The aim of this course is to provide students with a deeper and more detailed knowledge of spoken and written Italian. The course will focus on intensive oral work, reading and writing exercises based on literary prose texts, newspaper articles, authentic listening, and reading materials. Literary texts and readings will widen vocabulary, reinforce grammatical topics and introduce topics for conversation. The course will introduce advanced grammatical structures and more complex vocabulary through activities on word derivation.
Student Profile
Students who enter this level are able to accomplish everyday needs required to live in a new culture. In this course, students will begin to develop independence and autonomy so that, when communication does break down, they have some tools at their disposal to resolve these challenges independently. Students should welcome correction and guidance from their instructors, hosts, and others in the community as they progress.
By the end of this course, students will begin to converse at a rate of speed approaching normal conversation. They will start to become creative, spontaneous, and self-reliant as they solve problems, interpret texts, negotiate, and express their opinions, likes, and dislikes in the culture. Although students will still make errors and experience communication breakdowns, they are sometimes able to resolve these on their own. Students will understand some colloquial expressions and slang, and are starting to understand a wider variety of native speakers from different backgrounds.
By the end of this level, students will be capable of achieving the learning outcomes outlined below.
Prerequisites:
Proficiency at a level equivalent to IES Abroad’s Emerging Independent Abroad, as determined by placement test.
Attendance policy:
Attendance is mandatory. After the first three absences, each unexcused absence will lower the final grade two points. Absences are to be considered justified only in case of illness (written medical certificate required) and IES academic events. If students miss class, it is their responsibility to find out about homework and material covered in class.
No make-ups will be given for any exams unless you can provide a valid written medical certificate or special approval by the Director.
Learning outcomes:
Students who are placed in this level should be capable of achieving the outcomes in the Emerging Independent 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 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
A. Students will begin to identify at a basic level key host cultures, subcultures, habits, norms, and behaviors in a variety of settings, and they will be aware of the risk that generalizations can lead to stereotypes.
B. Students will start to identify their own cultural beliefs, behaviors, and values by contrasting and comparing them with those of the host cultures.
C. Students will be able to identify some gestures and body language, and they may be able to integrate some of those nonverbal actions into their interactions with native speakers.
D. Students will be able to establish relationships with locals and explore communities and places beyond their comfort zone.
II. Listening
A. Students will be able to understand some spoken communications of moderate complexity (media, speeches, music, conversations, etc.) on a wide range of concrete everyday topics as well as abstract topics covered in classes.
B. Students will begin to understand native speakers from a variety of backgrounds and limited experience with non-native speakers, and they will comprehend common colloquial expressions and slang.
III. Speaking
A. Students will be able to speak on and discuss concrete everyday and personal topics, abstract topics covered in classes, as well as other topics of particular interest to them.
B. Students will be able to participate and respond actively in a variety of interactions.
IV. Reading
A. Students will be able to read and understand articles, online texts, short stories and other non-complicated literary texts using background knowledge to aid their comprehension.
B. Students will begin to read and understand the main ideas of academic texts with assistance.
C. Students will begin to read independently and support their comprehension through a variety of reading strategies.
V. Writing
A. Students will be able to meet many everyday writing needs (notes, text messages, letters, emails, chats, online forums).
B. Students will be able to write short essays for class that narrate, describe, report, compare, contrast, and summarize on a wide range of topics with developing degrees of grammatical and lexical accuracy.
C. Students will be able to edit their own and their peers’ writing for common errors covered in class.
Method of presentation:
Classes are taught with a communicative approach to facilitate students’ ability to use their own resources, to let them present or discuss subjects while interacting with other people and producing written texts. The instructor will reinforce written and spoken abilities and will lead the students using various techniques. Working in pairs or small groups is especially emphasized. The instructor will design activities that help the students to become more socio-linguistically independent. For this aim, the instructor will use the city as the extension of the classroom in order to help students consciously develop strategies to use when facing more complex social interactions. The instructor will use task-based field trips and class activities to make the students aware of the strong relationship between language and culture. For this purpose, the instructor will reinforce students’ independence by providing them with historic and cultural background information before they go on field trips.
