Academic Focus
The Italian Language & Culture Program is designed for students of all language levels who are interested in acquiring and improving their language skills while gaining a thorough education in Italian culture. This distinctive program offers you the opportunity to compliment your intensive language learning with elective study in the liberal arts and social sciences.
You will enroll in two 3-credit language components. The first, provided by our language school partners, The British Institute of Florence, is a course focusing on oral comprehension and expression, listening comprehension and grammar components appropriate to your language level. The other course, Living Italy, is provided by CEA instructors. Living Italy is a special, ongoing tutorial consisting of multiple, experiential activities designed to reinforce your Italian skills by immersing you in a weekly sequence of personal and group-based projects based closely in expressions of Italian culture and society. Examples of such weekly activities include movies, games, sporting events, songs, public conferences, cultural visits, wine-tasting and pizza-making. This tutorial is open to students of all abilities, and is available both in English for absolute beginners, and in Italian for intermediate students. Students will be constantly monitored and assisted by their tutor as they write papers and make presentations to demonstrate their progress. In addition to your language course and the Living Italy tutorial, you will choose 2 or 3 electives from our full curriculum of courses focusing on Italian history, art history, cultural studies and political science.
The ideal location of the CEA GlobalCampus in Florence also helps to frame the curriculum of this program. That means that all elective courses are designed to make use of Florence as the "classroom", presenting you with constant opportunities to actively develop your language skills and to apply your understanding of Italian culture at its heart.
Whatever elective courses you choose from this program, you'll find that your studies are richly integrated. By offering varied ways of learning and understanding Italian language through studying both the past and the present of Italian culture and society, all of the elective courses have been designed to complement each other. And if you’re enrolled in Photography or Florence Sketchbook, you can even gain credit for creating visual portfolios of the visual expressions of the Italian culture around you.
You will enroll in a total of four or five courses and take between 12 and 15 credits in the US semester system. Both Italian language courses and elective courses generally meet for a total of 45 contact hours and are worth 3 credits in the US semester system. However, it is up to the discretion of your academic advisor how many credits will be awarded.
Schedule Summary
All elective classes meet either one or two times per week, for a total of 3 hours per week. Language courses meet two times per week for a total of 3 hours weekly. Classes may be held on any day of the week and are offered at various times throughout the day.
Course Registration
Course selection will take place prior to your departure for Italy. You will be required to submit your course selections to the CEA headquarter office prior to departure for Italy. While at the CEA GlobalCampus in Florence you must choose to take either three of four electives. To aid in the registration process, it is in your best interest to have courses, including alternates, approved by your academic advisor prior to departure.
To learn more about course requirements for your particular session as well as information regarding your host institution, you may click on the appropriate links above.
