASMUS Students and their Teachers, which is titled ‘24 h ERASMUS Life’ and was conducted at the University of Bologna with 33 participants. Students and teachers worked online for six weeks using forums, videoconferences, chat rooms, and a course blog. The authors gathered data from the blog postings and employed thematic analysis, focusing on the students’ language experiences, including identity-related features of language proficiency, linguistic self-concept, and second-language-mediated (L2) personal development. The outcomes of this study contribute to understanding the multifaceted nature of L2 identity development during study abroad and its links to intercultural learning within a non-essentialist theoretical framework. Some pedagogical implications for mobile student preparation are also considered.

Intercultural Education in Practice: Two Pedagogical Experiences with Mobile Students.

ABSTRACT This pedagogical paper describes and discusses a teaching activity of intercultural education for mobile students developed within the European IEREST project (http://ierest-project.eu/). The activity ‘24 h Erasmus Life’ aims at making students reflect on four interrelated areas of their sojourn: the emotional impact of living abroad, the understanding of how communication works within a different academic community, the broader social dimension of the experiences, and the identity-related language issues. In Autumn 2014, the activity was tested with two different groups of students by teachers at the University of Bologna (UNIBO): the first group (A) was formed by 18 international incoming students and was taught by face-to-face teaching in Bologna; the second group (B) comprised 23 UNIBO students who were doing their study abroad in a variety of European countries, and participated in the activity by means of a Learning Management System. This paper traces the main instructional phases of ‘24 h Erasmus Life’, and comments on the students’ learning experiences by reporting extracts from transcribed peer-to-peer class interactions (Group A) and from class blog and forums (Group B). Overall, the paper aims to describe how the teaching took place in the two cases considered.