Required work and form of assessment:
Exclusive use of Italian language in class, active participation in all class activities, homework, research (regularly completed as indicated by the instructor), oral and written tests and exams, attendance, and punctuality. Students will be required to enter the Moodle course page on a regular basis in order to access readings, exercises, and any other regular and extra material.
Class participation, engagement and homework (30%, including field studies and use of the online Moodle page); 3 Quizzes (15%); Oral competence, including oral tests (20%); Midterm exam (15%); Final exam (20%).
content:
Week
Content
Assignments
Corresponding Learning Outcome(s)
Intensive week
Unit 1 “La finestra di fronte e il Ghetto”
1.Functional: Describing and narrating facts and actions in the past; remembering a special moment through music; creating a mental map.
2.Grammatical: Review present perfect / imperfect / past perfect. Recognition of the simple past. Past tenses agreement.
3.Vocabulary: Vocabulary related to the emotions of the characters in the film; vocabulary related to the Jewish Ghetto.
4.Culture: Famous Italian historical figures; the Ghetto in Rome and its history.
Film clip: ”La finestra di fronte”
The Ghetto of Rome and its history using images
Readings: I sommersi e I salvati by P. Levi; 16 October 1943 by Giacomo De Benedetti
Quiz 1
Field study: the Ghetto
I.A, I. B, II.B, III.A, III.B, IV.A, IV.B, V.A
Week 1
Unit 1 “La finestra di fronte e il Ghetto”
1.Functional: Describing and narrating a picture; talking about food; expressing emotions.
2.Grammatical: Past tense agreement; textual connectors for the past.
3.Vocabulary: Idioms about food.
4.Culture: Differences between grocery shopping in Italy and in the United States.
Film clip about the Roman Jewish cuisine.
Outdoor worksheet: ‘we are what we eat’: discovering what Italians eat by way of a visit to the supermarket
I.A, I.B, I.C, II.B, III.A, IV.A,V.B
Week 2
Unit 2 “Vacanze Romane e la bocca della verità”
1.Functional: Talking about values and dreams; explaining a passage from a book; reflecting on idiomatic expressions.
2.Grammatical: Present and past conditional.
3.Vocabulary: Positive and negative feelings; idioms related to feelings.
4.Culture: The poem “valore” by Erri de Luca.
Film clip the film ”Vacanze romane”
Reading: "Il rosso e il blu" by Marco Lodoli
You tube video: “ il mondo che vorrei” by Vasco Rossi
Quiz 2
I.A, I.B,I.C,I.D,II.A, III.A, IV.A,IV.B
Week 3
Unit 2 “Vacanze romane e la bocca della verità”
1.Functional: Describing images of the grotesque architectural style; expressing opinions on the topics discussed.
2.Grammatical: Past conditional (expressing past conditional and future in the past and giving uncertain news).
3.Vocabulary: Vocabulary related to the history of the grotesque in Rome.
4.Culture: The grotesque in Rome and in Bomarzo.
Film clip ”Vacanze Romane””
Readings on the grotesque in Rome and Bomarzo
Field study: The grotesque in Rome
I.A, II.B, II.A,II.B,III.A, IV.A, IV.B
Week 4
Unit 3 “Le fate ignoranti e l’Ostiense”
1.Functional: Describing people, objects and places; giving orders and suggestions.
2.Grammatical: The imperative.
3.Vocabulary: Vocabulary related to the topics covered (people, objects, places).
4.Culture: Differences between Italian and American status symbols.
Film clip: “Le fate ignoranti”
I.A, I.B, I.C, I.D, II.A, II.B,III.A, IV.B
Week 5
Intensive Review
Oral presentation 1
Mid-term exam
Week 6
Unit 3 “Le fate ignoranti e l’Ostiense”
1.Functional: Giving orders and making suggestions; ‘student-professor’ for one hour: transforming a lesson online into a lecture.
