Goal I. General Linguistic Proficiency
To offer courses that provide our
students with the linguistic and intercultural competence necessary to
communicate in Italian. The language is taught with emphasis on interpretive,
interpersonal, and presentational modes of communication.
Objectives: Communicative and intercultural competence
Expected Outcomes
Students will demonstrate the ability
to communicate in Italian with an appropriate breadth of vocabulary and
registers with interlocutors not accustomed to the speaking of language
learners; they will be able to read and write texts in formal, literary, and
academic registers.
Students will demonstrate a general
understanding of appropriate cross-cultural behaviors.
Goal II. Cultural Proficiency
To offer courses that provide our
students with the skills necessary to critically engage with Italian cultural
phenomena. Literature and culture are taught with emphasis on the ways in which
distinctive types of language shape different meanings, and on their relation to
historically and culturally specific contexts. In addition to cultural courses
taught in Italian, cultural courses taught in English provide the same skills
to students without prior knowledge of Italian and Italian American
culture.
Objectives: Critical analysis of
Italian cultural products
Expected Outcomes
Students will demonstrate the ability
to examine critically and analyze cultural products in themselves and in
relation to their historically and culturally specific context.
Students will demonstrate the ability
to communicate effectively the results of their analysis, both in oral and in
written form, and to use those results to construct new arguments and formulate
new questions on topics concerning Italian culture.
Goal III. Professional Preparation
To offer courses that allow students to
specialize in Italian literature and culture, and to equip with the necessary
skills those students who wish to enter postgraduate programs in Italian or in
related fields.
Objectives: Critical analysis of
creative forms of expression and ability to formulate new questions about them
according to methods and approaches appropriate to the discipline.
Expected Outcomes
Students will demonstrate familiarity
with major movements, genres, and authors from different time periods as well
as the ability to critically analyze and interpret Italian texts (verbal and
visual) according to methods and approaches specific to the discipline of
literary and cultural studies. Students will demonstrate the ability to
communicate according to the modes appropriate to the discipline, both in oral
and in written form, and to formulate new questions about their objects of
analysis.
