Instructor: Maria Adelaide Basile
A language is like a building whose bricks are individual words. The more words you learn the more you will understand a country. Some of our sessions will be conducted in the classroom and some will take place around town. In Assisi we'll visit stores, markets, museums and other cultural sites where you'll be encouraged to have conversations with locals and share your impressions, pictures, and questions which will focus on how to use spoken and written Italian. The course will be conducted entirely in Italian.
Beginners: we will work together on speaking, listening comprehension, reading and writing. Upon completing this course, participants will possess the ability to understand written and spoken Italian through the knowledge of simple structures. Situations will be varied, but general and chosen to require an interchange of every day information and routine tasks. Classes include:
- Satisfy simple personal needs and social demands to survive in the target language culture
- Comprehend the general meaning and some details of texts on familiar topics
- Produce brief texts on topics of personal interests and social needs.
Advanced: This is not a lecture or a grammar course (since participants will already be familiar with the structures of Italian). The basis for class discussions will be texts such as newspapers, short stories, poems, songs, Italian TV programs and films, integrated with conversations with locals, art visits, and interactions in markets and local stores. This will allow participants to grasp a better understanding of Italian history, art, literature and Italian food and fashion. Topics of discussion will reflect various aspects of modern Italy as well as current events. Participants will learn to express themselves in a variety of ways: they will be asked to summarize articles, do short presentations, and, eventually, write short compositions. A country is made of its history and culture: art and literature as well as food, fashion, music, films.
There’s no better place to learn Italian than Assisi, the cradle of Italian language and of medieval culture. I look forward to meeting you in Assisi, A presto! Adelaide
Maria Adelaide Basile Born in Rome, Italy, Maria Adelaide Basile received her Master in Contemporary Italian Literature from the University of Rome La Sapienza and her Ph.D in Medieval Italian Literature from Rutgers University in United States. She taught Italian language and literature at Rutgers University, at the College of Charleston and at John Cabot University in Rome. She read her papers at several conferences, and has published several essays on Dante, Nievo, Manzoni, and the filmmaker Gillo Pontecorvo. In addition, Dr Basile has worked as theater critic for several newspapers, and translated and introduced the poems of the French poet Alain Bosquet and the American poet Anne Carson. Her main areas of interest are the Middle Ages, Italian Theater, and Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Italian literature. She is also a published poet. Dr Basile’s publications include an essay on the Italian writer Piero Sanavio Caterina Cornaro o del potere, published by Il Mulino and a collection of poems, Viaggi (Travels), Campanotto, November 2014.
