Roberta Resti (robertaresti@libero.it or robertaresti@yahoo.it)
Description:
Student Profile
Students entering this level must be able to fulfill the learning outcomes of the Novice Abroad level, as defined by the IES Abroad MAP for Language and Intercultural Communication. Specifically, they should already be able to express themselves on a variety of concrete, everyday topics and meet their basic needs in the language. Students who enter this level may be more proficient in reading and writing skills than oral communication, especially if they have never traveled or studied abroad previously. Although students may have been exposed previously to certain competencies taught at this level, they need additional practice and instruction to move toward mastery of these competencies.
As students gain more self-awareness and self-confidence, they will attempt more in the community. Paradoxically, this means they may also experience more miscommunications and frustration. Reading and writing require effort, and many students will need to commit themselves in this regard. Students will also develop cultural awareness and skills to work through the challenges of adaptation in the local culture and learn to celebrate their successes. Increasingly, they will appreciate the value of these language and intercultural skills.
This course builds upon skills introduced in Novice Abroad. By the end of the course, the successful student will have begun to develop some communicative and cultural self-confidence necessary to attempt moderately complex tasks in the language, as described in the learning outcomes below.
Prerequisites:
Proficiency at a level equivalent to IES Abroad’s Novice Abroad, as determined by placement test.
Attendance policy:
Successful progress of the program depends on the full cooperation of both students and faculty members: regular attendance and active participation in class are essential parts of the learning process. Attendance and participation in all class meetings and field-studies are required. More than TWO unjustified absences (that are not medically excused with a written certificate of the doctor or caused by serious sudden family and/or personal occurrences, for example death of a family member) will result in a lowering of your grade. No extra lessons are foreseen for those who frequently miss class or those who are tardy.
Learning outcomes:
Students who are placed in this level should be capable of achieving the outcomes in the Novice Abroad level as defined by the IES Abroad MAP for Language and Intercultural Communication.
By the end of the course, students will be able to achieve some of the outcomes for the Emerging Independent Abroad level as defined by the MAP for Language and Intercultural Communication. The key learning outcomes from the MAP are summarized below:
I. Intercultural Communication
Students will be able to solve some daily troublesome situations and meet needs with limited help.
Students will be able to make some informed comparisons between the host culture and the students’ home cultures.
Students will be able to distinguish between verbal and nonverbal communication that reflects politeness, formality, or informality.
Students will be able to recognize simple patterns of intonation and their meaning.
II. Listening
Students will be able to understand some interactions (media, speeches, music, directives, conversations, etc.), especially if the speaker is used to interacting with non-native speakers.
Students will be able to understand direct requests, questions, and simple conversations on familiar and concrete topics.
III. Speaking
Students will be able to talk to a limited extent with and about persons and about things in their immediate environment, and they will be able to discuss their plans, wishes, and experiences.
Students will be able to address moderately complicated situations involving familiar subjects.
IV. Reading
Students will be able to read passages and short texts (notes, lyrics, uncomplicated literary passages, detailed instructions, etc.) on familiar topics and understand the general meaning.
Students will actively support their understanding of texts through the use of context, visual aids, dictionaries, or with the assistance of others in order to facilitate comprehension.
V. Writing
Students will be able to communicate with some effectiveness through notes, emails, and simple online discussions and chats.
Students will be able to write short essays on concrete topics of limited levels of complexity, with reliance on the communicative patterns of their native language
Method of presentation:
The teaching method is based on a communicative approach. This involves: emphasis on communication with the objective to enable the student, from the beginning, to speak and interact in Italian. Each lesson is structured with an activity to build vocabulary and an oral or written text. The text guides the student to recognize and analyse grammatical structures. Those structures are used in oral and written exercises that the students tackle in pairs or in small groups. Free oral and/or written production exercises give students the opportunity to communicate between themselves in Italian in realistic situations. The activities are based on a communicative method aimed at building a better understanding of Italian grammatical structure, preparing students to understand the spoken language and speaking and writing in Italian.
Required work and form of assessment:
Active participation and class discussion (10%); weekly homework, special assignments and moodle assignments (10%); 2 quizzes (20%); mid-term written exam and oral presentation (25%); final written exam and oral presentation (35%).
Grading Policy Assessment Methods
Listening In-class listening activities: Students will listen to the instructor and to recorded texts of varying length. Students will have to answer (orally and in writing) an increasing number of questions that test their comprehension of what they have heard.
Speaking In-class oral activities and exams: Conversations, monologues and role play will be elicited by visual stimuli, texts, or questions from the instructor. The multiplicity of situations and the request to express personal opinions will increase from elementary level to advanced level. Students are expected to do 2 oral presentations.
