Course Description

Instructor: Alessandra Brisotto

In this class, students will start learning how to use verbs. They will learn to create sentences to communicate with people. They will learn the present tense of regular verbs and some irregular verbs of common use. After this class, students can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type. Can interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.

Bio: Alessandra Brisotto was born and raised in Prato, near Florence, Italy. After completing her studies, she worked for a travel agency for 10 years. She then moved to Bergamo, 25 miles east of Milan, where she worked for a travel agency and an airline company, before moving to the United States with her husband Paolo. She lived in Tampa Bay, Florida, for 10 years, and moved to Atlanta in 2010. After working for Italiano Language Center in Sandy Springs, she joined OLLI at Emory in 2019, where she teaches Italian beginner and intermediate both in person and online. She is also teaching at Central Dekalb Senior Center in Decatur, as well as giving Italian lessons to private students of different levels. Alessandra has two children, 26-year-old Marta and 21-year-old Pietro, both bilingual. She spends every summer with them visiting the family in Italy.

It is recommended that you purchase the textbook Italian Now! Level 1: L’Italiano d’oggi! (Barron’s Foreign Language Guides) if you do not already own it. Amazon.com: Italian Now! Level 1: L'italiano d'oggi! (Barron's Foreign Language Guides): 9781438000060: Danesi Ph.D., Marcel: Books