ci vediamo, Italian1x

A few years ago, I started Italian Language and Culture: Beginner by WellesleyX only to abandon it after a week or so. This year, I decided to have another go at it.

This course is said to be “a new iteration of our course Italian Language and Culture: Beginner (2019—2020)”. In reality, a lot of material dates from much earlier time. For instance, the video Il cinema italiano appears to be uploaded to YouTube in 2019, although it is clear that it was recorded in 2014 (the presenter says that “we”, meaning Italy, have just won an Academy Award for La grande bellezza; incidentally, it remains the last Italian film to win an Oscar).

As beginners courses go, it is probably not the worst. Here’s the syllabus:

• Unit 1: Le città italiane e la piazza
  1.1 Greetings and Introductions (Saluti e presentazioni)
  1.2 Nouns (gender, singular and plural)
  1.3 Articles (indefinite) and adjective buono
  1.4 Verb essere, c’è, ci sono, articles (definite), adjective bello
  1.5 Verb avere and idiomatic expressions with avere
  1.6 Lettura: Le città italiane e le piazze
  1.7 Intervista con Lucia Toppino: La città di Alba
• Unit 2: I giovani, la famiglia e l’università
  2.1 Aggettivi
  2.2 Aggettivi e pronomi possessivi
  2.3 Verbi in -are; avverbi; domande; espressioni interrogative
  2.4 Verbi irregolari in -are (andare, dare, fare, stare)
  2.5 Lettura: I giovani, la famiglia e l’università
  2.6 Intervista con Elena, Beatrice e Mattia: L’università in Italia e negli USA
• Unit 3: Attività, sport e vacanze
  3.1 Verbi in -ere, -ire
  3.2 Verbi irregolari in -ere: dovere, potere, volere
  3.3 Verbi irregolari in -ire: dire, uscire, venire
  3.4 Conoscere e sapere; preposizioni articolate
  3.5 Lettura: Attività, sport e vacanze
  3.6 Intervista con Emanuele Capoano: Le mie vacanze in Italia
  3.7 Intervista con Isabella Perricone: Il cinema italiano
• Unit 4: La cucina italiana
  4.1 Passato prossimo con essere e avere
  4.2 Imperfetto; imperfetto e passato prossimo
  4.3 Trapassato prossimo
  4.4 Espressioni negative
  4.5 Lettura: Le abitudini alimentari in Italia
  4.6 Intervista con Angelo Guida: La mia passione per la cucina
• Appendix: alphabet, pronunciation, numbers, dates, telling time
  A1. Alphabet and pronunciation (Alfabeto e pronuncia)
  A2. Numbers (Numeri)
  A3. Days of the week, months, seasons (Giorni della settimana, mesi, stagioni)
  A4. Telling time (Che ore sono? Che ora è?)

In the beginning of each section, apart from Lettura and Intervista, there is a short video skit called Ciak! (Italian for “action!”). The skits feature some Italian students of Wellesley College studying, wait a minute, Italian language with “Professor Milani” who also appears in the skits, played by the creator of the course, Daniela Bartelesi-Graf. As you could imagine, most of the situations are presented in not particulary convincing way. Even Ciaks aside, one could be forgiven for expecting to learn from examples a tad more useful than these:

La penna dello studente è nel suo naso.
(The pen of the student is in his nose.)

Il sale è nel caffè della professoressa, no!
(The salt is in the coffee of the professor. Oh, no!)

Il cane ha pulito molto bene il pavimento.
(The dog cleaned the floor very well.)

Hai rotto i piatti di ceramica della nonna?!
(You broke Grandma’s ceramic dishes?!)

Che cosa hai risposto a Paolo quando lui ti ha detto che ha avuto un incidente con la tua macchina?
(What did you answer Paolo when he told you that he had an accident with your car?)

I hope the future editions of this course will have more “real life” Italian, like clips from classic Italian films or TV programmes.

In my view, the Unit 1 is way too easy even for the beginners course; on the contrary, the Unit 4 is too grammar-heavy, what with three different past tenses. Now passato prossimo is not “simple past”, as the course author insists on calling it. Since the target audience of this course is supposed to be English-speaking (all explanations are given in Italian and English), it makes sense to introduce passato prossimo as the Italian analogue of English present perfect while explaining that their usage could be a bit different. It looks like trapassato prossimo was brought in simply because, the course creators thought, we’ve just explained passato prossimo and imperfetto, now let’s combine them and quickly do some exercises in the remaining time.

When we come to the end of the unit (and course), there is a feeling of incompleteness. I guess it really depends on the student whether they find this incompleteness motivating — to the degree of, say, taking the intermediate course — or not.

Since edX scrapped the free “honor code” certificates, I’ve been following the “Audit Track” which is a fancy name for studying for yourself rather than for a diploma. I don’t need the diploma; however, nowadays edX pushes you toward the paid “Verified Track” harder than before. I find that rather irritating. For example, even though this course is marked as self-paced (i.e. you don’t have to meet any particular deadlines), the system keeps telling me to hurry up. Why? Because, while the course runs from 22 February 2021 until 31 December 2022, free access lasts only 12 weeks. In fact, this time is more than enough to finish the course, but still, it’s not what I’d call “self-paced”.

🛈	Audit Access Expires May 17, 2021 You lose all access to this course, including your progress, on May 17, 2021. Upgrade by Dec 21, 2022 to get unlimited access to the course as long as it exists on the site. Upgrade now

Another annoying thing is that I am “unable to participate in graded assignments”. In spite of that, the system tells me by which date each of these tests is due. For instance, all the tests for the first unit are due on 22 March. In other words, I’m given exactly one month to finish the Unit 1 and pass the tests which I, um, can’t pass because I am “auditing”. I don’t suppose I missed that much though by not taking those tests. There are little “ungraded” tests after every few videos which nevertheless give you a limited number of attempts and some scores (like: 6/7 points) to keep you motivated. (By the by, I’ve encountered a number of typos or errors in these. I have reported them via the Discussion board; all of them were promptly acknowledged and corrected by Daniela Bartalesi-Graf.)

You can purchase the course handout from Amazon as a paperback ($25/£20.79) or Kindle edition ($10/£7.75). Alternatively, if you hate spending money on something that should come as a part of this course anyway, just keep saving the handouts provided in every unit as pdf files.