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Can we speak about laboratory in italian language teaching? Some school subjects are used to be approached with a laboratory method, but this kind of perspective is not usual to teaching Italian language L1, due also to the peculiar complexity of the discipline (Bertocchi, 2005). Likewise, there are not many scientific contributions on this topic.
We try to fill this gap through a participatory research aimed to observe and propose a teaching and learning model of Italian grammar as laboratory. This research, led by Indire, involves a network of five schools, twenty-two teachers and four hundred students, from primary up to secondary school in two years of educational experimentation of Grammatica Valenziale [GV] (Sabatini, 2004).
GV is a scientific model for grammar, alternative to the traditional one, that offers a more active and reflective approach to the language learning. We used this theoretical model as a basis for our research hypothesis: since we introduce a change in disciplinary, we will be able to get an methodological innovation (Lo Duca, 2004).
We choose a Design Based Research approach (Kelly, 2003), an iterative cycle of analysis, implementation of solutions, testing and refinement in practice, reflection. Researchers and teachers work together to achieve two main aims: to observe GV in action in classroom and to analyse it through p2p observation, self-analysis and video analysis.
Analysing the data of the first year of experimentation, we could highlight some useful elements in order to identify an enquiry-based learning process in a grammar lesson.
In this contribution we will introduce a first approximation of an Italian grammar laboratory model.

Keywords: Laboratory; Italian grammar teaching, enquiry-based learning; Design Based Research;