Functional Spoken Italian Course

This course concentrates on the communicative aspect of the Italian language and is geared towards students at different levels of proficiency, especially towards those who already speak English. Students in any part of the globe can participate in this course as long as they have graphic access to the Internet.

This course was designed and will be taught by Maurizio Oliva and Gretchen Mathis in HTML format and is distributed through the VRML frame of the Centro di Studi Giovanni XXIII, thus allowing the students to work in an environment that possesses the same communicative characteristics of a real classroom. The course is divided into five parts (one part each week) and is taught completely in Italian. The navigational instructions are visual and the textual instructions are in Italian with the option to view them in English as well.

Recently, sociolinguistics and pragmatics have brought to light just how deeply language communication is affected by (for example, a telephone call, a televised transmission, a commercial letter) the social status, the profession, the instrument (for example the voice or a written page) the place. We would, therefore, have a primary structure based on the functional use of the Italian language, subdivided into: a) Starting and finishing the communicative act, b) asking and responding, c) socializing, d) expressing opinions and feelings. The physical instrument of communication either the voice or written words that are part of verbal communication, but it can also be a gesture that is a form of non-verbal communication. Non-verbal communication plays an accessory role from a linguistic point of view and often assumes a complementary function of the spoken language.  We will consider this case by case and make comments  regarding certain everyday situations. Linguistic expressions are conditioned by the situations in which they are used: when we refer to those who we know very well, we use different expressions than we would with those who we dont know at all. This happens whether it be in conversation or correspondence, at home or in a public place, at work, on the telephone, in a report or in a presentation. These elements can be combined among themselves in different situations.

The structure in which the material is organized assumes a secondary importance because the student can look up information by doing a key word search that results in a list of corresponding data. Every request is reported within a context of two hundred words.

An Italian-English/ English-Italian dictionary that can be consulted from any point in the course will be available.

A second course, designed and taught by Nanda Cremascoli will be dedicated to written communication. Written communication tends to assume forms that are more precise and a structure that is much more defined.