Foreword
Buongiorno!
Welcome to Spunti: Italiano elementare 2 – a unique program authored by the Italian faculty of Muhlenberg College that takes the place of a traditional language textbook. Spunti is a fully designed course available to all college instructors of Italian for use and adaptation. Spunti consists of:
- straightforward grammatical explanations;
- printable activity packets for in-class use (included in the introduction to each unit);
- interactive exercises for linguistic practice and cultural enrichment for each unit (in ESERCIZI INTERATTIVI);
- sample semester lesson plans included in the appendix for instructors.
After years of teaching Italian, we became frustrated by two aspects of available textbooks. First, their exorbitant cost, which presents students with a significant financial burden. Second, the limitations textbooks necessarily impose on our approach to learning and our courses’ structure. So we decided to write our own text, and make it available for free.
Our approach to language instruction is interactive, conversational, and fundamentally task-based. We see grammar as a means for enabling effective communication, which is why our explanations of grammar are simple and concise.
There is no lack of Open Educational Resources (OERs) in Italian; quite the contrary. One can find a jungle of disparate materials of varied quality, which are hard to locate and synthesize into a coherent course. This is why we created Spunti: a free, comprehensive, coherent, agile, functional, and culturally rich course for Muhlenberg students, and for students of Italian everywhere. Spunti is a work in progress, which we keep reviewing and improving.
This project would not be possible without the generous support of Muhlenberg College and our colleagues: Dr. Lora Taub, former Dean for Digital Learning; Dr. Laura Furge, Provost of Muhlenberg College; and Dr. Eileen McEwan, former chair of the Languages, Literatures & Cultures Department.
For the first half of the elementary sequence, see: Spunti: Italiano elementare 1.
For the first half of the intermediate sequence, see Spunti: italiano intermedio.
Daniel Leisawitz & Daniela Viale
August 2022; August 2024
