Learning Chinese online in the age of COVID-19: The cases of two Italian universities

Due to the Covid-19 lockdown, Italian universities courses had to be shifted online, with a severe impact on language courses. This shift involved three issues: choosing the technology, understanding its use, and re-thinking teaching materials and methods. This contribution describes the impact of “emergency remote teaching” on university courses in Italy, with a focus on Chinese language courses at Roma Tre University and the University of Milan. After a review of the existing literature, the article presents relevant figures related to Italian universities courses going online, followed by an explanation of the choices made by Chinese language teachers from the above-mentioned universities. Finally, it focuses on the data collected to verify how learners perceived online teaching and which are the main issues.