2.Grammatical: Formal/Informal imperative with pronouns.
3.Vocabulary: Vocabulary related to the Ostiense neighborhood.
4.Culture: The ‘Ostiense’ neighborhood seen through the eyes of the director Ozpeteck; the history of Ostiense.
Film clip: “Le fate ignoranti
Reading a newspaper article
I.A,I.C, III.A,III.B, IV.B
Week 7
Unit 3 “Le fate ignoranti e l’Ostiense”
1.Functional: Writing a script in groups.
2.Grammatical:Verbs with the impersonal construction: mancare, bastare, mancare, servire e andare.
3.Vocabulary: Derivations adjective-noun.
4.Culture: Emperor Hadrian and Antinous.
Cooperative learning: shooting a movie scene: “Hadrian and Antinous”
Outdoor worksheet: The neighborhood Ostiense
I.C, I.B, I.D, II.A, III.A,III.B, IV.B, V.B,V.C
Week 8
Unit 4 “Vicino al Colosseo c’è Monti”
1.Functional: Describing and commenting on a short film; formulating and comparing hypotheses.
2.Grammatical: Conditional sentences.
3.Vocabulary: Vocabulary related to the description of a neighborhood; the expression magari.
4.Culture: A Roman director: Mario Monicelli;the history of Monti.
Reading and writing a poem
Quiz 3
I.C,I.D, III.B, IV.A, IV.B, V.C
Week 9
Unit 4 “Vicino al Colosseo c’è Monti”
1.Functional: Analyzing a text through the identification of similarly-categorized words (i.e., different semantic fields) and through the senses (or sensory channels); understanding a text of microlanguage.
2.Grammatical: Conditional sentences.
3.Vocabulary: Vocabulary of a regulatory text: a recipe.
4.Culture: Italian cities and regions; Italian wines.
Outdoor worksheet: an interview about Italian regions and cities, and the origin of some famous wine labels
Field study: Monti
I.C, I.D, II.A, III.B, IV.C, V.B
Week 10
Unit 5 “Caro diario e la Garbatella”
1.Functional: Representing emotions through the use of non-verbal language;
inventing a dialogue between two historical figures.
2.Grammatical: The subjunctive and sequence of its tenses.
3.Vocabulary: Vocabulary about emotions: the expansions, derivations and antonyms.
4.Culture: The history of Garbatella.
Readings (Marcovaldo by I.Calvino, La città vecchia by U.Saba, La città vecchia by F.De Andrè).
I.B,I.C,II.A, III.A, IV.B,
Week 11
Unit 5 “Caro diario e la Garbatella”
1.Functional: Talking about the city from literary, poetic and musical points of view.
2.Grammatical: Textual connectors for subjunctive and/or indicative.
3.Vocabulary: Vocabulary related to the topics covered.
4.Culture: The birth of a myth, "the Vespa".
Reading a newspaper article: la Vespa.
I.A,III.A,III.B, IV.C
Week 12
General Review
Oral presentation 2
Final exam
Required readings:
IES course pack designed for the course and supplementary materials (readings, videos and films scenes, song lyrics, games, etc.) will be provided by the teacher or available on the Moodle course page.
Brief Biography of Instructor:
Maria Maddalena Cardarelli holds a degree in “ Lettere” with a concentration in archeological philology from University “La Sapienza” in Rome. She has been working in the field for American University programs. She was president and vicepresident of “Lateres” , a renowned Roman archaeological cooperative, from 1989 through 1992.
From 1992 to 2000, she collaborated with the Italian Culture Institute in Seoul and Athens to promote Italian language and culture through courses, lectures and events.
Currently she is a member of the Cultural Association “ Italiano per te”, which aims to spread Italian Language and Culture in the world by offering courses, workshops, trainings for language instructors as well as creating innovative teaching material. She has been a language instructor at IES since 2006.
