«Bonde come si dice in italiano?»

Abstract

This article examines the negotiation strategies used by Brazilian, Portuguese-speaking learners of Italian when performing tasks in pairs, in the presence of a series of «transcoding markers» that include the insertion of rules and terms from the first language into the foreign language. Observations indicate that the natural pedagogical sequences do not result in abrupt interruptions in the continuity of the activity that is being undertaken and that, depending on the level of the students’ foreign language knowledge, the sequences tend to increase along with the use of code switching.