Translation as a technique in foreign language teaching and learning has always had its followers and adversaries. Nowadays translation of a brief text is usually suggested at the end of a unit so as to consolidate the input offered during the previous lessons, but it can be also used as a technique to recall and put into practice single words in an easy and fast way. The teaching techniques presented in this article are based on associations between Italian words and also between the Italian language and the students’ mother tongue. The examples that we analyze enable us to consider translation as an effective way not only of fixing vocabulary items but also of drawing students’ attention to cultural differences between the two countries.

The aim of the paper is to examine subjectivity marks in the linguistic picture of Poland as identified in twenty-seven French history textbooks. Enunciation and value judgment marks observed both at the explicit and implicit levels point to a high degree of subjectivity in the linguistic picture of Poland. The analysis also reveals a steady decrease in the amount of information on Polish history in French textbooks, the source of which can largely be traced to the upper secondary school reform initiated in France in 2010.

This article analyses the possibility of teaching adult language learners how to become more autonomous through reading activities. Having defined the specificity of reading in learning a foreign language and discussed the notion of the learner’s autonomy, the author examines the autonomous reading in a school context and in adult education. Although reading seems particularly suitable for practicing autonomy, some obstacles often obstruct this process: the preselection of reading contents, imposed place, time and reading method... The author then analyses some propositions of autonomous reading and, in the conclusion, adds some elements that can help giving adult learners a new passion for reading in a foreign language.

This article introduces and illustrates a series of concepts and terms that the authors have developed in recent years in the area of teaching Italian as a foreign or a second language. More in particular, such new concepts refer to Italian sociolinguistics and its teaching and to methodological issues in general.