Introductory description

This module seeks to consolidate the language skills gained in students’ first year of study and to further extend competence in Italian language. Classroom and self-study activities will involve translation exercises and analysis, oral project work, and advanced discursive writing. Students will also be directed to appropriate activities for self-study.
Students will also attend this module in preparation for their Year Abroad.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Translation: into and out of Italian, texts will cover a series of topics and registers from formal to conversational.

Essay and discursive writing: building through the year, students will produce a series of discursive texts in a variety of registers and styles. Emphasis is placed on the acquisition of a broad range of vocabulary and the use of fairly complex grammatical structures.

Oral: students will research and prepare a series of oral presentations, focused on developing appropriate argumentation and discussion structures and vocabulary, as well as peer learning and group work.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• to demonstrate skills of aural comprehension and oral communication over a wide range of topics
• to demonstrate familiarity with different language variations and registers
• to demonstrate language awareness through annotated translation from English into Italian and Italian into English
• to demonstrate a strong command of slightly complex structures of Italian grammar and their use in various contexts
• to demonstrate competence in different registers

Indicative reading list

Nocchi, Susanna, New Italian Grammar in Practice: Exercises, Tests, Games, Alma Edizioni 2015 (ISBN9788861824287)

For self-directed study

Lia Proietti & Cinzia Ciulli, Da zero a cento. Alma Edizioni, 2005 (ISBN 9788889237038)
Paola Nanni-Tate, Italian Verb Tenses. McGraw Hill, 2005. 2nd edition (ISBN 9780071451383)

View reading list on Talis Aspire

International

All modules delivered in SMLC are necessarily international. Students engage with themes and ideas from a culture other than that of the UK and employ their linguistic skills in the analysis of primary materials from a non-Anglophone context. Students will also be encouraged to draw on the experiences of visiting exchange students in the classroom and will frequently engage with theoretical and critical frameworks from across the world.

Subject specific skills

This module will develop students’ linguistic skills through engaging with primary materials in the target language. It will build students’ capacity to engage with aspects of Italian culture through analysis of this primary material and through seminar discussion aimed at deeper critical thinking. In particular, students’ awareness of the modern Italian language will be enhanced through lectures and seminars which engage in scholarship in the field.

Transferable skills

All SMLC culture modules demand critical and analytical engagement with artefacts from target-language cultures. In the course of independent study, class work and assessment students will develop the following skills: written and oral communication, creative and critical thinking, problem solving and analysis, time management and organisation, independent research in both English and their target language(s), intercultural understanding and the ability to mediate between languages and cultures, ICT literacy in both English and the target language(s), personal responsibility and the exercise of initiative.