This intensive course meets for a full hour five days a week and provides a first approach to the Italian language for absolute beginners. Attention is devoted to the four skills of speaking, understanding, reading, and writing with a progression from greater emphasis on listening and speaking to a balance of all skills as the semester progresses. Aspects of Italian history, culture, and contemporary life are also introduced through readings, listening materials, videos and films and through the use of language technologies (like Blackboard and other web tools). The general objectives are to provide students with basic tools for oral and written communication in Italian, but also to offer them the opportunity to learn about Italian culture and life and to reflect about intercultural differences and similarities.
This intensive course meets for a full hour five days a week and it is designed to further develop language ability and knowledge of the Italian culture for students who have completed Basic Intensive Italian or have already had some exposure to the language. As in the case of Intensive Basic Italian, the four skills of speaking, understanding, reading and writing are developed in a balanced way. Aspects of Italian history, culture, and contemporary life are also introduced through readings, listening materials, videos and films and through the use of language technologies (like Blackboard and other web tools). The general objective is to provide students with basic tools for oral and written communication in Italian and to offer them the opportunity to learn about Italian culture and life, but also to reflect about intercultural differences and similarities.
A second-year intensive course meeting for 50 minutes five days a week, Intensive Advanced Italian I continues and builds on the work done in Intensive Basic and Intermediate Italian, providing a thorough grounding in the essentials of Italian grammar. The course develops the four skills of speaking, understanding, reading, and writing but increases attention to grammatical correctness and the development of literacy with respect to Basic and Intermediate. Aspects of Italian history, culture, and contemporary life are also introduced through readings, listening materials, videos and films and through the use of language technologies (like Blackboard and other web tools). The general objective is to provide students with opportunities to further develop their oral and written communicative ability in Italian and to learn about Italian culture and life, but also to reflect about intercultural differences and similarities.
A second-year intensive course meeting for 50 minutes five days a week, Intensive Advanced Italian II continues and builds on the work done in Intensive Basic, Intermediate Italian, and Advanced I providing a review of Italian grammar learned in the previous years and opportunities to develop the four skills of speaking, understanding, reading, and writing at an advanced level. The course is centered on thematic units dealing with aspects of Italian history, culture, and contemporary life that are presented to students through readings, listening materials, videos and films and through the use of language technologies (like Blackboard and other web tools). The general objective is to develop students proficiency in oral and written Italian, to provide them with the tools not only to communicate in formal and informal encounters and exchanges in the target country, but also to function in Italian within academic environments. Finally, intercultural reflection and exchange are given prominence in Advanced II as in the other courses that conform the Italian Language Curriculum.
This course is designed to help students of Italian who have reached an advanced level of competence in the language, practice and refine their writing skills through intensive work on a variety of texts that deal with culturally salient topics in modern Italy. Such topics range from the representation of value systems and cultural attitudes typical of the Italian people to reflections on the history and development of their language. The focus of the course is on the process of writing and on the strategies that can be used to improve it. Students are exposed not only to different topics, but also to different writing genres: from literary narrative texts, to academic texts, to argumentative or informative texts taken from Italian newspapers and periodicals. The work on the language will be related to the texts in the sense that grammar will not be taught separately, but in the context of the genre analyzed. Students will produce different types of texts: from descriptions, to letters, to film or book reviews, to argumentative texts, in order to build the skills necessary to write academic papers. The actual writing process will be carried out both in individual and group format and students will be encouraged to write different versions of the same composition in order to gain confidence and fluency.
Italy as a country of emigrants has produced a rich and varied culture in the Americas. This course is designed to analyze a variety of aspects and manifestations of this cultural heritage. The language and cultural identity of Italian communities mainly in the Americas but also in other countries, the literature of Italian American writers, the images of Italy and Italians in cinema are among the main themes that will be discussed in the course. The objective of the course is to lead the students to reflections on both modern Italy and the other Italies, le altre italie.
Like many other romance languages and Italian dialects, the Italian language has its roots in classical and vulgar Latin. This class provides students with a general view of the development of the Italian language from its origins to the present day. Below are examples of the questions that we ask and answer in class: How and why did Latin give birth to so many languages? In which Italian regions were the first uses of Italian documented? What did the Etruscan have to do with the Florentine pronunciation? Written texts from the periods that are being studied in class and sections of movies that exemplify the way Italian was spoken in the past will be examined in order to enrich the course and give students an opportunity analyze authentic documents.
This course is designed to offer students a panorama of contemporary Italian language and its varieties by leading them into an exploration of the great linguistic richness and diversity that characterizes Italy. Among the topics that will be discussed are the differences between Standard Italian and other language varieties such as popular Italian and dialects, the presence of dialects in literature, film, and everyday life; the characteristics of varieties such as the juvenile slang, the language of the media, the language of advertising; the role of gestures in communication among Italians. Students will discuss and analyze these phenomena through modern texts in contemporary Italian, from novels to songs to film.