THE LITERARY TEXTS IN THE TEXTBOOKS FOR LEARNING ITALIAN AS FOREIGN LANGUAGE: EXPERIENCE IN THE MACEDONIAN UNIVERSITY CONTEXT

Abstract

This article aims to present the use of the literary text in the teaching of Italian as foreign language and to identify its advantages for Macedonian university students. After a brief theoretical introduction in the first part of the article which illustrates the role and the different uses of literary passages in the didactic context, various objectives are presented for the use of the literary work in the language class. The literary passages proposed to students with an average level of linguistic competence, present in the following textbooks used by Macedonian students in the language class at the Faculty of Philology of the Goce Delchev University of Shtip, are identified and analysed: - “L'italiano all'Università 2”, Language course for foreign students B1-B2, by M. La Grassa, M. Delitala and F. Quercioli; - “Contatto” Italian course for foreigners, intermediate level B1, by R. B. Costa, C. Ghezzi and M. Piantoni; - "New Italian Project 2" Multimedia course of Italian language and civilization, intermediate level B1-B2, by T. Marin and S. Magnelli. The second part of the article offers examples of the use of the literary text in teaching activities together with the information on Italian literature found in the various texts offered in the analysed textbooks. This second part, therefore, demonstrates that such information represents a link to cultural and social phenomena. It is concluded that the literary text present in the mentioned textbooks is a very useful tool that allows various communicative activities by promoting the students' creativity, develops their critical thinking skills by involving them in a linguistic and cultural reflection.

Keywords: literary text; Italian as a foreign language; foreign language teaching competences.