The following research aims at investigating the teaching and learn-ing of Italian language in Chinese universities. Starting with the difficulties that Chinese-speaking students face when learning Ital-ian verbal morphology, it will focus on the influence of their moth-er tongue on the acquisition process. Their apparent difficulty in reaching a good knowledge of Italian language will be investigated in relation to the typological distance between the two languages and their morphosyntactic

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... perties. It will highlight how the in-teraction of two strongly different language systems influences L2 acquisition (Bettoni 2001, GiacaleoneRamat 2003; Banfi 2003). A diagnostic evaluationwill show the sources of difficulties in the learning of Italian verbal morphology and it will highlight how it is necessary, in a learn-ing context traditionally focused on grammar and translation, to pay more attention to pragmatic competence and communication.