Courses

Why Italian courses?

Learner-led discussions are central to our courses. We strive to create a friendly and welcoming environment where students can reflect collectively about social issues through the course content while contributing to shaping the class itself.

Veronica Vegna

Director of the Italian Language Program

Our classes classes provide students with formal tools and culturally meaningful content to express themselves and exchange ideas in Italian, interpret Italian multicultural context, and compare products, behaviors, and perspectives in Italy and their native countries. This environment allows students to become multilingual subjects, with a better understanding of themselves and the world and an increased awareness of the plurality of human experience.

Sara Dallavalle

Coordinator of first-year courses & language assessments

In our lessons, technology promotes the use of multiple intelligences, but it also stimulates collaborative and cooperative learning. We design group assessments and creative projects that enable students to build a sense of community.

Leonardo Cabrini

RSO Mentor and Study Abroad Liaison

Our courses

First-year

ITAL 10100 Beginning Elementary Italian I

This course is the first of a three-part language sequence that provides beginning students with a solid foundation in the language and the cultural norms necessary for everyday communication in Italy. It is designed to help students obtain functional competency in speaking, writing, reading, and listening. Students will practice all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). They will also explore aspects of Italian culture, traditions, and regions through a selection of texts and audio-visual materials that aim to raise cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection.

ITAL 10200 Beginning Elementary Italian II

This course offers a rapid review of the basic patterns of the language presented in ITAL 10100 and further explores the language and the cultural norms necessary for everyday communication in Italy. It is designed to help students obtain functional competency in speaking, writing, reading, and listening with a focus on present and past time frames. Students will practice all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). They will also explore aspects of Italian culture, traditions, and regions through a selection of texts and audio-visual materials that aim to raise cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection.

ITAL 10300 Beginning Elementary Italian III

This course is the third of a three-part language sequence that provides a solid foundation in the language and the cultural norms necessary for everyday communication in Italy. It expands on the language presented in previous parts of the sequence, and provides functional competency in speaking, writing, reading, and listening, with a focus on present, past and future time frames. Students will practice all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). They will also explore aspects of Italian culture, traditions, and regions through a selection of texts and audio-visual materials that aim to raise cultural awareness and encourage intercultural communication. Successful completion of ITAL 10300 meets the language competence requirement.

ITAL 12200 Italian for Speakers of Romance Languages

This course is intended for speakers of other Romance languages to quickly develop competence in spoken and written Italian. Students learn ways to apply their skills in another Romance language to Italian by concentrating on the similarities and differences between languages.

Second-year

ITAL 20100 Language History Culture I

In this course, students practice all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational), and further develop listening, reading, writing, and speaking skills through a variety of activities. This class reviews basic patterns of the language and presents new grammatical structures and communicative functions. Students explore aspects of Italian society – with a focus on cultural practices and perspectives – through a variety of literary and non-literary texts and audio-visual materials, which raise cultural awareness and encourage intercultural reflection.

ITAL 20200 Language History Culture II

In this second part of the intermediate sequence, Students explore aspects of Italian society – with a focus on social issues and socioeconomic changes – cultural practices, and perspectives through a variety of literary and non-literary texts and audio-visual materials. The course raises cultural awareness and encourages intercultural reflection, while offering students several opportunities to practice all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational). Students develop listening, reading, writing, and speaking skills through a variety of activities. This class presents new grammatical structures and lexical items, while reviewing patterns from ITAL20100.

ITAL 20300 Language History Culture III

This course completes the study of the common grammatical functions and syntactical structures of the language, while reviewing previously-acquired patterns. Students practice all three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational), and further develop listening, reading, writing, and speaking skills through a variety of activities. They continue exploring aspects of Italian society, through audio-visual materials and the reading of a contemporary Italian novel. Like the other parts of the sequence, this course raises cultural awareness, encourages intercultural reflection, and helps students develop academic literacy.