Reading In-class activities and exams: Students will have to read an increasing number of texts of increasing length, complexity and of different genres. They will have to answer in writing several questions that test their comprehension of what they have read.
Writing Homework assignments and exams: Students will have to answer written questions and produce written texts of increasing length, formality and complexity.
Grading Scale
A 100-96; A- 95-91; B+ 90-86; B 85-81; B- 80-76; C+ 75-71; C 70-66; C- 65-61; D60; F 59 and below
content:
Each class session will consist of:
Warm up, short conversation, introduction of a specific subject; correction of assignments
Listening or reading comprehension
Students exchanging the information they have picked up
General questions by the instructor to the class
Stimulus-response and interactive exercises, oral and written drill
Week
Content
Assignments
Week 1 (intensive)
Assignment
Presentation of the course syllabus, objectives and expections.
Icebreaking, presentation and knowledge of the class.
1.Functional:
Introducing oneself, describing personal characteristic
2.Grammatical:
Review:
Articles definite and indefinite
Nouns
Adjectives
Present tense
3.Vocabulary:
Libraries and bookshop
4.Culture:
logistic tour
Unità 2
pp. 1-8
pp. 1-8
pp. 1-8
Unità 2
pp. 9-18
Course packet (on moodle)
Week 2(intensive)
Assignments
Field study
1.Functional:
Describing past experience
2.Grammatical:
Review
Past tense
Possessives
Direct Pronouns
Imperfect tense
Indirect pronouns
Combined pronouns
3.Vocabulary:
Clothing and food
4.Culture:
Italians, all “pappagalli?”
Unità 4 pp 29-38
Unità 7 pp 53-59
Unità 8 pp 60-68
Unità 9 pp 69-76
Unità 10 pp 77-85
Unità 11 pp 86-93
Course packet (on moodle)
Reading: “Gli italiani tutti pappagalli?)
course packet
pp. 30-32
Week 3 (extensive)
Assignment
1.Functional:
Telling a story
2.Grammatical:
Review
Reflexive verbs
Prepositions
Piacere and similar verbs
3.Vocabulary:
Health, the family
4.Culture:
Italians, all “mammoni”
Unità 12 pp 94-103
Unità 3 pp 19-28
(on moodle- Adapted by own materials)
Course packet (on moodle)
Reading: “Mammoni d'Italia”
course packet
pp. 27-29
Week 4 (extensive)
Assignment
Field study
1.Functional:
Talk about themselves, make plans for the future, make hypotheses, make comparisons
2.Grammatical:
Review
Future tense
Comparative and superlative
3.Vocabulary:
The parts of body, the colours
4.Culture:
Idioms with food
Unità 6 pp 45-51
Unità 15 pp 125-134
Course packet (on moodle)
(on moodle- Adapted by own materials)
Week 5
(extensive)
Assignment
1.Functional:
General review
2.Grammatical:
General review
3.Vocabulary:
General review
4.Culture:
General review
I° Quiz
Movie vision
Week 6
(extensive)
Assignment
1.Functional:
Give advice, give orders
2.Grammatical:
Imperative tense: formal, informal
Imperative tense with pronouns
3.Vocabulary:
The weather, the time
4.Culture:
Italian music, listening and comprehension
Unità 24 pp 207-216
Reading “Quanta paura”
Course packet
pp. 38-40
Course packet (on moodle)
Course packet (on moodle)
Week 7
(extensive)
Assignment
1.Functional:
Reports events, talk about past
exeperiences
2.Grammatical:
Trapassato prossimo tense
3.Vocabulary:
Leisure time with friends
4.Culture:
Italian recipes
Unità 17 pp 145-153
Reading: “Collodi chi era costui?”
Course packet
pp. 35-37
Course packet (on moodle)
(on moodle-Magazine «La cucina italiana»)
Week 8
(extensive)
Assignment
1.Functional:
Midterm exam
2.Grammatical:
Midterm exam
3.Vocabulary:
Midterm exam
4.Culture:
Midterm exam
Midterm exam
(Written and oral)
«Il postino di Civitavecchia» Course packet
pp 125-129
Week 9
(extensive)
Assignment
Field study
1.Functional:
Expressing commands and giving instructions, report events.
The schedule is flexible and can change during the semester, according to the situation of the class or to particular needs. New field-studies and activities (such as visits to museums, exhibitions, watching a movie or assigned interviews of local people) can be introduced at any time, according to the students’ interests and commitments.
