In the last few months, the research team of the Italy ELT Archive have been busy disseminating the results of the project not only by giving paper presentations at academic conferences, but also by publishing articles in scientific journals.
In March, an article presenting the Archive was published in the proceedings of the 21st Conference on Information and Research science Connecting to Digital and Library science. The article, based on a presentation given by Martin Ruskov in Udine on 21 February 2025, outlines the data model of the Archive, describes its technical platform, and discusses fundamental issues around the design and development of the Archive itself. Additionally, the article exemplifies the type of research afforded by the Archive by presenting a case study conducted using the methodology of phenomenographic visual exploration. The analysis is centred on educational changes in Italy between the 1970s and 1980s, and the impact they had on the methods and approaches applied in the books and the type of technology supporting them.
In June two more articles were published in Italian scientific journals. One of the articles, published by Italiano LinguaDue, describes how the Archive was designed and developed to fulfil both research and education purposes. The article provides examples of how the Archive can be used to research language variation and language attitudes to enhance teachers’ awareness of these linguistic phenomena. The article also provides examples of how the Archive was used to enhance student teachers’ awareness of teaching methods through the analysis and evaluation of ELT materials.
The other article, published by Iperstoria, is a case study about the ELT materials production of one of the authors in our Archive, Esther Menascè (1960s-1980s). The article investigates how Menascè’s interest in linguistics and foreign language teaching methodology led her to design innovative materials to respond to the needs of Italian learners and teachers at a time of reform and change at all educational levels. The content analysis of the teaching materials sampled shows Menascè’s interest in conducting applied research into English language teaching. This is reflected in the scientific description of English, especially as regards phonetics and phonology, as well as in her principled adoption first of techniques belonging to an aural-oral approach in her books published in the 1960s and 1970s, and then to communicative language teaching in the 1980s.
Currently, the team are working on further expanding the number of records included in the digital archive, and they carrying out research about the authors and publishers of the books in our catalogues. They are also also conducting further studies on the application of the Archive for teacher education.