ITAL 20222 Italian for Speakers of Romance Languages II

This course is intended for speakers of other Romance languages who have completed ITAL 12200 “Italian for Speakers of Romance Languages.” In this intermediate-level course, students will further develop their proficiency in Italian, by focusing on the similarities and differences between Romance languages. This course offers a rapid review of the basic patterns of the Italian language and expands on the material presented in ITAL 12200.

Third-year

ITAL 20400 Corso di perfezionamento

How can we better understand the complexities of 21^st-century Italian society and culture? This Corso di perfezionamento aims to immerse you in today’s Italian linguistic, social, and cultural environment, focusing on various issues of relevance, such as multiculturality, immigration, non-normative sexual and gender identities, youth and the labor market, sexism, and inclusive language. By reading, analyzing, and discussing a variety of multimodal texts (a graphic novel, excerpts of works of fiction, short stories, poems, essays, articles, songs, social media posts, statistical reports, etc.), you will be able to expand your vocabulary and grammar competence, employ it in your work, and perfect your public writing skills. You will be able to apply various forms of written discourse in which you narrate, describe, interpret, compare, argue, and make hypotheses about products, practices, and perspectives in current Italian society. In addition, by interpreting multiple authentic narratives, you will be able to question your cultural and ethical assumptions and develop a nuanced understanding of today’s Italian society. Taught in Italian.

ITAL 20600 Cinema italiano: lingua e cultura

This course examines aspects of Italian language and culture through the study of a variety of Italian films. While acquiring the necessary vocabulary and conceptual tools to identify formal filmic elements, students will improve their language proficiency and broaden their knowledge of Italian culture, with a particular attention to historical and sociolinguistic features. Film analysis will also help foster intercultural reflection and awareness of selected past and current social issues in Italy. Taught in Italian.

ITAL 20660 Italian Comics: a Century-long (Hi)story

This course offers an introduction to Italian comics and aims to explore their interaction with the historical and social contexts in which they are published. Italian comics have a history of power exchange among consumers, industry, and products, and thus, are particularly suitable for investigating how the Italian people reacted to significant 20th- and 21st-century historical events. This course will provide students with fundamental coordinates to read, interpret, and argue about comic strips, comic books, and graphic novels contextually as social commentary and products of the entertainment industry. Students will have the chance to develop critical thinking skills and multimodal literacy with activities such as visual analyses of digitized comics pages, evaluations of physical copies of magazines and books, discussions on the role of comics artists, and broader considerations on the change and development of Italian society and culture. This course will utilize the vast selection of Italian comics held at the Regenstein Library. Taught in Italian.

ITAL 22800 Cinematic Sicily: Exploring the Island and its Otherness through Film

This course explores portrayals of Sicily in Italian films and their relationship with the social, cultural, and political realities of the island. Students will analyze how these films construct the “otherness” of Sicily, enforcing or challenging stereotypes and preconceptions about the island and its people. This course will also examine Sicily’s criminal underworld and its impact on society, as well as women’s emancipatory efforts and achievements against patriarchy and misogyny. The class will reflect on the historical and cultural context in which the films were made, giving students a deeper understanding of the ways in which cinema shapes our perception of Sicily in relation to the rest of Italy. The course will include films from different genres and references to TV series set in Sicily. Vocabulary to discuss formal cinematic elements will be provided throughout the quarter. Films will be available with subtitles in English and Italian.

What students say

I really like the way the class is structured and I think it really encourages an immersive and comprehensive experience in Italian.

ITAL 10100 (Autumn 2021)

My capacity to speak and write Italian has vastly improved, as I now have a command of the subjunctive and conditional moods, and can also use the future tense. I can understand a wider variety of texts, and can express more complex thoughts in my speech and writing, and with more fluidity.

ITAL 10300 (Spring 2022)

My knowledge of grammar structures and my fluidity in conversation increased dramatically. I also no longer have any issue in understanding Italian spoken.

ITAL 20100 (Fall 2021)

I appreciated the emphasis on contemporary Italy. I feel like I was able to engage more deeply with Italian culture and politics than I have in previous courses and move beyond generalities and stereotypes.

ITAL 20400 (Fall 2021)