Here is the course outline for Italian.
CILS A1
CILS A2
CILS B1
CILS B2
CILS A1
This CILS A1 Syllabus contains an overview of what a student is expected to know at the A1 level.
After completing the CILS A1 level course, you should be able to accomplish the following:
-> Greet people
-> Talk about yourself
-> Talk about where you live
-> Talk about your family members
-> Talk about your likes and dislikes
-> Engage in a simple buy-and-sell situation
-> Ask about the day, the time and the date
-> Accept and refuse
-> Read simple notices, posters and catalogues
-> Fill in a simple form
-> Write a simple postcard
Topics & Vocabulary:
- Saying hello and goodbye
- Introducing yourself
- Nationality
- Address and telephone number
- Asking and saying how one is
- Asking and giving personal details about one’s job and the languages one speaks
- Apologizing
- Ordering food and drink at a bar and paying
- Reading a simple menu
- Spelling one’s name
- Talking about one’s preferences
- Asking and telling the time
- Talking about one’s everyday routine
- Referring events in a chronological order
- Expressing frequency
- Expressing likes and dislikes
- The Italian alphabet
- Numbers 1-100
- Days of the week
- Booking a table at a restaurant
- Understanding simple city directions
- Understanding a menu
- Expressing agreement/disagreement
- Adjectives
- Some Italian recipes
- Some expressions of place
- Talking about past events
- Writing a greeting card
- Some expressions of time
- The connectors allora, prima, poi
- The date and months of the year
- Talking about sport and other leisure activities
- Saying what one can and cannot do
- Grocery shopping
- Organising a meal
- More food
- Colours
- Expressing quantity
Grammar:
- Personal subject pronouns
- Definite and indefinite articles
- Nouns
- Adjectives
- Present tense of regular verbs
- Interrogatives
- Food and beverage
- Reflexive verbs
- Adverbs of frequency
- The verbs sapere and potere
- More about the verb piacere
- Prepositions in and a
- Regular and irregular past participles
- The Present Perfect
- The adverb fa
- More interrogatives
- The agreement noun/adjective (plural)
- Direct object pronouns
- The particle ne
- The partitive articles
Cultural Content:
- Titles of study in Italian business cards
- Greetings and gestures
- The “coffee culture” in Italy
- The world of work in Italy (male/female jobs)
- Meals as a family ritual
- Etiquette and cultural awareness: dos and dont’s at an Italian restaurant
- Giving and receiving presents
- Special events in the Italian cities: the Notte Bianca
Skills Work:
- Speaking – including situational exercises & interaction
- Basic pronunciation rules
- Plenty of listening activities
- Writing practice – including postcards, e-mails, etc.
- Language learning awareness: reflecting on your learning style
- Lots of speaking – inc. situational exercises & interaction
- Revisiting pronunciation rules and numbers
- Plenty of listening activities
- Writing practice
- Language learning awareness: learning new vocabulary, dealing with unknown words, approaching grammar, approaching a listening task.
CILS A2
This CILS A2 Syllabus contains an overview of what a student is expected to know at the CILS A2 level.
After completing the CILS A2 level course, you should be able to accomplish the following:
Topics & Vocabulary:
- Describing a city or a borough
- Writing an email and inviting a friend over
- Talking about public transport
- Organising a city tour
- Public institutions and offices
- Adjectives used when describing a flat/house
- More expression of place
- Describing people
- Talking about one’s family
- Talking about one’s friends and neighbours
- Family names and adjectives
- Describing a family picture
- Designing a website for a course of Italian
- Talking about places where one has been in the past
- Understanding brief tourist information
- Getting information about services at a hotel
- Booking a hotel room
- Writing a postcard
- Describing one’s holiday
- Organising a weekend in Italy
- Numbers 101 – 1000
- Introducing someone
- Talking about one’s language learning experience
- Expressing one’s preferences and opinions
- Giving explanation for one’s choices.
- Asking information about train timetables and tickets
- Understanding a train timetable
- Buying a train ticket at a railway station
- Expressing a wish
- Giving a suggestion
- Asking for something in a polite way
- Describing clothing
- Talking about past habits and lifestyles
- Making comparisons between the past and the present
- Making a survey about one’s preferences about fashion
- Taking part to a radio interview
- Telling a story
- Describing past habits
- Talking about one’s past wishes and aspirations
- Expressing one’s likes and dislikes about music
- Vocabulary related to music
Grammar:
- The expressions c’è/ci sono
- The verbs venire and volere
- Combined preposition su+ article
- The preposition in
- The possessives
- Demonstrative pronouns questo and quello
- Impersonal construction with si
- The verb dovere
- The particle ci
- Revision: the verb piacere + Infinitive
- Indirect object pronouns
- The verb interessare
- The expressions mi piace di più/di meno
- The relative superlative
- The verbs volerci and bisogna
- The present conditional
- Qualche
- The adverbs ending in –mente
- The imperfect tense
- The comparatives (regular forms)
- The use of the preposition da
- The use of Present Perfect and Imperfect
Cultural Content:
- The square as a meeting point
- Gestural expressiveness
- Means of transport and maps
- Italian words used abroad
- Railway transport in Italy
- Italian icons and symbols
- Culture and free time
Skills Work:
- Lots of speaking – inc. situational exercises & interaction
- Writing practice – e.g. application letter
- Plenty of listening activities
- Language learning awareness: Reading and understanding a text; using non-verbal communication; understanding symbols and images
- Lots of speaking – inc. situational exercises & interaction
- Writing practice – e.g. stories, reviews, etc.
