Avanti! / Edition 4

by Janice Aski, Diane Musumeci

Overview

Informed by second-language acquisition research and supported by cutting-edge digital tools, the complete Avanti! program creates a dynamic learning environment that fosters communication and motivates students to succeed. With Connect and LearnSmart, Avanti's learning platform gives instructors maximum flexibility to structure the learning experience inside and outside the classroom. Avanti! is known for its focus on the most critical language for communication, its active presentation of vocabulary and grammar, systematic review and recycling, and inclusion of real-world culture. With Avanti!, students not only learn Italian- they develop a deep appreciation for Italian culture.

The Avanti! program is built around the following principles:

Focused Approach / Flexible Content: Avanti! responds to instructors’ concerns that most programs attempt to cover too much material in the first year. Informed by second-language acquisition research, this introductory course reflects a reasonable expectation for the amount of material that most beginning learners can acquire in one year of classroom instruction. The Strutture sections include the core structures that are necessary for meaningful communication at the elementary level. Additional structures are either presented “for recognition only” or appear in Per saperne di piu with associatedinductive presentations and activities in Connect, giving instructors maximum flexibility to teach the grammar they want to teach. The Connect platform includes an assignment builder feature that allows instructors to fully customize the course content to meet the needs of their particular students. Instructors may choose to assign all or some of the textbook and workbook activities as well as some or all of the grammar points presented in Per saperne di più, based on their course goals and the course delivery method: face-to-face, hybrid, or online. A major highlight of the fourth edition is the addition of 25 engaging Grammar Tutorial Videos that present key grammar points with related practice activities.

Communicative Competence: Avanti!satisfies students’ desire to communicate in everyday situations from the very beginning through a guided and gradual process of acquisition. In the Strategie di comunicazione videos that open each chapter, students see and hear Italians of all ages and backgrounds using high-frequency, practical expressions that students can immediately begin using. The Lessico sections have been revised to include the most up-to-date high-frequency vocabulary in use today. The Strutture sections guide students from working with Italian at the word- and sentence-level until they arrive at the final section of each chapter, Cultura, where they engage in listening, reading, writing, and speaking activities at the discourse level. Outside of class, Connect provides voice tools such as Blackboard Instant Messaging for partnered speaking practice and the Voice Board for posting voice recordings to an asynchronous voicemail thread. With Avanti! students are always well supported in their practice inside and outside of the classroom, building their communicative competence and their confidence.

Cultural Competence: Avanti! provides a meaningful and extensive exploration of Italy’s rich and unique culture. In addition to the Strategie di comunicazione videos and the Grammatica dal vivo videos that feature contemporary language as it is spoken today, the Il blog di… videos showcase four different regions of Italy. Brief readings and interactive cultural activities also promote an understanding of cultural products, practices, and perspectives throughout the program. All chapters end with reading, listening, speaking and writing activities that explore cultural topics in furtherdepth. New to the fourth edition is a feature called Scopriamo le belle arti! Based on the fine art chapter opener, the Lingua e Arte activities integrate both language review and art appreciation. Finally, each chapter now alternates between film and song activities, newly titled Scopriamo il cinema! and Scopriamo la musica!

Recycling vocabulary and structures for maximum exposure is a key feature of Avanti. Every fourth chapter provides practice of four previously taught grammar points, which are then followed by a related topic. Chapter 16 contains only review grammar sections, providing students with additional practicewith challenging structures. The Lingua e Arte activities that close each chapter integrate both language review and culture. With LearnSmart, our adaptive learning tool, students can practice key vocabulary and grammatical points outside of class. This proven systemhelps students identify what they don’t know and provides them with the optimal learning path to help them learn those concepts. LearnSmart also identifies the concepts students are most likely to forget and encourages periodic review to ensure that they retain what they have learned. In the fourth edition, LearnSmart now includes modules for all the grammar and vocabulary covered in Avanti, including updated high-frequency vocabulary. By assigning both Connect activities and the LearnSmart vocabulary and grammar modules, instructors can ensure that students are optimally prepared for in-class communication.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780077736446
Publisher:	McGraw Hill LLC
Publication date:	02/10/2017
Series:	Italian
Edition description:	Older Edition
Pages:	576
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Avanti 4e: Updated Author Bios

