Abstract

This paper is a case study focusing on a corpus of textbooks of English for Italian learners published in 1952, retrieved from the online Catalogo Nazionale OPAC SBN (https://opac.sbn.it) and consulted at the archives of major Italian public libraries. The texts were examined on the basis of their structure, contents, purpose and teaching approach, with the aim of identifying distinctive generic features and proposing an initial classification. They represent variations of the same genre, catering to pedagogical purposes and encompassing different content derived from didactic materials that were employed both before and during the fascist era, as well as newly devised resources. The historiographical textual analysis provides some insights into post-fascist educational policies. Furthermore, it uncovers the texts’ glottodidactic methods and approaches which originated from Britain and North America and triggered profound changes in the history of language teaching.