Italian: Upper Intermediate - Part 2

If you are in receipt of a UK state benefit, you are a full-time student in the UK or a student on a low income, you may be eligible for a reduction of 50% of tuition fees. See details of our concessionary fees for short courses. 

To help you develop the language required to interact effectively and with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with speakers of the language without strain for either party.

Course objectives

• To further develop the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing to enable students to interact effectively in a wide range of contexts on both concrete and abstract topics.
• To consolidate reading comprehension skills required for understanding articles and reports in which the writer adopts particular viewpoints.
• To widen the range of lexical repertoire, idioms and grammar structures required for understanding lectures and most current affairs programmes and writing clear well-structured texts to pass on information, narrate events, or express viewpoints.
• To further develop intercultural competence and appreciation of the role that values and beliefs play in communication between cultures and social groups.

You will learn through a communicative teaching approach with the emphasis on actively engaging in classroom activities in the target language. These are likely to include role-plays, pair- and small-group work, debates and discussions conducted in a supportive, collaborative and informal learning environment.

The course has been structured to help you primarily to improve your speaking and listening skills and to deepen your awareness of cultural nuances and customs in the target language. You will also learn and practise new grammatical structures in a communicative context and will be encouraged to develop your reading and writing skills in your own time.

By the end of the course, students will be better prepared to:

• understand extended speech and lectures and follow lines of argument on familiar topics,
• participate effectively in discussions and express viewpoints with a degree of fluency and spontaneity,
• read and comprehend a wide range of articles, reports and news items with a degree of independence to obtain information, ideas and opinions, using reference sources selectively, and
• write clear, well-structured and detailed texts to present own viewpoints, narrate events, explain reasons or point out advantages and disadvantages of available options.

You will be set optional assignments to consolidate your learning and to allow you to progress at your own pace.

To benefit from the course learners will have done one of the following:

• Completed our 'Italian: Upper Intermediate - Part 1' course or equivalent; or
• Gained an AS in Italian; or
• Achieved level B1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) in Italian.

New students, who have not completed 'Part 1', whose proficiency in the language is appropriate for the course level are very welcome.

The course is pitched at level B2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), and completion of the course will help you meet the level requirements.

Find out more about our language levels.