WellesleyX: Italian Language and Culture: Advanced (2023-2024)

• Express your opinions, feelings, likes and dislikes, and make hypotheses on a variety of subjects, including current issues affecting your hometown and the world.
• Enhance your Italian writing skills.
• Understand simple texts written for native speakers, such as newspaper or magazine articles.
• Important grammatical structures, such as the subjunctive in all its tenses, hypothetical clauses, imperatives, present and past gerunds and infinitives, and the passive voice.
• Italian culture, including the economy, environmental challenges, theater, opera, the Mafia, dance, and law.

Benvenute e Benvenuti!

With Italian Language and Culture: Advanced you will learn how to perfect your skills in Italian (speaking, listening, reading and writing): by the end of this course you will be able to express opinions and hypotheses on a variety of subjects using both formal and informal ways of communicating. You will also expand your vocabulary to include topics beyond everyday conversation. Italian culture is an integral part of this course: through interviews and readings you will learn about many aspects of Italian art, history, politics and contemporary society.

The course will stay open from February 12, 2023 until December 31, 2024 as a self-paced course: this means that you can cover the material at your own speed within the above timeframe. Although we estimate that, studying 3-4 hours per week, it will take you about 8 weeks to complete the course, you are under no obligation to finish within this suggested time. Please see the detailed syllabus below for suggestions on how to divide the material over 8 weeks.

You may decide to study towards a Verified Certificate of Completion ($59), or to learn for your personal enrichment and pleasure.

To receive a Verified Certificate of Completion you must obtain a final score of 60% on Tests. You may drop 2 Tests.

Course organization

The course consists of six Units. Each Unit is broken down in 5-6 lessons (9.1, 9.2, 9.3, etc.).

Each lesson presents its content in multiple ways. These can be viewed and studied in any order you prefer.

Below is a quick overview of the various components of each unit.

Ciak! videos: original videos shot on our campus with native and near native speakers of Italian. Each Ciak! video is followed by two downloadable Podcasts. These will be ideal for your on-the-go practice.

Grammar charts : grammar explanations, examples, and charts are available for review with audio files of each example and verb conjugation within the course, and can be downloaded in PDF file format.

Slide Shows with animation : grammar explanations with images and animation.

Videos (Slide Shows with Narration) : narrated grammar explanations.

Esercizi : online exercises with immediate feedback.

Vocaboli nuovi : new vocabulary lists are available as PDF files, slide show presentations, and videos with narration.

Discussione : creative writing prompts.

Lettura : readings delivered as PDF files, slide show presentations, and videos with narration.

Intervista : interview with a native speaker on a variety of cultural subjects.

“So many things! I loved it! I really feel that this course exactly met my needs and surpassed my expectations. It was challenging and I learned so much, in contrast to other adult courses which tend not to be demanding or serious enough.”

"The course is beautifully designed and organized. Material is presented in multiple ways to reinforce the content and to reach participants with different learning styles."

"It has been an unexpectedly fun, engaging, interesting, and challenging course in its depth and breadth."

"The best course I've ever found in teaching a foreign language! Should be an example for many other language teaching programs! Doing this course is fun because of the diversity of exercises which I have never found elsewhere."

1. Can I enroll in more than one Italian course on edX? For example, can I enroll in the beginner and intermediate courses at the same time?

Yes, you may enroll in all three courses (beginner, intermediate, advanced) if you wish, and work towards a Verified Certificate of Completion for all or any of the three courses.

2. How can I determine the appropriate level (beginner, intermediate or advanced) to enroll in?

Generally speaking, if you have completed one or two years of Italian in high school, or one or two semesters at the university level, you should be ready for the intermediate course. If you have completed two or three years at the high school level or three/four semesters at the university level you should be ready for the advanced course.

If you are not sure, we recommend that you enroll in the beginner or intermediate level first, explore the content of that course, and decide whether you feel you are sufficiently familiar with that level to enroll in the higher level. You may also decide to enroll in all three levels at the start, and proceed through each level at the same time if you wish to review material in depth.

3. Can I start at any level or must the three courses (beginner, intermediate, advanced) be taken consecutively?

You may start at any level. When you are finished with one level, you may or may not decide to enroll in the next level.

4. Can I enroll in the intermediate level without completing the beginner level, or in the advanced level without completing the intermediate level?

Yes, you may enroll and complete the courses in any order you wish.

5. Upon completion of the course, will I receive a Verified Certificate of completion?

You will receive a Verified Certificate of Completion provided you meet the course requirements (see syllabus by clicking the Syllabus tab at the top of the course page). You may decide to work towards a Verified Certificate of Completion at any point during the course by clicking "Upgrade to Verified" on your dashboard. The cost of the certificate is $59.

6. Can I receive a Verified Certificate of Completion after the course is archived?

No, enrollees are eligible to receive a Verified Certificate of Completion only during the period that the course is live on the edX platform (2/12/2023 - 12/31/2024).