Interlinguistics and Esperanto studies at universities: The experience at the University of Turin

After 2010, following the Bologna process and the so-called ‘Gelmini reform’, universities in Italy were subjected to deep changes in administration, in research and education. The course in ‘Language Planning and Planned Languages’ was established in 2011-2012, under the initiative of the Istituto Italiano d’Esperanto and with the financial support of the Esperantic Studies Foundation, as a follow-up of the course in ‘Interlinguistics and Esperantic Studies’ offered by Prof. Emeritus Fabrizio A. Pennacchietti in the preceeding 15 years. This article reports on the structure, content and results of the course in its first three academic years, with a special attention to the methodological innovations in language teaching which were utilized in the class, and which might be useful for similar initiatives in other universities in Europe and abroad.