Leonzini Luisella (2009) Motivation and self-activation: The ELP as a tool to raise learners’ awareness and to enhance self-assessment. in Federica Gori (Ed.) Il Portfolio Europeo delle Lingue nell’università italiana. Casi a confronto, pp. 107-123, Edizioni EUT: Trieste. ISBN 978-88-8303-260-8.

Over the past few academic years, I have introduced the ELP in my L2 courses in order to raise learners’ awareness of how the CEFR’s action–oriented approach, which assigns a central role to language use in language learning, and the ELP, which focuses on enhancing independent language learning, motivate students and trigger a proficient learning process, thus developing their linguistic compe - tence and performance. My first aim was to demonstrate how training learners to reflection by the self-assessment grid in the ELP Language Passport, the goal-setting and self-as - sessment checklists in the Appendix, would allow them to activate task-oriented communicative acts and regulate both their productive and their receptive lan - guage skills. The following step was to promote learner autonomy. Learners were involved in planning, monitoring and evaluating their own learning; they were made to reflect on the process and content of learning, and they were engaged in continu - ous self-assessment. Finally I made learners use the target language during most ELP class discus - sions in order to show how communicative language competence develops and proves to be more successful if it is activated in a social and interactive context.The purpose of my project was to provide learners with the necessary tools to be motivated and actively engaged in language activities, both within and outside of the context of their academic studies.