Details

ONLINE LANGUAGE COURSE
Italian for Beginners

Course Description:

My goal is to teach the vocabulary that is most useful for Americans traveling to Italy and that by the end of the six weeks, people who work on the material and practice will be able to form simple sentences in the present tense that describe themselves, how they feel, what they would like, and navigate a restaurant and medical facility in Italy.

Instructor:

Erin McCarthy King, Ph.D. has been teaching Italian Language and Literature since 2004. Erin earned a combined B.A. and M.A. in Italian Language and Literature from Yale University in 1998 and then her Ph.D. from Yale in 2009. She has taught Italian as a Lector at Yale and as an Instructor at Sacred Heart University, Southern Connecticut State University, Quinnipiac University, The Hopkins School, and is currently an affiliate faculty member at Fairfield University. Erin has published several articles, including “The Voyage of Columbus as a ‘non pensato male’: The Search for Boundaries, Grammar, and Authority in the Aftermath of the New World Discoveries” © 2012, and has presented several conference research papers including “The Logic of the Clock: Dante’s Similes of the Horologe in Paradiso X and XXIV” and most recently, “Language and the Expansion of the Ecumene in the Mondo nuovo of Tommaso Stigliani.” Erin serves as an alumna interviewer for Yale College Admissions and as a member of the Yale Alumni Schools Committee. In her spare time, Erin and her husband are very busy parents to their four children.

Course Objectives:

• VOCABULARY: Practice pronunciation, discuss uses, cognates, homonyms
• GRAMMAR TOPIC: Present the grammar in a PowerPoint and show some practice exercises
• BREAKOUT ROOMS: Students will pair with partners, do one grammar practice and one conversation prompt using the vocabulary
• REVIEW: Review the grammar practice and select a few groups to present their conversations

Virtual Classroom: Full access to an online educational platform with discussion forum, videos of recordings, syllabus, and exercises.

Location: LIVE INTERACTIVE ON-LINE LANGUAGE CLASSES

Complete syllabus will be provided upon registration.

• ALL LECTURES WILL BE RECORDED AND AVAILABLE FOR VIEWING AT YOUR CONVENIENCE IN OUR VIDEO LIBRARY FOR THE DURATION OF THE COURSE

Schedule

WEEK 1 – GREETINGS AND COMMON EXPRESSIONS

– Thursday, September 16, 2021

VOCABOLARIO: Greetings and common expressions
GRAMMATICA: Italian alphabet and pronunciation, gender and number of nouns

Week 1 will explore the fundamentals of Italian pronunciation and spelling, as well as greetings and expressions of appreciation. Students will use the vocabulary they learn to create and practice short dialogues introducing themselves in Italian. Our study of Italian grammar will begin with the gender and number of nouns.

WEEK 2 – FOOD

– Thursday, September 23, 2021

VOCABOLARIO: Food and ordering in a restaurant
GRAMMATICA: Numbers 0 – 100, Definite and Indefinite Articles

Week 2 will focus on vocabulary pertaining to food and ordering in a restaurant. Students will practice ordering various meals and will learn how to speak with restaurant staff. Students will be introduced to the numbers zero to one hundred and our grammar exposition for the week will be definite and indefinite articles.

WEEK 3 – HEALTH

– Thursday, September 30, 2021

VOCABOLARIO: Health and parts of the body
GRAMMATICA: Subject pronouns, the verbs stare and avere, expressions with avere

In Week 3, students will learn vocabulary related to physical health, parts of the body, and how to communicate with a doctor or emergency facility in Italy. Grammar topics for the week will include subject pronouns, the present tense of the verbs stare and avere, and expressions with the verb avere. At this stage, students will be able to begin forming complete sentences expressing how they are feeling.

WEEK 4 – PROFESSIONS

– Thursday, October 7, 2021

VOCABOLARIO: Descriptive adjectives and professions
GRAMMATICA: The verb essere, gender and number of adjectives

Week 4 vocabulary will concentrate on descriptive adjectives and professions. We will practice using the verb essere in the present tense and learn about adjectival agreement. By the end of this week, students will be able to form a much broader range of present tense sentences and describe themselves and others around them.

WEEK 5 – TOURISM

– Thursday, October 14, 2021

VOCABOLARIO: Interrogatives and tourist sites
GRAMMATICA: -ARE verbs in the present tense and the irregular verbs andare, fare, dare

In Week 5, we will talk about the Italian names for well-known cities and sites and will learn first conjugation regular verbs (those that end in -ARE). We will also study the four irregular verbs in this conjugation – andare, fare, dare and stare—and add them to our repertoire. Students will practice conjugating and creating sentences on a range of topics.

WEEK 6 – PASTIMES

– Thursday, October 21, 2021

VOCABOLARIO: Pastimes, making reservations, and buying tickets
GRAMMATICA: -ERE and -IRE verbs in the present tense

Week 6, the final week of the course, will cover essential vocabulary for making reservations, buying tickets, and some activities and pastimes. The grammar topic for Week 6 will be regular second and third conjugation verbs (those ending in -ERE and -IRE) in the present tense. Students will practice these conjugations and will break into small groups to converse with each other using the vocabulary covered. By the end of this course, students will have a solid foundation upon which to build and will be prepared to move on to more complex grammar.

Instructor

Erin McCarthy King, Ph.D. has been teaching Italian Language and Literature since 2004. Erin earned a combined B.A. and M.A. in Italian Language and Literature from Yale University in 1998 and then her Ph.D. from Yale in 2009. She has taught Italian as a Lector at Yale and as an Instructor at Sacred Heart University, Southern Connecticut State University, Quinnipiac University, The Hopkins School, and is currently an affiliate faculty member at Fairfield University. Erin has published several articles, including “The Voyage of Columbus as a ‘non pensato male‘: The Search for Boundaries, Grammar, and Authority in the Aftermath of the New World Discoveries” © 2012, and has presented several conference research papers including “The Logic of the Clock: Dante’s Similes of the Horologe in Paradiso X and XXIV” and most recently, “Language and the Expansion of the Ecumene in the Mondo nuovo of Tommaso Stigliani.” Erin serves as an alumna interviewer for Yale College Admissions and as a member of the Yale Alumni Schools Committee. In her spare time, Erin and her husband are very busy parents to their four children.