Required readings:
A textbook: “Parla e Scrivi” by E. Jafrancesco, ed. Cendali Firenze, January 2007 (available at “ Liberia Feltrinelli International via Banchi di Sopra n° 64)
Supplementary material will be provided by the teacher during the course: ex. Games, readings, songs, Italian movies and videos from TV.
Course-packet.
Strongly recommended a good pocket dictionary Italian/Italian. (medium size)
Online dictionary of the Italian language D.O.P. (on moodle)
Recommended readings:
Alessandro Baricco “Oceano mare” Rizzoli, 1993, Feltrinelli 2007, “Novecento” Un monologo, Feltrinelli, 1994, “Seta” Rizzoli 1996 (available at IES library).
Carlo Collodi “Le avventure di Pinocchio”(available at IES library).
Niccolò Ammaniti “Io non ho paura” Edizioni Einaudi (available at IES library).
Andrea Camilleri “Ancora tre indagini per il Comissario Montalbano”, Sellerio Editore Palermo, 2009.
Le favole di Fedro.
Brief Biography of Instructor:
Roberta Resti earned a degree in Literature at the University of Siena with a dissertation in Italian Literature, in 1999 she earned a degree in Teaching of Italian Language to Foreign Students at the University of Foreign in Siena. In 2002 she earned the Ditals certificate: a specific certificate of competence in methods of teaching Italian to foreign students.
She has been teaching Italian to foreign students since 1993 for private Italian Institutes, since 1999 for University of Foreign and since 2006 for IES Institute in Siena. She participated in IES faculty seminar: “Language Placement and Assessment” 19/22 April 2007, Granada, Spain, in IES Abroad Language Project Development, 18/25 April 2010, Rabat, Morocco, in Carla Institute, University of Minnesota, refresh course in Developing Learner's Sociocultural Competence, July 25/29, 2011, Minneapolis. She partecipated in IES faculty seminar: “Language map”, 26/29 June 2012, IES Milan.
Italian Language in Context: Emerging Independent Abroad I
Student Profile
Students entering this level must be able to fulfill the learning outcomes of the Novice Abroad level, as defined by the IES Abroad MAP for Language and Intercultural Communication. Specifically, they should already be able to express themselves on a variety of concrete, everyday topics and meet their basic needs in the language. Students who enter this level may be more proficient in reading and writing skills than oral communication, especially if they have never traveled or studied abroad previously. Although students may have been exposed previously to certain competencies taught at this level, they need additional practice and instruction to move toward mastery of these competencies.
As students gain more self-awareness and self-confidence, they will attempt more in the community. Paradoxically, this means they may also experience more miscommunications and frustration. Reading and writing require effort, and many students will need to commit themselves in this regard. Students will also develop cultural awareness and skills to work through the challenges of adaptation in the local culture and learn to celebrate their successes. Increasingly, they will appreciate the value of these language and intercultural skills.
This course builds upon skills introduced in Novice Abroad. By the end of the course, the successful student will have begun to develop some communicative and cultural self-confidence necessary to attempt moderately complex tasks in the language, as described in the learning outcomes below.
Proficiency at a level equivalent to IES Abroad’s Novice Abroad, as determined by placement test.
Successful progress of the program depends on the full cooperation of both students and faculty members: regular attendance and active participation in class are essential parts of the learning process. Attendance and participation in all class meetings and field-studies are required. More than TWO unjustified absences (that are not medically excused with a written certificate of the doctor or caused by serious sudden family and/or personal occurrences, for example death of a family member) will result in a lowering of your grade. No extra lessons are foreseen for those who frequently miss class or those who are tardy.
Students who are placed in this level should be capable of achieving the outcomes in the Novice Abroad level as defined by the IES Abroad MAP for Language and Intercultural Communication.
By the end of the course, students will be able to achieve some of the outcomes for the Emerging Independent Abroad level as defined by the MAP for Language and Intercultural Communication. The key learning outcomes from the MAP are summarized below:
I. Intercultural Communication
Students will be able to solve some daily troublesome situations and meet needs with limited help.
Students will be able to make some informed comparisons between the host culture and the students’ home cultures.
Students will be able to distinguish between verbal and nonverbal communication that reflects politeness, formality, or informality.
Students will be able to recognize simple patterns of intonation and their meaning.
II. Listening
Students will be able to understand some interactions (media, speeches, music, directives, conversations, etc.), especially if the speaker is used to interacting with non-native speakers.
Students will be able to understand direct requests, questions, and simple conversations on familiar and concrete topics.
III. Speaking
Students will be able to talk to a limited extent with and about persons and about things in their immediate environment, and they will be able to discuss their plans, wishes, and experiences.
Students will be able to address moderately complicated situations involving familiar subjects.
