Italian language is immediately associated with a single nation: Italy. It is therefore very important for students of Italian to be exposed to texts and audiovisual materials that show the country, where the language they study is actually spoken, as it really is. Italy has changed a great deal in the last thirty years: it has become multicultural, and it has experienced the fall of the political party system that came into being after World War II. Furthermore, Italian society has been molded by Berlusconi’s “videocracy,” which can be seen as both a cause and an effect of the economic, cultural, and moral crisis currently besetting the nation. Italy today is a country where piazze are empty on Sunday afternoons, whereas outlet malls are packed. And if you meet somebody who frequents historical centers, he will very likely be an immigrant, one of the many nuovi italiani who since the early ´80s have been changing the nation’s ethnicity. These 5 million people affect Italy’s human geography, labor market, and education system. Moreover, they force Italian citizens to rethink their notion of Italianness and to cope with the concept of “Italicity”. This paper focuses on some topics and relevant resources that can be used in Italian language classes in order to bring students’ knowledge of Italy up to date and to develop their Intercultural Communication Competence.

Tiberio Snaidero – Lettore del Governo Italiano – Queens College – CUNY     tiberiosnaidero@arcor.de

Presented at the Teaching Italian Culture Conference Georgetown University, Washington D.C. Saturday, October 19, 2013