- Plenty of listening activities
- Language learning awareness: A test about the “multiple intelligences”; reading skills: skimming and scanning; Understanding a radio broadcast; systemising: logic and grammar.
CILS B1
Topics & Vocabulary:
- Talking about one’s favourite activities and giving a reason
- Talking about a pleasant experience
- Describing a recipe or a dish
- Understanding a recipe
- Talking about eating habits and lifestyles
- Talking about setback during one’s holiday
- Describing a physical problem
- Having a conversation with a GP
- Asking and giving suggestions/advice about health problems
- Understanding an information leaflet in medicine boxes
- Talking about one’s travelling habits/preferences
- Understanding and giving advice about travel safety
- Understanding traffic updates on the radio
- Reporting a stolen or lost item
- Describing objects
- Food and recipes
- Parts of the body
- The verbs prendere and mettere with drugs/medicines
- The car
- Adjectives to describe objects
- Talking about information and media
- Understanding the main headlines in a radio news broadcast
- Announcing scheduled events
- Talking about future events
- Choosing and understanding a TV programme
- Understanding a property advert
- Asking details about a property
- Expressing needs
- Expressing surprise and regret
- Talking about holiday accommodation options
- Paying somebody a compliment
- Preparing one’s profile for a couch-surfing website
- Talking about holidays and traditional events
- Inviting someone at an event, accepting and refusing an invitation
- Expressing one’s intention
- Going shopping at a local street market.
Grammar:
- The present perfect of reflexive verbs
- The relative pronoun che
- The absolute superlative
- The position of the adverbs
- Nouns with irregular plural
- The formal imperative
- The use of pronouns with the imperative mood
- The informal imperative
- The negative form of the imperative mood
- The conjunction se.
- Comparisons with di or che
- Meglio and migliore
- The future simple
- The progressive form with stare + gerund
- The structure che + adjective + noun
- The direct object pronouns + present perfect
- Quello and Bello + nouns
- The forms of buono
- The imperfect and present perfect of sapere and conoscere
- The verbs cominciare/ iniziare and finire
Cultural content:
- Italian recipes
- Italian body language
- Emergency numbers in Italy
- Italians and the TV
- Inviting friends over in Italy
- Shopping
Skills Work:
- Lots of speaking – inc. situational exercises & interaction
- Writing practice – e.g. adverts and short articles
- Plenty of listening activities
- Language learning awareness: In your own words: paraphrasing; communicating through gestures; learning through the loci.
- Lots of speaking – inc. situational exercises & interaction
- Writing practice – e.g. letter of complaint
- Plenty of listening activities – e.g. phone messages
- Language learning awareness: Learning using information media; learning using mental images; systemising: logic and vocabulary.
CILS B2
Here’s a list of CILS B2 topics that you are expected to know.
Topics & Vocabulary:
- Describing monuments
- Giving instructions for a touristic itinerary, a recipe, or a set of rules
- Describing people and situations in the past
- Talking about your family, yourself and your origins
- Making a reservation
- Ordering at a restaurant
- Inviting and accepting an invitation
- Expressing your opinion, making comments about your experiences
- Describing situations and events in the past
- Agreeing & disagreeing
- Having an argument
- Building friendly, informal relationships
- Projects and wishes for the future
- Hypothesis, suppositions and resolutions
- The world of work
- Telling the plot of a movie/a book
- Streets and street signs
- Excuses and accepting excuses
- Talking about cities and culture
- Conflict and resolution
- Linking past to present
- Making friends – talking about self, states of mind and feelings
Grammar:
- Revisiting previous level’s grammar
- The imperative of regular and reflexive verbs
- The Imperfect tense
- Possessive pronouns and adjectives
- The use of the imperfect and the present perfect
- The future
- The present progressive
- Simple and combined prepositions
- Prepositions with verbs
- Absolute superlative
- Direct and indirect object pronouns
- Pronominal verbs
- Exclamatives
- Pronouns and verbs
Cultural Content:
- Rome: Art, History, cuisine
- Italian cooking & recipes
- Italian family and wedding
- Having an argument with an Italian
- Discourse markers: expressing impatience, surprise, and wonder
- Italians and Ferragosto
- Young people and unemployment
- Italian journalism
- Children and bullying in school
- Italians and the immigrants
- The dialects
- Loan words
Skills Work:
- Lots of speaking – inc. situational exercises & interaction
- Writing practice – e.g. adverts and short articles
- Plenty of listening activities
- Lots of speaking – inc. situational exercises & interaction
- Writing practice – e.g. letter of complaint
- Plenty of listening activities – e.g. phone messages