Ricadute metalinguistiche dell'insegnamento dell'esperanto sulla lingua materna dell'alunno: un'eperienza nella scuola media italiana

This empirical study explores the effects of a short experience of learning Esperanto on metalinguistic abilities of Italian Junior High School students. 50 experimental students (12 y.old), having followed a 8-month course of Esperanto at school, twice a week, randomly chosen, were compared to 67 controls, matched for age, social background, gender balance, abstract nonverbal intelligence, as assessed by the Raven's SPM38 and metalinguistic abilities, as assessed by some subtests of a metalinguistic ability test, the TAM-2 (Pinto, Candilera, Iliceto, 2003). At the post-test, at the end of the school year, the experimental students significantly outperformed the controls in the metalinguistic performances.