Fostering motivation and creativity through self‐publishing as project‐based learning in the Italian L2 classroom

Abstract This article presents the results of a mixed‐method study that investigated the impact of an innovative project‐based learning module, entitled “I am an author,” on students' motivation and creativity, and also examined its positive and negative aspects emerging from students' evaluations. As part of this module, advanced learners of Italian are required to write and self‐publish a short, fully illustrated children's story in Italian. The results suggest that while students encountered some problems during the activity, overall the project had a positive impact on their intrinsic motivation—linked to the opportunity to use the language to target a nonacademic audience and to their investment in a personally relevant and world relevant task—and also helped them develop their creative skills. This study adds to scholarship on the effectiveness of experiential learning through a targeted project‐based activity and paves the way for future development of and research on the project.