Publisher's Synopsis
Do you want to be able to express yourself in Italian with confidence and fluency?
Insider's Italian offers a local perspective on Italian culture, opinions and language use so that you can speak confidently on today's most important and relevant topics.
This intermediate Italian conversation course, devised for all intermediate-level learners or those following on from Total or Perfect Italian, will advance your overall fluency, listening comprehension and conversation skills, expand your vocabulary and improve your grammar.
Through authentic, lively conversations around engaging topics, and the unique Michel Thomas Method for learning, this course focuses on the colloquial language and conversation strategies used by native Italian speakers so that you can fit in and communicate more naturally.
Michel Thomas, the preeminent language teacher, always said that learners start by mastering basic linguist structures (as in his Total and Perfect courses), which provide the bare walls of the house, but that that it was up to us, the learner, to decorate it in our own personal way. Insider's Italian reflects Michel Thomas's 'Phase 2' courses that he and his team offered at his New York language school, allowing increased vocabulary, improved speaking, comprehension and reading and writing skills - the tools with which to decorate their houses.
Insider's Italian includes:
· Twenty authentic conversations around a comprehensive range of subjects that reflect contemporary Italian culture
· Language plus: conversation strategies, pronunciation and intonation to help learners express themselves naturally
· Listening and speaking practice to help learners progress to the next level
· Cultural insights into the unspoken rules of the language
This course includes a 100+ page book, MP3 audio CD-ROM, and interactive review and practice on CD-ROM.
Why is the Michel Thomas Method so successful?
The Michel Thomas Method draws on the principles of instructional psychology. Knowledge is structured and organised for the student so that you assimilate the language easily and don't forget it. The method deconstructs the language into building blocks that are introduced sequentially in such a way that the learner creates his/her response and moves on to ever-more-complex sentences.
Michel said: I will dissect everything into small parts and reassemble it in such a way that one will understand everything step by step.
He was also very clear about his ground rules: no memorisation, no drills, no homework; relax and leave off the anxiety normally associated with language learning.
