Italian Course

This course will begin each Monday morning. It is taught by Italian mother-tongue instructors, coordinated by an American professor. The course will take place either from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., 5 days a week (17.5 hours + test and a film in Italian), or 4 days a week (9 to 2, including lunchtime conversations with teachers).

One day will be dedicated to a trip to Florence or another city in Italy. In the afternoons the students can visit some nearby villages with their museums, theatres and shops.

The textbook will be “Prego”, sixth edition, with supporting audio-visual materials.

At the beginning each student will take a brief written and oral test, to evaluate their level of Italian.

At least once a week, in the evening, a film in the Italian language will be shown (if possible making a bilingual copy of the screenplay available).

The groups will contain a maximum of 12 students. Students can choose to attend the course for one, two, three or four weeks.

The instruction will be based on:

Level 1:

• Pronunciation, the “music of the language”
• Essential expressions for communicating: greetings, presentations, language for basic needs such as eating, staying healthy, …
• Basic grammar:
  • Verbs: infinitives, present, future, past perfect, progressive forms
  • Pronouns, articles, gender and number of nouns
• Questions and answers, suggestions and orders
• Listening skills, Vocabulary (to create good learning habits)

Level 2:

• As above, put into practice with ordinary conversations
• Verbs: imperfect, imperative
• Prepositions, adjectives, interrogative and relative pronouns
• Expansion of the vocabulary
• Reading and writing

Level 3:

• Revision of Levels 2 and 3
• Development of speed and ease in speaking
• Verbs: simple past, conditional, modal forms
• Work on phonetics
• More advanced reading and writing