OUR METHOD AND LEVELS
Method
The language courses are taught in Italian and follow a communicative approach. While grammar is introduced and learned, the emphasis is mostly on speaking.
Levels
BEGINNER
Basic Italian 1 Communicative goals include greetings and introducing oneself, asking for basic information, talking about professions, expressing likes and dislikes. The grammatical structures include present tense of regular verbs and piacere, articles, nouns, possessive adjectives, demonstrative pronouns, and prepositions.
New Italian Espresso (Beginner & Pre-Intermediate) Alma Edizioni. Chapters 1 – 4.
Basic Italian 2 Communicative goals include describing a city, following and giving street directions, asking and telling time, asking for info on accommodation, talk about past actions, and understand descriptions of past events. The grammatical structures include present tense of some irregular and modal verbs, past tense, frequent irregular past participles, noun-adjective agreement, compound prepositions. New Italian Espresso (Beginner & Pre-Intermediate) Alma Edizioni. Chapters 5 – 7
Basic Italian 3 Communicative goals include describing and asking about one’s work routine, saying the date, talking about national holidays, describing a family tree, talking about one’s eating habits, understanding recipe’s instructions, talking about future actions, shopping for clothes and shoes. The grammatical structures include present and past tense of reflexive verbs, future tense, conditional; possessive adjectives (family), partitive “ne”, direct and indirect pronouns.
New Italian Espresso (Beginner & Pre-Intermediate) Alma Edizioni. Chapters 8 – 11.
Basic Italian Review Basic conversation is combined with a review of the grammar learned in Basic Italian 1, 2 & 3.
INTERMEDIATE
Intermediate Italian 1 Communicative goals include: describing past actions that occurred repeatedly, talking about one’s childhood, expressing wishes, understanding and giving orders. The grammatical structures include: imperfetto tense and past tense vs. imperfetto, progressive form (stare + gerund), regular and irregular imperatives, comparatives, superlatives, direct and indirect pronouns.
New Italian Espresso (Beginner & Pre-Intermediate) Alma Edizioni. Chapters 12–15.
Intermediate Italian 2 Communicative goals include: express hope, form hypotheses; invite someone to do something together; express one’s opinion; complain; express a preference; express emotions or moods; express a condition. The grammatical structures include: present and past subjunctives; past perfect; combined pronouns; past conditional; agreement of moods.
New Italian Espresso (Intermediate & Advanced) Alma Edizioni. Chapters 5–8.
ADVANCED
Advanced Italian 1 A Communicative goals include: Explain something; ask for an explanation; report another person’s words; express interest in something; give a suggestion; point out the advantages and disadvantages of a given condition; formulate hypotheses; express irony. The grammatical structures include: imperfect subjunctive; indirect/reported speech; passive voice; passato remoto and presente storico; subjucnctive + conjunctions; impersonal form of a reflexive verb; past conditional as future in the past; if clause (2nd type): possibility.
New Italian Espresso (Intermediate & Advanced) Alma Edizioni. Chapters 9–12.
Advanced Italian 1 B Communicative goals include: narrate the life of a historical character; narrate a trip; ask an indirect question; report what others said; express disappointment; point out natural beauty of a place; express hypothesis in the past; reflect on one’s own learning. The grammatical structures include: modal and temporal gerund; third person plural as impersonal form; indirect speech in the past; indirect question; subjunctive trapassato; if clause (3rd type–in the past); past gerund, past infinite.
New Italian Espresso (Intermediate & Advanced) Alma Edizioni. Chapters 13–15.
Advanced Italian 2 This is an advanced course for students who have reached a high level of proficiency in Italian. This class will meet to read and discuss articles selected by the instructor. Students will have opportunities to apply their knowledge of the Italian language to literature and cultural and social topics.
TEXTBOOKS
New Italian Espresso Beginner & Pre-Intermediate Textbook (for English speakers, Alma Edizioni
New Italian Espresso Intermediate & Advanced Textbook for English speakers, Alma Edizioni
Let’s Go to Italy! Beginner Conversation (Preparation for a trip to Italy)
OUR INSTRUCTORS
Our instructors are all native Italian speakers and hold degrees from Italian universities. They are qualified and passionate and they strive to expose students not only to the Italian language but also to the rich diversity of Italian culture and tradition. Meet them in the picture gallery below!
Giovanna Brunetti |
Valeria Buldini |
Anna-Maria Desprini |
Davide Di Rienzi |
Silvia Dipierdomenico |
Giovanni Gasparella |
Lucia Magi |
Claudia Marino |
Viviana Pezzera |
Roberto Ranieri |
Michele Scotto |
Nicoletta Tinozzi |
Caterina Venturini |
Federica Volpe |