Inclusive Digital Learning Design for Italian as a Foreign Language: Co-Teaching, Assistive Technology, and Multimodal Participation

Foreign-language classrooms make learner variability highly visible because listening, speaking, reading, writing, interaction, memory, and cultural interpretation are demanded simultaneously. This conceptual design article develops an inclusive model for teaching Italian as a foreign language at CEFR A1–A2 through digital co-teaching and assistive technology. The design brings together evidence on co-teaching, assistive technology, rights-based inclusion, and language-learning design, and extends this base with recent research on disability, mobile learning, artificial intelligence, multimodal assessment, and accessible technology. The ITALIAN-ACCESS framework is organized around seven design commitments, summarized by the mnemonic ITALIAN: Inclusive target; Two-educator role map; Accessible input; Learner choice; Interaction and rehearsal; Assessment triangulation; and Navigation, ethics, continuity, and support. The term ACCESS highlights the framework’s overall emphasis on accessible participation. A twelve-lesson scenario moves from identity and classroom language to everyday transactions, directions, short narratives, and an accessible digital city guide. Four tables compare co-teaching configurations, match barriers to supports, map the lesson sequence, and define an evidence plan. The design treats artificial intelligence as an optional, supervised support rather than an autonomous tutor or assessor. It offers a reusable framework for inclusive Italian-language provision and a basis for future mixed-method evaluation.

Keywords: Italian as a Foreign Language, Inclusive Language Education, Digital Co-Teaching, Assistive Technology, CEFR, Mobile-Assisted Language Learning.