The aim of this course is to provide students with a deeper and more detailed knowledge of spoken and written Italian. The course will focus on intensive oral work, reading and writing exercises based on literary prose texts, newspaper articles, authentic listening, and reading materials. Literary texts and readings will widen vocabulary, reinforce grammatical topics and introduce topics for conversation. The course will introduce advanced grammatical structures and more complex vocabulary through activities on word derivation.
Student Profile
Students who enter this level are able to accomplish everyday needs required to live in a new culture. In this course, students will begin to develop independence and autonomy so that, when communication does break down, they have some tools at their disposal to resolve these challenges independently. Students should welcome correction and guidance from their instructors, hosts, and others in the community as they progress.
By the end of this course, students will begin to converse at a rate of speed approaching normal conversation. They will start to become creative, spontaneous, and self-reliant as they solve problems, interpret texts, negotiate, and express their opinions, likes, and dislikes in the culture. Although students will still make errors and experience communication breakdowns, they are sometimes able to resolve these on their own. Students will understand some colloquial expressions and slang, and are starting to understand a wider variety of native speakers from different backgrounds.
By the end of this level, students will be capable of achieving the learning outcomes outlined below.
Proficiency at a level equivalent to IES Abroad’s Emerging Independent Abroad, as determined by placement test.
Attendance is mandatory. After the first three absences, each unexcused absence will lower the final grade two points. Absences are to be considered justified only in case of illness (written medical certificate required) and IES academic events. If students miss class, it is their responsibility to find out about homework and material covered in class.
No make-ups will be given for any exams unless you can provide a valid written medical certificate or special approval by the Director.
Students who are placed in this level should be capable of achieving the outcomes in the Emerging Independent 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 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
A. Students will begin to identify at a basic level key host cultures, subcultures, habits, norms, and behaviors in a variety of settings, and they will be aware of the risk that generalizations can lead to stereotypes.
B. Students will start to identify their own cultural beliefs, behaviors, and values by contrasting and comparing them with those of the host cultures.
C. Students will be able to identify some gestures and body language, and they may be able to integrate some of those nonverbal actions into their interactions with native speakers.
D. Students will be able to establish relationships with locals and explore communities and places beyond their comfort zone.
II. Listening
A. Students will be able to understand some spoken communications of moderate complexity (media, speeches, music, conversations, etc.) on a wide range of concrete everyday topics as well as abstract topics covered in classes.
B. Students will begin to understand native speakers from a variety of backgrounds and limited experience with non-native speakers, and they will comprehend common colloquial expressions and slang.
III. Speaking
A. Students will be able to speak on and discuss concrete everyday and personal topics, abstract topics covered in classes, as well as other topics of particular interest to them.
B. Students will be able to participate and respond actively in a variety of interactions.
IV. Reading
A. Students will be able to read and understand articles, online texts, short stories and other non-complicated literary texts using background knowledge to aid their comprehension.
B. Students will begin to read and understand the main ideas of academic texts with assistance.
C. Students will begin to read independently and support their comprehension through a variety of reading strategies.
V. Writing
A. Students will be able to meet many everyday writing needs (notes, text messages, letters, emails, chats, online forums).
B. Students will be able to write short essays for class that narrate, describe, report, compare, contrast, and summarize on a wide range of topics with developing degrees of grammatical and lexical accuracy.
C. Students will be able to edit their own and their peers’ writing for common errors covered in class.
Classes are taught with a communicative approach to facilitate students’ ability to use their own resources, to let them present or discuss subjects while interacting with other people and producing written texts. The instructor will reinforce written and spoken abilities and will lead the students using various techniques. Working in pairs or small groups is especially emphasized. The instructor will design activities that help the students to become more socio-linguistically independent. For this aim, the instructor will use the city as the extension of the classroom in order to help students consciously develop strategies to use when facing more complex social interactions. The instructor will use task-based field trips and class activities to make the students aware of the strong relationship between language and culture. For this purpose, the instructor will reinforce students’ independence by providing them with historic and cultural background information before they go on field trips.