Janice M. Aski is Professor and director of the Italian language program at The Ohio State University. She specializes in foreign language pedagogy and historical Italian/Romance linguistics. Her research in foreign language pedagogy has explored a variety of topics, such as testing, teaching reading at the elementary level, how first-year Italian textbooks and grammar practice activities reflect current research in second language acquisition, and a comparison between traditional and hybrid Italian language courses. Her publications in historical Italian/Romance linguistics focus on the social, pragmatic, and cognitive aspects of phonological and morphosyntactic change.

Diane Musumeci is Associate Professor Emerita of Italian and SLATE (Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During her academic career, her teaching, research, and publications focused on the acquisition of Italian as a second language, content-based instruction, and the history of second language teaching. In retirement, between frequent trips to Italy to visit family she enjoys teaching Pilates and training her two lagotto romagnolo in agility.

Diane Musumeci is Associate Professor Emerita of Italian and SLATE (Second-Language Acquisition and Teacher Education) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During her academic career, her teaching, research, and publications focused on the acquisition of Italian as a second language, content-based instruction, and the history of second-language teaching. She enjoys conserving and sharing several acres of woods with her family and an assortment of wildlife.

Table of Contents

Avanti 4e Table of Contents

Capitolo 1 Per cominciare

Strategie di comunicazione

Greeting someone

Finding out someone’s name

Finding out where someone is from

Saying good-bye

Expressing likes and dislikes

Lessico

Alphabet and pronunciation

Days of the week

Months and seasons

Numbers from 0 to 9,999

Strutture

Gender

Indefinite articles

Number

Definite articles

The verb piacere [s/b bf]

Cultura

Italian gestures

Famous Italians

Per saperne di più

Gender

Number

Capitolo 2 Com’è?

Strategie di comunicazione

Asking how someone is

Asking someone’s nationality

Lessico

Describing people, places, and things

Strutture

Adjectives

The verbs essere (to be) and avere (to have)

There is / There are

Possessive adjectives

Cultura

Origins of Italian last names

Per saperne di più

Irregular plural adjectives

The demonstrative pronouns questo and quello

Other adjectives that precede the noun

The verbs essere (to be) and avere (to have)

Capitolo 3 Cosa ti piace fare?

Strategie di comunicazione

Getting someone’s attention; Asking and telling time

Asking when events occur

Saying what you like to do in your free time

Lessico

Talking about your daily activities

Strutture

The infinitive of the verb

The present indicative of regular verbs

Verbs with spelling and/or pronunciation changes

Irregular verbs

Cultura

Italian schedules

Per saperne di più

The verbs rimanere (to remain) and scegliere (to choose)

Capitolo 4 Che bella famiglia!

Strategie di comunicazione

Review

Meeting people and finding out what they do for a living

Commenting on things and complimenting people

Lessico

Talking about your family

Strutture

Review

Possessive adjectives

Possessives with family members

Interrogatives

The interrogatives quanto (how much) and quale (which)

The present indicative

More irregular verbs

Adjectives

The comparative

Cultura

The Italian Family

Emiliano’s blog: Rome

Per saperne di più

Suffixes

Comparatives of inequality with che

Comparatives of equality

Capitolo 5 A tavola!

Strategie di comunicazione

Inviting someone to do something

Declining an invitation and making excuses

Lessico

Restaurant terms and items on an Italian menu

Strutture

The superlative

Verb + infinitive

Prepositions

The partitive

Cultura

Italian table manners and food

Per saperne di più

The preposition da

The pronoun ci

Capitolo 6 I vestiti e la moda

Strategie di comunicazione

Making polite requests

Asking permission

Lessico

Describing your clothes

Strutture

Direct and indirect objects

Present progressive

Reflexive verbs

Adverbs

Cultura

Italian fashion and clothing

Per saperne di più

Molto and poco

Buono/cattivo versus bene/male

Capitolo 7 Cosa hai fatto questo weekend?

