This paper aims to outline an ongoing project developed at Roma Tre
University, the didactic experiment Roaming in Rome, where translation in
English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) becomes a tool to improve the foreign
language proficiency of Italian secondary-school students and, simultaneously,
to promote the cultural profile of two neighbourhoods in Rome for
both locals and tourists. A third goal of the project is to raise the students’
awareness of Rome’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage, something
they often fail to notice, despite the fact that it is all around them, since
they are increasingly distracted by their mobile phones, their social lives
taking place mainly on social networks and messaging apps. In this project,
on the contrary, smartphones become a digital learning tool for the
recording of audio interviews to be included in a travel podcast written
and subsequently translated by the students themselves, and targeted at a
young audience.
