The "30 Golden Hours" project to learn and teach Esperanto

The "30 Golden Hour" project of the Italian Esperanto Institute and the International League of Esperanto-speaking Teachers is a 20-hour online video course of the international language Esperanto. It was developed in the new vogue of online courses during the COVID-19 pandemic. It targets high school teachers, who might in turn teach Esperanto to their own students. The project is based on a study of the history of the international experiments on the propaedeutic aspect of Esperanto, which has become my book L'esperanto: facilità di apprendimento e aiuto nello studio di altre lingue (2023). The present study asks two of the research questions that guided these previous experiments. First, can a simple language such as Esperanto be learned independently and taught even by beginners with the right materials, with minimal support on the part of more experienced Esperanto teachers? Secondly, can the study of Esperanto increase the students’ metalinguistic competence, with possible propaedeutic effects on the study of other languages, as well as a deepened awareness of the structures of their native tongue(s)? The example of a teacher who finished the course and taught Esperanto in a CLIL course provides an interesting answer to both questions.