Exclusive use of Italian language in class, active participation in all class activities, homework, research (regularly completed as indicated by the instructor), oral and written tests and exams, attendance, and punctuality. Students will be required to enter the Moodle course page on a regular basis in order to access readings, exercises, and any other regular and extra material.
Class participation, engagement and homework (30%, including field studies and use of the online Moodle page); 3 Quizzes (15%); Oral competence, including oral tests (20%); Midterm exam (15%); Final exam (20%).
Week
Content
Assignments
Corresponding Learning Outcome(s)
Intensive week
Unit 1 “La finestra di fronte e il Ghetto”
1.Functional: Describing and narrating facts and actions in the past; remembering a special moment through music; creating a mental map.
2.Grammatical: Review present perfect / imperfect / past perfect. Recognition of the simple past. Past tenses agreement.
3.Vocabulary: Vocabulary related to the emotions of the characters in the film; vocabulary related to the Jewish Ghetto.
4.Culture: Famous Italian historical figures; the Ghetto in Rome and its history.
Film clip: ”La finestra di fronte”
The Ghetto of Rome and its history using images
Readings: I sommersi e I salvati by P. Levi; 16 October 1943 by Giacomo De Benedetti
Quiz 1
Field study: the Ghetto
I.A, I. B, II.B, III.A, III.B, IV.A, IV.B, V.A
Week 1
Unit 1 “La finestra di fronte e il Ghetto”
1.Functional: Describing and narrating a picture; talking about food; expressing emotions.
2.Grammatical: Past tense agreement; textual connectors for the past.
3.Vocabulary: Idioms about food.
4.Culture: Differences between grocery shopping in Italy and in the United States.
Film clip about the Roman Jewish cuisine.
Outdoor worksheet: ‘we are what we eat’: discovering what Italians eat by way of a visit to the supermarket
I.A, I.B, I.C, II.B, III.A, IV.A,V.B
Week 2
Unit 2 “Vacanze Romane e la bocca della verità”
1.Functional: Talking about values and dreams; explaining a passage from a book; reflecting on idiomatic expressions.
2.Grammatical: Present and past conditional.
3.Vocabulary: Positive and negative feelings; idioms related to feelings.
4.Culture: The poem “valore” by Erri de Luca.
Film clip the film ”Vacanze romane”
Reading: "Il rosso e il blu" by Marco Lodoli
You tube video: “ il mondo che vorrei” by Vasco Rossi
Quiz 2
I.A, I.B,I.C,I.D,II.A, III.A, IV.A,IV.B
Week 3
Unit 2 “Vacanze romane e la bocca della verità”
1.Functional: Describing images of the grotesque architectural style; expressing opinions on the topics discussed.
2.Grammatical: Past conditional (expressing past conditional and future in the past and giving uncertain news).
3.Vocabulary: Vocabulary related to the history of the grotesque in Rome.
4.Culture: The grotesque in Rome and in Bomarzo.
Film clip ”Vacanze Romane””
Readings on the grotesque in Rome and Bomarzo
Field study: The grotesque in Rome
I.A, II.B, II.A,II.B,III.A, IV.A, IV.B
Week 4
Unit 3 “Le fate ignoranti e l’Ostiense”
1.Functional: Describing people, objects and places; giving orders and suggestions.
2.Grammatical: The imperative.
3.Vocabulary: Vocabulary related to the topics covered (people, objects, places).
4.Culture: Differences between Italian and American status symbols.
Film clip: “Le fate ignoranti”
I.A, I.B, I.C, I.D, II.A, II.B,III.A, IV.B
Week 5
Intensive Review
Oral presentation 1
Mid-term exam
Week 6
Unit 3 “Le fate ignoranti e l’Ostiense”
1.Functional: Giving orders and making suggestions; ‘student-professor’ for one hour: transforming a lesson online into a lecture.
