La competenza scritta in italiano L2 di apprendenti vulnerabili: due scale di valutazione a confronto

The high number of low-literate vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers
among L2 Italian learners requires a rethinking not only of approaches and teaching
methods, but also of assessment strategies. The present study aims to investigate the
effectiveness of two different rating scales in the assessment of writing skills for this
peculiar target of learners, a Standard Evaluation Scale and a Functional Adequacy
Scale. Application of the two assessment methods on a corpus of about 450 written
texts produced by 50 refugees and asylum seekers from 16 different countries, with an
Italian A2 level competence, demonstrated that a Functional Adequacy Scale can be a
more reliable and efficient tool than a Standard Evaluation Scale for valorising also poor
writing skills, instead of underlying the limits of low-literate productions.