ITAL 0123A
Accelerated Beginning Italian
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Syllabus
Italian Dept. Homepage: http://www.middlebury.edu/depts/italian/
Online Workbook Link: http://books.quia.com/books/students.html
Prof. Thomas Van Order MWF 9:05 - 9:55 ATD 102; TTh 9:30 - 10:45 ATD 102
Extra credit film screenings take place on Mondays at 7:30 in LIB 201 with the students of ITAL 103.
Required texts and materials, available at the college bookstore:
1. Branciforte; Grassi. Parliamo Italiano!
2. Branciforte; Grassi. E-SAM (Electronic Student Activities Manual). This is Quia, the on-line workbook.Course code for QUIA: JDFT747
You will need both of these these texts in order to do the coursework in and out of class. Please check with the bookstore to see whether they are sold separately or together!
Please also buy (or recycle) a two-pocket folder for your dialogues & compositions. For more information, see the section on dialogues & compositions below.
Syllabus and weekly assignments:
Learning a language requires daily practice! Therefore, I expect you to complete all exercises and assignments on the night they are assigned. Please, always write out or type the assignment. You should never do the work in your head or out loud.
Course Requirements and Expectations:
1. Attendance: Daily attendance is required. Unexcused absences will guarantee a lower final grade.
2. Quizzes: A cumulative quiz will be administered every Friday. The quiz will be approximately 20 minutes long. It will cover recent as well as old vocabulary and grammar. Please note: make-up quizzes will not be granted. I will, however, permit the subsequent quiz grade to be doubled as a make-up grade for an excused absence. At the end of the semester, your lowest quiz grade will be dropped.
3. Dialogues & Compositions: A dialogue or composition will be assigned every week to be turned in on Mondays, regardless of the assignment date. The goal of this assignment is to practice your writing skills. This means that you should use recent vocabulary and grammar in your work. At the end of the semester, your lowest dialogue/composition grade will be dropped.
Please keep all your dialogues and compositions in chronological order in a two-pocket folder. In order to facilitate correction, it is important that you follow these five basic formatting guidelines: (1) type and double-space your work; (2) write on the left half of the page only; (3) number each composition; (4) indicate the word count at the end of the document (5) include the pledge, since this is work that you should be doing completely on your own (for more information see the honor code section below). To view an example of a correctly formatted composition, click on this link.
You will receive your dialogue back with corrections at the end of the week. Errors in your writing will be identified by symbols. You will receive a sheet decoding the symbols during the first week of class (you can also access them by clicking here). You must correct each composition before writing a new one. Make the corrections in pen or pencil on the original copy. Save trees -- don't print out a second copy! It is essential to consult your book when correcting your work. You are not working to improve your language skills if you simply guess at the correct answer. Use this assignment as a chance to identify your weaknesses and gaps in knowledge. Please note: no grade will be recorded unless the composition is carefully corrected. If your corrected composition contains as many errors as the original, your instructor may lower your grade for sloppy work!
Important: because of the pace of this course, in the first half of the semester we will not be able to work on vocabulary in class as
much as I would like. Your dialogues and your work with your conversation partner are the perfect place to use new words and the
grammatical structures we will study. When you write a dialogue, please always underline new words you are using.
4. Conversation Partners: You will be paired with one or more conversation partners in order to develop your speaking skills through the presentation of a weekly skit. (You will change partners during the course of the semester). Please closely follow these two rules when working with your partner: (1) before meeting with your partner, write the dialogue assigned in the syllabus by yourself; (2) after each of you have written your own dialogue, then meet to work on a short oral skit. For more information about your work with your conversation partner, please click here.
5. Other Homework: The weekly syllabus will list each night's homework from the textbook and/or Quia. Corrections of homework exercises from the textbook and the workbook will not be done in class, but questions of interest to the group are encouraged. It is important that you complete homework assignments on the night they are assigned.
6. Language Tables at Atwater: You will have the oppurtunity to eat at the Italian Table once a week with faculty and advanced students from the beginning of March to the end of the semester. Attendance is mandatory, but this is also an excellent chance to get to know other Italian students and faculty in a relaxed and fun atmosphere.
7. Extra Credit Films: Monday evenings at 7:30 in LIB 201, we will screen Italian films with English subtitles. There will be extra-credit questions based on the film on the weekly quiz. Those who cannot attend the screening will find the film on reserve in the library and they may view it any time during the week of the quiz.
8. Honor Code: It is perfectly fine to collaborate with classmates and more proficient speakers in correcting homework exercises from the textbook, and in oral preparatory work. However, you must not collaborate with others when you write dialogues or compositions or when you correct them. You may not ask proficient speakers or classmates to supply words or corrections. The reproduction/ modification of on-line or printed Italian texts and the use of correction programs are similarly prohibited. Collaborating with others more proficient, using/modifying on-line or printed Italian texts, and employing correction programs on your guided dialogues or compositions are all violations of the Honor Code. Please include the Honor Code in every assignment: Per questo lavoro non ho dato né ricevuto aiuto non autorizzato.
Final Grade: Your final grade is based on the following components:
1/3 Average of weekly quizzes
1/3 Average of weekly dialogues and compositions
1/3 Preparation and participation: quality of class performance, homework, Italian table, mandatory events at the Italian House
There is no midterm and no final exam, but bear in mind that weekly quizzes are always cumulative. Also, remember that your lowest quiz grade and your lowest dialogue/composition grade will be dropped when calculating your final grade (see sections 2 and 3 above).
Trouble Shooting and Tutoring: If we notice considerable difficulty developing with any student, we will refer you to the peer tutoring service. This is a resource available to you at no charge through the Office of Teaching and Learning in the main library. Tutors or more proficient students may help with oral practice, drills, homework, and test preparation. They may not write, correct, or edit dialogues and compositions. Please see your instructor if you have questions about dialogues and compositions.
When you go to your instructor for help during office hours, please bring your textbook and your notebook with you!
Respecting the Classroom Learning Environment: To help everyone concentrate better, we ask that you not consume food during class.
A Few Last Words: Various tests (oral proficiency, Italian School of Middlebury College) confirm that, after one year of beginning Italian at Middlebury, many students show a level of skills equal to two years of college Italian at other institutions. Learning a foreign language is an incremental process, and the weekly assignments have been carefully designed to make you practice every day. Besides the work we will do together in class, you will have to work consistently outside the classroom because of the pace of the course. I expect you to devote at least 8 hours a week to this course outside the classroom. We will have fun, we will work hard, we will sing many songs, and soon you will be enjoying your espresso in Rome, Florence or Ferrara!
Buon lavoro, ragazzi!