Italian

Learning Outcomes

The Italian Section offers multiple contexts for studying the language, with experiential opportunities for students in their individual areas of interest. While specific expectations will vary from student to student, according to their areas of interest, the Italian section seeks to regularly gather and report concrete evidence on what students can do based on their program of study. Learning outcomes are focused on: language proficiency (speaking, listening, reading and writing); intercultural communicative competence; diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice; Italian culture and literature; and critical thinking and collaboration.

1.  Language Proficiency

Read, write, listen, and speak at the Intermediate High (IH) and/or Advanced Low (AL) levels on the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) scale.

  • Understand most speech on familiar topics and comprehend some complex discourse.
  • Ask questions and use communication strategies such as circumlocution and paraphrasing.
  • Handle simple situations or transactions.
  • Narrate their lives and describe the world around them in the past, present and future tense with significant precision.
  • Make hypotheses and support opinions.

2.  Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC)

Move students along the ICC continuum, helping them progress towards the ethnorelative stage.

  • Build and show self-awareness of rules and biases in their own culture and understanding of varied cultural worldviews.
  • Recognize and interpret multiple perspectives, articulate differences, and demonstrate empathy across cultures.
  • Ask complex questions showing openness and curiosity about multiple cultural perspectives.

3.  DEI Awareness 

Incorporate DEI into the curriculum so that students have an awareness of the diversity of Italy and Italian-speaking populations and related issues of social justice.

  • Demonstrate an awareness of the rich, diverse, multifaceted identities of Italian speaking populations across time and place.
  • Recognize and reimagine societal categories and constraints. 

4.  Culture & Literature

  • Demonstrate knowledge of Italian literature, cinema, history, and culture.
  • Compare and contrast cultural practices as they relate to Italian and American culture and generalize about the importance of understanding cultural differences.

5.  Critical Thinking & Collaboration

  • Demonstrate problem solving through creative or task-based language activities or projects.
  • Analyze geographical, historical, and societal elements of literary and filmic texts and articulate how they relate to and interconnect with personal and societal perspectives today.