From Spanish to Italian . When teaching to unlearn is needed

The Spanish periphrasis is formally similar to Italian but has a wider range of aspectual values (it can express durativity, in addition to progressivity) and is compatible with more tenses (perfectives, in addition to imperfectives). As an effect of transfer, L1Spanish learners of Italian often use to express durativity and combine it with perfective tenses, thus producing incorrect utterances like *Sono stato studiando. In this paper we report an acquisitional study which reveals that input exposure, intensity of L2 use, and non-focused instruction may not be sufficient to pre-empt the transfer and unlearn the erroneous uses of the periphrasis. Based on this result, we propose that a focused teaching intervention is needed. A small-scale pedagogical study based on a Cognitive Linguistics inspired teaching approach gives encouraging results.