ITAL 211 S: Intensive Italian through Culture: Intermediate

Note: This course was formerly ITLN 211S.

Course Description
This course is specifically designed for those of you who have completed two semesters of Italian and wish to deepen your knowledge and understanding of the Italian language. The goal is to equip you with the ability to speak the language with a certain degree of confidence, acquaint you with more complex grammatical structures, and introduce you to authentic texts as a way to enhance their lexicon. To achieve this goal, a three-fold approach is adopted: you will work with Italian texts and audio-visual material of various types (e.g., narrative and literary excerpts, Italian songs, dialogues, and videos); engage in guided in-class group activities and write brief stories or racconti; and participate in out-of-the-classroom activities that require you to put into practice your in-class learning. You will be exposed to various cultural aspects such as regionalism, festivals and traditions, social and political cultures, literature, cinema, style and fashion, music, and other characteristics that define Italian culture in a manner that fosters further understanding and practice of the language. By the end of the session, you will have gained the capacity for more complex written and oral expression, learnt to differentiate various social contexts, and built a vocabulary and socio-linguistic competence appropriate to each situation.

Course Structure
ITAL 211 S meets four days per week (Mon-Thur) and consists of a morning program of three hours of in-class grammar study, followed by two hours of exercises and conversation in the afternoon. In the evenings and sometimes on Fridays, cultural activities and lectures in Italian are scheduled. For details of these events, please see the accompanying description of the liberal arts cultural component to the program at the end of the syllabus.

Main Grammar Points
The course will begin with a quick review of ITAL 111 grammar and thereafter cover the following grammatical points:

• Uso dell’imperfetto, del passato prossimo e del trapassato prossimo
• Pronomi diretti, indiretti, doppi e relativi
• Particelle NE e CI
• Accordo dei pronomi con il participio
• Gradi dell’aggettivo: comparativo e superlativo
• Il futuro semplice e composto
• Verbi impersonali
• Imperativo diretto, indiretto e con i pronomi
• Verbi riflessivi e particelle pronominali riflessive
• Il condizionale presente e passato
• Il congiuntivo presente e passato e il congiuntivo imperfetto e trapassato
• Concordanza dei tempi con il congiuntivo
• Cenni sul periodo ipotetico

Course Objectives
At the end of the session, you should reach the level B1+ of the Common European Framework in the four basic competencies: listening, speaking and interacting, reading, and writing. In practice,you will be able to:

• Interact with a native speaker on familiar, everyday topics and topics of personal interest when clear, standard speech is used;
• Produce relatively simple texts on everyday topics and understand texts containing concrete and relatively simple abstract topics;
• Express opinions on current affairs, familiar topics and topics of personal interest, describe personal experiences, and provide brief explanations;
• Understand the main points of radio and television announcements, advertisements, news items, and talk shows when the speech is relatively slow and clear;
• Build a basic vocabulary of 750-1000 words and start to develop a small, specialized vocabulary tied to one’s personal interests and to the specific activities covered in class;
• Write simple texts based on familiar topics, personal experience and on certain aspects of culture and contemporary society (in the form of brief compositions, summaries, and informal and formal letters);
• Develop a more sophisticated understanding of Italian culture and contemporary society.

Course Materials
– Required Text: A Course Reader that contains the materials to be covered in the course will be made available
– Supplementary Text: Selected exercises and readings from various textbooks and workbooks will be handed out periodically.
– Dictionary: Students are strongly recommended to purchase an English/Italian, Italian/English dictionary.  The library also has a number of dictionaries available for consultation.