IV. Reading
Students will be able to read passages and short texts (notes, lyrics, uncomplicated literary passages, detailed instructions, etc.) on familiar topics and understand the general meaning.
Students will actively support their understanding of texts through the use of context, visual aids, dictionaries, or with the assistance of others in order to facilitate comprehension.
V. Writing
Students will be able to communicate with some effectiveness through notes, emails, and simple online discussions and chats.
Students will be able to write short essays on concrete topics of limited levels of complexity, with reliance on the communicative patterns of their native language
The teaching method is based on a communicative approach. This involves: emphasis on communication with the objective to enable the student, from the beginning, to speak and interact in Italian. Each lesson is structured with an activity to build vocabulary and an oral or written text. The text guides the student to recognize and analyse grammatical structures. Those structures are used in oral and written exercises that the students tackle in pairs or in small groups. Free oral and/or written production exercises give students the opportunity to communicate between themselves in Italian in realistic situations. The activities are based on a communicative method aimed at building a better understanding of Italian grammatical structure, preparing students to understand the spoken language and speaking and writing in Italian.
Active participation and class discussion (10%); weekly homework, special assignments and moodle assignments (10%); 2 quizzes (20%); mid-term written exam and oral presentation (25%); final written exam and oral presentation (35%).
Grading Policy Assessment Methods
Listening In-class listening activities: Students will listen to the instructor and to recorded texts of varying length. Students will have to answer (orally and in writing) an increasing number of questions that test their comprehension of what they have heard.
Speaking In-class oral activities and exams: Conversations, monologues and role play will be elicited by visual stimuli, texts, or questions from the instructor. The multiplicity of situations and the request to express personal opinions will increase from elementary level to advanced level. Students are expected to do 2 oral presentations.
Reading In-class activities and exams: Students will have to read an increasing number of texts of increasing length, complexity and of different genres. They will have to answer in writing several questions that test their comprehension of what they have read.
Writing Homework assignments and exams: Students will have to answer written questions and produce written texts of increasing length, formality and complexity.
Grading Scale
A 100-96; A- 95-91; B+ 90-86; B 85-81; B- 80-76; C+ 75-71; C 70-66; C- 65-61; D60; F 59 and below
Each class session will consist of:
Week
Content
Assignments
Week 1 (intensive)
Assignment
Presentation of the course syllabus, objectives and expections.
Icebreaking, presentation and knowledge of the class.
1.Functional:
Introducing oneself, describing personal characteristic
2.Grammatical:
Review:
Articles definite and indefinite
Nouns
Adjectives
Present tense
3.Vocabulary:
Libraries and bookshop
4.Culture:
logistic tour
Unità 2
pp. 1-8
pp. 1-8
pp. 1-8
Unità 2
pp. 9-18
Course packet (on moodle)
Week 2(intensive)
Assignments
Field study
1.Functional:
Describing past experience
2.Grammatical:
Review
Past tense
Possessives
Direct Pronouns
Imperfect tense
Indirect pronouns
Combined pronouns
3.Vocabulary:
Clothing and food
4.Culture:
Italians, all “pappagalli?”
Unità 4 pp 29-38
Unità 7 pp 53-59
Unità 8 pp 60-68
Unità 9 pp 69-76
Unità 10 pp 77-85
Unità 11 pp 86-93
Course packet (on moodle)
Reading: “Gli italiani tutti pappagalli?)
course packet
pp. 30-32
Week 3 (extensive)
Assignment
1.Functional:
Telling a story
2.Grammatical:
Review
Reflexive verbs
Prepositions
Piacere and similar verbs
3.Vocabulary:
Health, the family
4.Culture:
Italians, all “mammoni”
Unità 12 pp 94-103
Unità 3 pp 19-28
(on moodle- Adapted by own materials)
Course packet (on moodle)
Reading: “Mammoni d'Italia”
course packet
pp. 27-29
Week 4 (extensive)
Assignment
Field study
1.Functional:
Talk about themselves, make plans for the future, make hypotheses, make comparisons
2.Grammatical:
Review
Future tense
Comparative and superlative
3.Vocabulary:
The parts of body, the colours
4.Culture:
Idioms with food
Unità 6 pp 45-51
Unità 15 pp 125-134
Course packet (on moodle)
(on moodle- Adapted by own materials)
Week 5
(extensive)
Assignment
1.Functional:
General review
2.Grammatical:
General review
3.Vocabulary:
General review
4.Culture:
General review
I° Quiz
Movie vision
Week 6
(extensive)
Assignment
1.Functional:
Give advice, give orders
2.Grammatical:
Imperative tense: formal, informal
Imperative tense with pronouns
3.Vocabulary:
The weather, the time
4.Culture:
Italian music, listening and comprehension
Unità 24 pp 207-216
Reading “Quanta paura”
Course packet
pp. 38-40
Course packet (on moodle)
Course packet (on moodle)
Week 7
(extensive)
Assignment
1.Functional:
Reports events, talk about past
exeperiences
2.Grammatical:
Trapassato prossimo tense
3.Vocabulary:
Leisure time with friends
4.Culture:
Italian recipes
Unità 17 pp 145-153
Reading: “Collodi chi era costui?”
