Course: Italian for Beginners
Tutors:
Group 1 Tania Batelli-Kneale
Group 2 Tania Batelli-Kneale
Group 3 Dante Ceruolo
Aims:
The primary aim of the course is to enable students to learn to communicate in Italian from the outset effectively and accurately, developing in particular oral and aural skills. Students will also be introduced to contemporary life and culture.
After three terms, upon regular attendance, the students should be able to perform at level A2 of the Common European Framework of Reference.
Michaelmas term
Course content
The course will focus on the following communicative functions in Michaelmas term::
· Introductions, greetings and talking about yourself
· Describing yourself and giving simple personal information
· Asking about nationality
· Expressing possession
· Talking about leisure time and making plans
· Ordering snacks
· Describing people
· Expressing preferences
· Daily routine
Grammar
The core grammatical structures that will be covered include:
· Subject pronouns
· The present tense of avere and essere
· Gender and number of nouns
· The indefinite article
· The definite articles
· Preposition of place
· The present indicative of regular verbs and common irregular verbs
· Adjectives and adjectival agreement
· Reflexive verbs
Hilary term
Course content
The course will focus on the following communicative functions:
· Describe and narrate past actions and events
· Describing the weather
· Describing past states and habitual past actions
· Shopping for and describing clothes
· Asking and giving the time/date
Grammar
The core grammatical structures that will be covered include:
· Modal verbs
· Adverbs of time and frequency
· Present perfect in regular and irregular forms with avere and essere
· Demonstrative adjectives
· Double negative
· The imperfect
· Contrasting imperfect tense and present perfect direct object pronouns
Learning outcomes
By the end of Hilary term, upon regular attendance, should should be able to;
· Participate in a simple everyday conversation
· Understand the core of simple messages and conversations
· Read and understand basic written texts
· Write short and simple texts
TRINITY TERM
Course content
The course will focus on the following communicative functions in the trinity term
· Enquire about and express prices
· Talk about food, food preferences and quantities
· Make suggestions and requests
· Give orders and advice
· Express likes and dislikes
· Talk about future plans
· Talk about sports
Grammar
The grammatical structures that will be covered include:
· Partitive
· Indirect object pronouns
· Future simple
· Present conditional
Learning outcomes
By the end of Trinity term students should be able to:
· Participate in everyday conversations
· Understand short aural passages and conversations
· Read and understand more extended written texts in the target Language
· Write short texts of increasing length
Course book
Coursebook: Ciao International (International Edition, 8th Edition) by Carla Larese Riga (Cengage).
· The course book will be supplemented as necessary by handouts provided by tutors.
· Students are encouraged to use internet websites for self study.
· Materials and reference grammars for beginners are available in the Language centre library and students are encouraged to self access these, seeking advice from the Librarian if they wish.