Lo sport nei manuali di italiano a stranieri

The contribution aims at analyzing the presence of sport, through its verbal and non-verbal forms, in Italian textbooks for foreigners. First of all, the article offers some brief considerations on the culture of sport in Italy, the Italian sport widespread among foreigners and the sport as a motivation to study the Italian language. Starting from these premises, the contribution illustrates the first results of an ongoing research whose aim is to observe which Italian of sport is taught in Italian textbooks for foreigners and with which teaching techniques and methods. The idea is also to verify if and how the sporting habits of Italians and the popularity of Italian sport in the world are addressed in Italian textbooks for foreigners. From the analysis of the data, collected through the LAICO2 corpus and the core sampling of some recent manuals and data, it emerges that sport is considered in its own right not only as an important aspect of Italian culture that should be taught together with the language, but above all as one of the most attractive Italian cultural elements that push foreign learners to study the language.