Task per l’elicitazione di strutture opzionali in italiano L2

In this paper we assess the effectiveness of a set of tasks specifically devised for elicitating two Italian interlanguage structures, namely passive and object topicalisation. These structures occur rarely in natural conversations because they are highly dependent on discourse-pragmatic choices. Therefore, in order to ensure good data density we cannot rely on naturally occurring speech, and need an elicitation instrument that prevents learners from choosing options other than the targeted ones. After briefly presenting the structures and the task design, we discuss the results of the validation procedure showing the strengths and weaknesses of our elicitation instrument. On the basis of the results, we suggest how it could be improved.