In viaggio: Moving Toward Fluency in Italian
by Antonella Olson, Eric Edwards, Sharon Foerster
Category: Foreign Language Study

The idea for In viaggio, meaning Traveling, was born from drawing upon extensive work with oral proficiency and training. As the name suggests, with In viaggio students continue moving forward in their study of Italian, traveling throughout the regions of Italy and exploring Italian culture throughout the world via the abundant cultural material in the text. In viaggio focuses on and recycles seven major communicative functions, the punti chiave, throughout this Intermediate-level Italian textbook: describing, comparing, reacting and recommending, narrating in the past, expressing likes and dislikes, hypothesizing, and talking about the future. What is unique about this approach and these materials is the idea of narrowing the focus of instruction to seven communicative functions, all of which appear in every chapter from the very first day of the course. The functions are moved to the forefront of the course so students are consciously forced to look at grammar in a different way. In viaggio helps students focus primarily on communicative functions because these functions are continuously repeated throughout the text, even when the content and themes change with each new chapter.