Strategie di comunicazione

Expressing surprise, pain, and so on

Asking what happened

Lessico

Talking about your weekend activities

Strutture

The present perfect of regular verbs

The present perfect of irregular verbs

Negative expressions

Cultura

Italian music

Per saperne di più

The present perfect: piacere

Other negative expressions

Capitolo 8 Che bella festa!

Strategie di comunicazione

Review

Asking for information

Expressing good wishes

Lessico

Talking about Italian and American holiday celebrations

Strutture

Review

Reflexive verbs

Reciprocal verbs

The present perfect

The present perfect of reflexive and reciprocal verbs

Definite and indefinite articles

The use of definite and indefinite articles

Prepositions

The prepositions in and a

Cultura

Italian holidays and festivals

Luca’s blog: Bologna

Per saperne di più

The present perfect of dovere, potere, and volere

The pronoun ne

Capitolo 9 La scuola e i giovani

Strategie di comunicazione

Finding out someone’s future plans

Describing how things used to be

Lessico

Talking about education and professions

Strutture

The imperfect

The imperfect versus the present perfect

The past progressive

Cultura

Italian school system

Pinocchio

Per saperne di più

da/per + expressions of time

The imperfect versus the present perfect: sapere and conoscere

Capitolo 10 La vita e il benessere

Strategie di comunicazione

Expressing regret

Expressing regret, sorrow, and making apologies

Lessico

Activities, hobbies, and well-being

La salute

Strutture

Using the present to talk about the future

The future

Hypotheticals of probability

Cultura

Sports in Italy

Per saperne di più

The future of probability

Capitolo 11 Casa dolce casa

Strategie di comunicazione

Managing conversations

Seeking approval and expressing hesitation

Lessico

Describing Italian houses and furniture

Strutture

Object pronouns

Indefinite pronouns

The relative pronoun che

Cultura

Houses in Pompeii

Lodging in Italy

Per saperne di più

Object pronouns and the present perfect

Indefinite adjectives

The relative pronoun cui (whom/which)

Capitolo 12 In città

Strategie di comunicazione

Review

Expressing opinions

Lessico

Talking about Italian cities and towns

Strutture

Review

The present perfect of irregular verbs

The past absolute

The imperfect versus the passato prossimo

The imperfect versus the past absolute

The comparative

The irregular comparative

Object pronouns

More about the verb piacere

Cultura

Italian cities

Barbara’s blog: Florence

Per saperne di più

Double object pronouns

Capitolo 13 Andiamo in ferie!

Strategie di comunicazione

Expressing wishes and desires

Making suggestions and giving advice

Lessico

Talking about vacations

Strutture

The present conditional

The informal imperative

The formal imperative

Cultura

Italian vacations

Per saperne di più

The past conditional

Capitolo 14 Chi sono gli italiani?

Strategie di comunicazione

Talking about what people do in general

Explaining how things are done

Lessico

Talking about Italian society today

Strutture

Si + verb

The present subjunctive

Verbs and expressions followed by the subjunctive

Cultura

Italian demograhics

Per saperne di più

More irregular verbs in the subjunctive

a/di + infinitive

Capitolo 15 Quali lingue parli?

Strategie di comunicazione

Asking and verifying whether someone can do something

Recognizing regional varieties of Italian

Lessico

The languages of Italy

Strutture

The past subjunctive

The subjunctive versus the indicative

Hypotheticals of possibility

Cultura

History of the Italian language

Per saperne di più

Conjunctions followed by the subjunctive

The imperfect subjunctive

Capitolo 16 Sono famosi

Strategie di comunicazione

Review

Making recommendations

Lessico

Talking about historical people and events

Strutture

Review

The infinitive and present indicative

The present perfect

The imperfect

Object pronouns

Cultura

History of Italian art

Enrica’s blog: Naples

Per saperne di più

Stressed pronouns

Pronominal verbs and the idiomatic expressions: andarsene, farcela, and avercela con qualcuno