Avanti!: Beginning Italian - Tapa dura

Welcome to the second edition of Avanti! In the new edition out priorities remain the same as those of the first edition, to provide an introductory language course that meets the needs of both instructors and learners. Three significant characteristics set Avanti! apart from other first-year Italian texts: First, Avanti! satisfies students’ desire to communicate in everyday situations right from the start and to explore Italy's rich and unique culture in meaningful ways. Second, Avanti! responds to instructors' concern that most textbooks attempt to cover too much material in the first year. We have designed an elementary course that reflects reasonable expectations for the amount of material that most beginning learners can acquire in one year of classroom instruction. Third, the methodology of Avanti! is firmly grounded in current findings of research in second language acquisition and foreign language pedagogy. The materials provide support for instructors, particularly those with limited experience, whose goals are to teach mainly, if not exclusively, in Italian, and to create the student-centered, communicative classroom environment that is promoted by this research. The title Avanti! was chosen to convey the forward-thinking approach of this exciting new program.

Janice M. Aski is assistant 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 explores a variety of topics, such as testing, teaching reading at the elementary level, and how first-year Italian textbooks and grammar practice activities reflect the most current research in second language acquisition. Her publications in historical Italian/Romance linguistics focus on the social, pragmatic and cognitive aspects of phonological and morphological change.

Diane Musumeci is Associate Professor of Italian and SLATE (Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she is Head of the Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese. She received her Ph.D. in Italian linguistics with a Certificate of Advanced Study in SLATE from the University of Illinois at Urban-Champaign in 1989. For sixteen years she was the Director of the Italian language program. She conducts research in content-based instruction and classroom language acquisition. She teaches a wide range of courses from Italian language and linguistics to doctoral seminars on the history of second language teaching. She has published numerous articles and chapters in books and is the author of Il carciofo: Strategie di lettura e proposte d'attività (McGraw-Hill, 1990) and Breaking Tradition: An Exploration of the Historical Relationship Between Theory and Practice in Second Language Teaching (McGraw-Hill, 1997).