Little Italies

Beginning students with little or no exposure to Italian learn basic language skills intensively during the class meetings, lunch conversation hours and excursions. This program aims to offer more than the elementary/intermediate sequence of the basic Italian Program as it combines an intensive language classroom experience with experiential learning. This exposes students to the Italian-American community and to manisfestations of Italian cultural production in artistic institutions in the greater DC/Baltimore area.

The entire Immersion Program will cover the elementary and intermediate coursework found in ITAL 110 and ITAL 210, which equates to 9 credit hours. The scope of the program is manifold: by the end of the summer term, students should have achieved the linguistic and cultural proficiency in Italian to narrate and converse about oneself or others.

Lunch Conversation Hour

Included in the course is a daily authhentic Italian lunch that exposes students to foods representative of the cultural differences found in the diverse regions of Italy. The lunch conversation hour reinforces classroom material while giving students the opportunity to speak Italian spontaneously in an informal gathering.

Excursions

Examples of Italian and Italian-American culture can be found all around us. In this program, the class will visit Little Italy in Baltimore, which is rich with Italian culture and convenient to Mason. In addition, the program will attend events in Washington, D.C. such as the annual Festa Italiana as a manifestion of Italian-American culture, and take guided tours of the Italian collections in the National Gallery of Art and the Italian Embassy. Students will get the opportunity to attend an operatic production at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts and will screen contemporary Italian films, such as Last Kiss (by Gabriele Muccino, 2001) and Cinema Paradiso (by Giuseppe Tornatore, 1989), for further exposure to Italy's rich artistic patrimony.

Program Advantages

• Complete Mason's foreign language requirement in one summer.
• Study with experienced instructors of Italian.
• Gain a greater appreciation of the forms of Italian culture in our immediate surroundings.
• Eat great Italian food!!!

Program Dates and Fees

ITAL 110-X01 (41303) Elementary Italian I        $300 (fee includes daily lunches and some excursions)

June 16, 2008 - July 18, 2008

ITAL 210-X01 (41317) Elementary Italian II         $150 (fee includes daily lunches and some excursions)

July 21, 2008 - August 8, 2008

Classes meet Monday through Friday from 9:30a.m. to noon. The required lunch conversation hour occurs from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Contact Information

For more information about the program, please contact:

Dr. Kristina Olson