L’Italiano e l’alfabeto per i nuovi arrivati

In recent years, thousands of refugees and asylum seekers have arrived at the port of Palermo, including a large number of teenagers without any adult caregivers. They are called Unaccompanied Minors. A significant part of them remain in the city and are placed in Italian language courses of the University of Palermo, (ItaStra), within a large inclusion project. The focus of this paper will be address to describe this new profile of learner: they are minors, 15 to 17 years old, without much formal education or training, without competent skills in reading or writing, but with a vast life experience in a multilingual environment and exposure to learning a diversity of new languages.