2.Grammatical: Formal/Informal imperative with pronouns.
3.Vocabulary: Vocabulary related to the Ostiense neighborhood.
4.Culture: The ‘Ostiense’ neighborhood seen through the eyes of the director Ozpeteck; the history of Ostiense.
Film clip: “Le fate ignoranti
Reading a newspaper article
I.A,I.C, III.A,III.B, IV.B
Week 7
Unit 3 “Le fate ignoranti e l’Ostiense”
1.Functional: Writing a script in groups.
2.Grammatical:Verbs with the impersonal construction: mancare, bastare, mancare, servire e andare.
3.Vocabulary: Derivations adjective-noun.
4.Culture: Emperor Hadrian and Antinous.
Cooperative learning: shooting a movie scene: “Hadrian and Antinous”
Outdoor worksheet: The neighborhood Ostiense
I.C, I.B, I.D, II.A, III.A,III.B, IV.B, V.B,V.C
Week 8
Unit 4 “Vicino al Colosseo c’è Monti”
1.Functional: Describing and commenting on a short film; formulating and comparing hypotheses.
2.Grammatical: Conditional sentences.
3.Vocabulary: Vocabulary related to the description of a neighborhood; the expression magari.
4.Culture: A Roman director: Mario Monicelli;the history of Monti.
Reading and writing a poem
Quiz 3
I.C,I.D, III.B, IV.A, IV.B, V.C
Week 9
Unit 4 “Vicino al Colosseo c’è Monti”
1.Functional: Analyzing a text through the identification of similarly-categorized words (i.e., different semantic fields) and through the senses (or sensory channels); understanding a text of microlanguage.
2.Grammatical: Conditional sentences.
3.Vocabulary: Vocabulary of a regulatory text: a recipe.
4.Culture: Italian cities and regions; Italian wines.
Outdoor worksheet: an interview about Italian regions and cities, and the origin of some famous wine labels
Field study: Monti
I.C, I.D, II.A, III.B, IV.C, V.B
Week 10
Unit 5 “Caro diario e la Garbatella”
1.Functional: Representing emotions through the use of non-verbal language;
inventing a dialogue between two historical figures.
2.Grammatical: The subjunctive and sequence of its tenses.
3.Vocabulary: Vocabulary about emotions: the expansions, derivations and antonyms.
4.Culture: The history of Garbatella.
Readings (Marcovaldo by I.Calvino, La città vecchia by U.Saba, La città vecchia by F.De Andrè).
I.B,I.C,II.A, III.A, IV.B,
Week 11
Unit 5 “Caro diario e la Garbatella”
1.Functional: Talking about the city from literary, poetic and musical points of view.
2.Grammatical: Textual connectors for subjunctive and/or indicative.
3.Vocabulary: Vocabulary related to the topics covered.
4.Culture: The birth of a myth, "the Vespa".
Reading a newspaper article: la Vespa.
I.A,III.A,III.B, IV.C
Week 12
General Review
Oral presentation 2
Final exam
IES course pack designed for the course and supplementary materials (readings, videos and films scenes, song lyrics, games, etc.) will be provided by the teacher or available on the Moodle course page.
Maria Maddalena Cardarelli holds a degree in “ Lettere” with a concentration in archeological philology from University “La Sapienza” in Rome. She has been working in the field for American University programs. She was president and vicepresident of “Lateres” , a renowned Roman archaeological cooperative, from 1989 through 1992.
From 1992 to 2000, she collaborated with the Italian Culture Institute in Seoul and Athens to promote Italian language and culture through courses, lectures and events.
Currently she is a member of the Cultural Association “ Italiano per te”, which aims to spread Italian Language and Culture in the world by offering courses, workshops, trainings for language instructors as well as creating innovative teaching material. She has been a language instructor at IES since 2006.