Department of Romance Languages and Literatures

910 Clemens Hall

Buffalo, NY 14260-4620

Italian 152 Intermediate Italian 2nd semester

Course Coordinator: Dr. Laura Chiesa, 927 Clemens Hall, Tel. 645-0872, lchiesa@buffalo.edu

Course description: the goal is development of listening, speaking, reading, and writing within a cultural context. LEC

Course objectives: The two semesters (ITA 151 and 152, formerly 203 and 206 respectively) build on the student's elementary knowledge in order to develope a more thorough grasp of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Students will be able to carry a simple and intelligent conversation on factual or intellectual topics, to read a newspaper article and some literary works, and write sentences with a main and dependent clauses. Following the first half of the textbook, the first semester covers articles, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, prepositions, possessives, and present, present perfect, imperfect, past absolute, conditional and future indicative. The second semester continues with indicative, imperative, and subjunctive moods, reflexive, passive voice, hypothetical construction, relative pronouns, comparative, and superlative.

Prerequisites: ITA 151 or permission of instructor.

Placement Policies:

• Native speakers of a foreign language are not allowed in introductory or intermediate courses if they were schooled in a country in which the language of instruction was the language in question.
• Heritage speakers of the language (those with home knowledge of the language) must see language coordinator for proper placement.
• Students who have completed coursework in French, Italian or Spanish either at UB or another college will not be allowed to register in a proficiency level lower than that already completed.
• Students repeating a course in which a failing grade was received must do so prior to registering in a higher-level course.
• Students with special circumstances or who have been away from the language for some time must contact the language coordinator for adequate placement.
• WARNING:  The department will unregister (drop) students who attempt to take courses for which they are ineligible or over-prepared.

Textbooks: Tognozzi, Cavatorta. Ponti, Houghton Mifflin; Workbook; Italian-English/English-Italian Dictionary.

Workload: This course is 3 credits. Students can expect to spend an average of 3 or 4 hours per week outside of class time. They are responsible for all the material presented in class and all the daily and weekly assignments.

Course Requirements: Students must attend class regularly, and participate fully in all class activities, both oral and written. Homework assignments prepared outside of class constitute and integral part of the coursework.

Intermediate Italian is a concrete, performance-oriented course, for which accuracy and mastery are essential. The final grade is calculated as follows: 50% the average grade of the long three exams, 25% the average grade of the quizzes, and 25% of the grade based on attendance, assignments, class preparation, and quality and quantity of class participation. The grading scale used is as follow: 94-100=A, 90-93=A-, 87-89=B+, 83-86=B, 80-82=B-, 77-79=C+, 73-76=C, 70-72=C-, 69-67=D+, 66-65 D, 0-64=F.

Make-ups: Make-up quizzes are at the discretion of the instructor. Make-up of exams will be only offered if the student presents official documentation of some extraordinary circumstance and the instructor accepts it as a legitimate excuse (based on university guidelines). This documentation is due no later than one week after the absence.

Incomplete: The grade of incomplete will be rarely given, only in cases of a serious, well-documented medical condition. Only a student who has at least a grade of C up to two weeks before the last day of class may ask for an incomplete. No incomplete will be given to substitute for a poor or failing grade.

Plagiarism: Academic dishonesty will result in a grade of F and disciplinary actions by the university. Examples of academic dishonesty are: copying the work from the Internet or a book, having a friend/relative write the work for you, copying during an exam or quiz, using an electronic word by word translator.

Students with disabilities: Students who require special accommodations because of a diagnosed disability should bring relevant documentation to their instructors as soon as possible. The instructor in conjunction with the course coordinator will oversee arrangements with assistance from the Office of Disabilities.

Course Outline: The following is a SAMPLE course outline. Students who register for this course will receive an updated course outline through UBLearns (Blackboard).