FSI Italian Programmed Course

What are FSI Programmatic courses?

The Foreign Service Institute is a branch of the US government responsible for providing training for diplomatic staff preparing for postings abroad, and part of this work includes foreign language instruction. The core of FSI language training is the Basic courses, but these are intensive and in-depth courses that require a lot of time to complete.

For certain key languages, however, Programmatic courses were also created. These are lighter courses designed to give you a grasp of the fundamentals, leaving you better prepared to continue studying the language after finishing the course.

What is the structure of the FSI Italian Programmed course?

The FSI Italian Programmed course consists of 34 units. The first four are introductory units, which are then followed by the main 30 units of the course. Each unit is accompanied by a recording that takes you through a series of “frames”. These mainly focus on explaining aspects of the phonology of Italian, teaching you how to produce the sounds of Italian and comparing them with the sounds of American English.

How can you use FSI Italian Programmed?

This course is extremely heavy on phonology, teaching you about the pronunciation and intonation of the Italian language. If you want to work on your Italian pronunciation, it can be a useful tool, in which case, you can simply listen to the recordings and work through the units included in the student workbook.

However, for those looking for useful language input like dialogs as well as opportunities for practice through drills and exercises, this course might be less suitable. Indeed, for the first ten units or more, very little Italian is taught beyond the pronunciation of isolated words.

Taking it further

Whichever study materials you use, you won’t be able to master Italian without speaking it, so as soon as you can, you should look for Italian speakers to practice with. If you can, try to make speaking Italian a part of your daily life – and when you do this, your Italian will start to improve rapidly.