ITALIAN LANGUAGE-PRE-INTERMEDIATE

The course is addressed to international exchange students at Ca’ Foscari with a knowledge level of Elementary Italian (A2).

Class contents are selected mainly within areas of Italian Linguistics and Sociolinguistics, with the purpose of increasing the student's level of analysis and understanding of written and oral Italian in its standard and neo-standard varieties.
Furthermore, the historical background regarding the evolution of the Italian language will help the students in developing a higher competence in using their linguistic abilities with a deeper perspective on morpho-syntactic variations and declinations.
Finally, the student’s awareness on language skills will be expanded through the analysis of key-text samples, which aim to consciously lead the student towards an understanding of the linguistic context also from a socio-cultural as well as a morphosyntactic point of view.
At the end of the course, the students will be able to master with greater competence the linguistic possibilities of Italian at a pre-intermediate level.

Knowledge and understanding of the Italian language are required at a basic/elementary level (CEFR descriptor: A2).

The course is addressed to international incoming students of Ca’ Foscari and is composed by two modules:
• Italian Language (30 hs)
• Language Practice (50 hs)

The "Italian Language" module consists of 12 classes (meetings scheduled once a week):

Classes are ideally organised in two complementary segments: In segment one, students will focus on theoretical aspects concerning fundamentals of sociolinguistics and the history of the Italian language, and in segment two, students will work directly on language examples taken from literary texts and current topics of relevance within the communicative situation, in order to strengthen those notions met before in the first segment of the class.
During the analysis activity on selected text passages, both linguistic and structural peculiarities of the Italian language will be taken into consideration, such as: spelling evolution from vernacular languages up to standard Italian; verbal and noun inflection adaptations within the socio-cultural context (ex. “imperfetto di cortesia”, female declinations in professional-descriptor nouns); topic/comment relationship and the distribution of the logical sense in a sentence; variation of language registers and styles according to the communication process; exemplification of syntax elements (“che” polyvalency) within the variation of neo-standard contemporary Italian (both written and horal levels), etc.
The two learning segments will proceed on parallel lines or not according to the topic discussed during each class. Class materials selected for both theory and text analysis will be provided by the professor to the students, and available on Moodle.

The "Language Practise" module consists of 20 classes (meetings scheduled twice a week) and will take into practice every language aspect necessary to complete the B1 level of Italian, according to the European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).

▪ Module 1: slides and additional materials on Moodle
▪ Module 2: Spazio Italia 3, Corso di italiano per stranieri, manuale+eserciziario B1, di MG. Tommasini, MF. Diaco, Loescher Editore - ISBN 9788820133504

Admission to the exam
Only students who have attended 80% of the lessons (Module 1) and of the exercises (Module 2) are admitted to the exam and will receive the credits.

In particular:
▪ Attendance at Module 1: at least 24 hours/30 and carrying out the assigned activities.
▪ Attendance at Module 2: at least 16 exercises out of 20 (40 hours out of 50).
Students regularly enrolled in the course, but who have not attended 80% of the lessons and exercises, will not be able to receive credits and take the exam.

Examination
The exam consists of two mandatory parts.
1. Italian language module (40%): during the course two written tests will be held in the presence of the topics covered. The test dates will be communicated during the lessons.
2. Level B1 language test (60%): on oral and written comprehension, vocabulary and grammar (PC test at the end of the course) + written productions (in itinere) and oral examination (at the end of the course).

N.B. Students must take and pass all parts of the exam.

The module "Italian language" consists of 12 frontal lectures (1 lecture per week).
The module "Language Practice" consists of 20 frontal lectures (2 lectures per week).

Attendance is mandatory (80%).

written and oral