Italian for special purposes : a ‘survival’ course

Abstract

This course is designed to non-speakers of Italian to ‘survive’ in a given language context and communication acts; and also to those who know a few things in Italian. This course is aimed to help those who want to communicate with Italian people, whether at work, or even when visiting the peninsula. This course will be developed in four linguistic stages (appropriate communicative exercises will be supplied) taking into consideration, not just the importance of the grammar concepts, but also to get familiar with the Italian culture. This was done by presenting various situations of everyday life such as in a restaurant, in an airport, at a party, in the street, on the phone, at a friend's house, in a post-office, on an aircraft and others. From these situations one would be able to learn how to greet someone, how to present himself, how to invite someone, how to refuse, how to propose an appointment, how to give an alternative, how to express one's feelings, when one agrees or disagrees, how to ask for certain things, how to describe actions happening in the past or the way to talk on future plans. I tried to present all this in a very simple form, in a way that everybody would manage to " survive" when faced with a situation where the Italian language is necessary. With the word culture I also mean understanding the persons we have in front, interpreting the implications and illusions shown in what he/she is saying, giving importance to his/her communicative intentions. Subsequently, one has to act accordingly: literature, cinema, art, television, radio, music, eating habits, free time, office/shop hours etc. All these factors can be useful in order to construe certain acts and situations in which one can find himself : What type of restaurant is this? What is it that we are eating? If we are invited to dinner, at what time should we arrive? Is it too rude to be late in certain occasions ? What do the Italians like to do in their free time? In this course I also stressed the importance of the following four factors: 1 - listening (radio/ television/ language cassettes) 2 - reading (newspapers/ magazines/ books) 3 - writing ( letters/ appropriate exercises) When listening, besides giving importance to the recognition of the words, to expressions and to sentence structures, it is essential to recognise certain sounds and intonations as they are fundamental elements for the right interpretation of what is being said. As regards reading I think that it should be done in silence or in a low voice, and individually as it is very rare that a foreigner has to read loud in Italian except for politicians, future teachers etc. Moreover, when reading in a loud voice one tends to give more importance to the pronunciation rather than to what he/she is reading. One of the principal aims on which this course is based is necessity to draw near, as much as possible, the grammatical factors to reality and to their frequent uses in the Italian language . The main objective is to be conscious of the various attitudes, whether linguistic or not, so that at the end it would be possible to react appropriately in several situations one might encounter in life when it comes to use the Italian language.