Italian Pre-Intermediate

Participation in our evening classes provides far more than the opportunity to learn new skills but also numerous benefits to our mental health and wellbeing. Evening classes are known to lower stress levels, improve confidence, increase social integration, contribute to personal growth and lifelong learning to name just a few advantages.

This course is the next step from our beginners course. Learners moving up to pre intermediate will have done around 56 hours of basic Italian. Please see our beginners course description for the areas already covered.

Over the course of the year you will:

• Be able to give and ask for opinions

• Continue to study authentic and real reading texts

• Become more familiar with the basic rules of grammar and some newer, slightly more complex grammar structures, enabling you to create sentences independently in present and past tenses through a mixture of speaking, listening, reading and writing.

By the end of the course, you will have studied the following topics to a greater depth than in the beginners course:

• Family relationships

• Food and cooking

• Work, daily routine and lifestyle

• Free time and hobbies / likes and dislikes

• Out and about (in the cafe/restaurant, directions, shopping, booking a room in a hotel)

• The Weather

• Holidays and going places, booking public transport

• Making plans

• Italian celebrations and holidays

You will consolidate the grammar covered in the beginners level and cover new areas such as:

• Agreement of Adjectives

• Adverbs of Frequency

• Past perfect tense

• Modal Verbs

• More prepositions

• Possessive adjectives (my, your etc)

Using suitable, authentic reading texts, you will enrich your vocabulary and start to use more complex sentences. As well as learning the language, you will deepen your understanding of the culture and lifestyle of Italians.

After Christmas, the speaking element will increase and basic, spontaneous conversation between students will start to be developed.

Tenses covered: regular and irregular present tense, past perfect tense

We will continue to use  ‘New Italian Espresso 1’ - ISBN 9788861827240 from the previous level which can be purchased new (£40-£52) or second hand. It is recommended that you purchase this comprehensive textbook which is used from beginners level all the way through the intermediate and upper intermediate levels. Photocopies can be provided for anyone who doesn’t yet have the textbook. Students need to keep a portfolio of their work, so ideally bring along an A4 folder, paper and plastic wallets.