Course packet
pp. 35-37
Course packet (on moodle)
(on moodle-Magazine «La cucina italiana»)
Week 8
(extensive)
Assignment
1.Functional:
Midterm exam
2.Grammatical:
Midterm exam
3.Vocabulary:
Midterm exam
4.Culture:
Midterm exam
Midterm exam
(Written and oral)
«Il postino di Civitavecchia» Course packet
pp 125-129
Week 9
(extensive)
Assignment
Field study
1.Functional:
Expressing commands and giving instructions, report events.
2.Grammatical:
Relative pronouns
3.Vocabulary:
Describing people
4.Culture:
Italian gesture
Italian slang
Unità 14 pp 114-124
Reading: “Venezia da salvare”
Course packet
pp. 22-26
Course packet (on moodle)
(on moodle-you tube)
(on moodle- Adapted by own materials)
Week 10
(extensive)
Assignment
1.Functional:
Apologizing, complain
2.Grammatical:
Present and past conditional
tenses
3.Vocabulary:
Italian slang
4.Culture:
Italian dialects
Unità 13 pp 103-104
Course packet (on moodle)
(on moodle- Adapted by Wikipedia/you tube)
Week 11
(extensive)
Assignment
1.Functional:
General review
2.Grammatical:
General review
3.Vocabulary:
General review
4.Culture:
General review
II° Quiz
movie vision
Week 12
(extensive)
Assignment
Field study
1.Functional:
Expressing opinions, doubts, feelings
2.Grammatical:
Subjunctive introduction
Present and past subjunctive
3.Vocabulary:
Feelings, moods
4.Culture:
Italian cinema
Unità 21
pp. 180-181
pp.178-179
Reading: “Il coccodrillo sapiente”
Course packet
pp. 1-5
Course packet (on moodle)
Course packet (on moodle)
Week 13
(extensive)
Assignment
1.Functional:
Expressing opinions, uncertainty, advices, conditions
2.Grammatical:
Imperfetto e trapassato
subjunctive
3.Vocabulary:
Expressing an opinion
4.Culture:
The Palio
Unità 21
pp 189-198
Course packet (on moodle)
Course packet (on moodle)
Week 14
(extensive)
1.Functional:
Final Exam
2.Grammatical:
Final Exam
3.Vocabulary:
Final Exam
4.Culture:
Final Exam
Final Exam
(Written and oral)
The schedule is flexible and can change during the semester, according to the situation of the class or to particular needs. New field-studies and activities (such as visits to museums, exhibitions, watching a movie or assigned interviews of local people) can be introduced at any time, according to the students’ interests and commitments.
Alessandro Baricco “Oceano mare” Rizzoli, 1993, Feltrinelli 2007, “Novecento” Un monologo, Feltrinelli, 1994, “Seta” Rizzoli 1996 (available at IES library).
Carlo Collodi “Le avventure di Pinocchio”(available at IES library).
Niccolò Ammaniti “Io non ho paura” Edizioni Einaudi (available at IES library).
Andrea Camilleri “Ancora tre indagini per il Comissario Montalbano”, Sellerio Editore Palermo, 2009.
Le favole di Fedro.
Roberta Resti earned a degree in Literature at the University of Siena with a dissertation in Italian Literature, in 1999 she earned a degree in Teaching of Italian Language to Foreign Students at the University of Foreign in Siena. In 2002 she earned the Ditals certificate: a specific certificate of competence in methods of teaching Italian to foreign students.
She has been teaching Italian to foreign students since 1993 for private Italian Institutes, since 1999 for University of Foreign and since 2006 for IES Institute in Siena. She participated in IES faculty seminar: “Language Placement and Assessment” 19/22 April 2007, Granada, Spain, in IES Abroad Language Project Development, 18/25 April 2010, Rabat, Morocco, in Carla Institute, University of Minnesota, refresh course in Developing Learner's Sociocultural Competence, July 25/29, 2011, Minneapolis. She partecipated in IES faculty seminar: “Language map”, 26/29 June 2012, IES Milan.