Intercomprehension and collaborative learning to interact in a plurilingual academic environment

Abstract The report presents the results of an experimentation of an intercomprehension (IC) workshop, delivered in blended mode for Italian and Brazilian PhD students, and activated at the Language Center of the University of Ferrara during the academic year 2021–22. The general objective was for participants to learn a methodology that enables understanding of scientific specialized texts in their original language and encourages plurilingual academic interaction in technical-scientific contexts where English is widely used. Since the creation of a collaborative class and the development of socio-affective strategies were particularly important in this context, the two aspects that were primarily observed were the interaction dynamics aimed at text comprehension and the degree of peer collaboration. Data were obtained from direct observation, which included: 1. the degree of interaction among peers with the same L1, 2. the degree of interaction among peers with different L1, 3. the degree of interaction related to different text types. The analysis shows a higher number of interactions among peers with different L1 and a high degree of interaction in the transposition of the specialized texts, whose content familiarity facilitated learners’ comprehension. These results support the adoption of an IC approach in plurilingual academic contexts.