FSI Italian - FAST, Headstart or Programmatic

[lavengro]

Would any of you have any advice as to which of the available FSI courses would be best for a relative beginner? I believe the Italian Programmatic, the FAST and the Headstart courses are available.

Thanks for any advice.

[Speakeasy]

Beautiful Language, Very Few (Good) Resources
My comments below are either copied directly from, or derived from, some of my previous posts on the matter.

DLI Italian Headstart
The DLI Headstart series of self-study language courses was designed for use by members of the U.S. Armed Forces and their families to assist them orient themselves in the region where the target language is spoken. Although they often comprise up to 14 hours of audio recordings, the scope of materials is limited to the elements that one commonly finds in tourist phrase books. There is very little presentation of the structure of the target language and the level on completion is typically CEFR A0. This does not mean that these courses are without value. Despite the paucity of good resources for learning Italian, I would suggest that you look elsewhere.

DLI Italian Basic
I have seen offers for the course manuals for the DLI Italian Basic course from the 1960’s-1970’s on the Internet. The U.S. Government’s ERIC website has a few components, but the set is far from complete. Unfortunately, I have never come across the audio recordings that would have been prepared to accompany the course manuals ...sigh...

FSI Programmed Italian / Barron’s Mastering Italian / Audio-Forum Italian Phonology
The “programmed instruction” method of teaching has existed (unofficially) for untold generations, but it was studied intensively and applied during WWII by the U.S. Armed Forces and further refined in the post-war era. Although the “programmed learning” method is no longer in vogue, some of the more senior Forum Members will probably have come across some interesting and successful applications for teaching elementary college-level courses in economics, statistics, algebra, physics, chemistry, and so on. As many readers are aware, the Foreign Service Institute commissioned a couple of successful projects that employed this concept and resulted in the self-study programmatic courses for Portuguese and Spanish. A programmatic German course was also published to meet different, much more limited, objectives. And then, near the height of popularity of this teaching/training concept, the Foreign Service Institute published, in 1976, the FSI Programmed Italian Entry Level (CEFR A1) course which was subsequently published by Barron's Educational as Mastering Italian, and by Audio-Forum as Italian Phonology.

I have completed the FSI Programmed courses for Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and German, along with a small number of similar programmatic courses in my first year at university all of which I found to be successful applications of the “programmed instruction” methodology. In my opinion, the FSI Programmed Italian course was an abject failure. The author, under the direction, guidance, and encouragement of the Senior FSI Language Staff misapplied a fairly successful methodology and provided the best example that I have ever encountered of how a good idea can be so poorly implemented that the original concept itself becomes discredited. I made roughly ten unsuccessful attempts at completing the FSI Programmed Italian course before finally buckling down and forcing my way through to the end. As an example of the misapplication of an instructional method, who, in their right mind, would design a language course that introduces an open vowel as “no. 70” where the “0” in the number 70 is meant to remind the student to open his mouth wide while pronouncing it and, later in the programme, requires that the student reproduce “vowel no.70” from memory? This bullsh*t goes on for chapter-after-chapter and, while the student is ultimately introduced to some elementary phrases of rather limited use, the cumulative effect of the author's application of the programmatic method mirrors that of water-boarding … and I’m being generous!

FSI Italian Basic / Post Language Program Italian Course
The Foreign Service Institute published over twenty comprehensive, audio-lingual courses in the 1960s, for presentation in a classroom, designed to bring the student up to the Lower Intermediate level of competency; that is, within CEFR A2-B1 range. These courses are now freely available to the public via Ericounet’s FSI-Languages.yojik website amongst others. Rather curiously, an “FSI Italian Basic” course has never surfaced, thereby leaving a gap in an otherwise a broad range of languages in the series. I suspect that the FSI Programmed Italian course, discussed above, was meant to fill the gap, if only partially so.

Nevertheless, the U.S Government’s ERIC website does contain a PDF document numbered ED022400, published by the Foreign Service Institute in 1965 under the title “Post Language Program Italian Course” for which the Preface states “This tentative course, which does not contain either explicit instructions to the user nor fully detailed explanations of grammar, provides lesson materials for a short course in Italian. It was produced by the staff of FSI Post Language Programs in Italy and is designed for use in short, introductory courses for U.S. personnel in the field by instructors trained by and operating under the supervision of an FSI Regional Language Supervisor.” The approach to teaching in the 633-page course manual strongly resembles that of the audio-lingual method and, having reviewed the text, I suspect that the level on completion would have been Lower Intermediate; that is, within CEFR A2-B1 range. Regrettably, the audio recordings accompanying this course, if they ever existed, are not available.

FSI Italian FAST
The FSI FAST courses were designed for presentation in a classroom setting to a very small group of students by a qualified instructor and the materials can be a little difficult to use in an independent-learning situation. Generally speaking, the scope of these courses was limited to bringing the student rather rapidly up to the CEFR A1+ level. This might have been due to a change in policy at the FSI, but it might have been just as easily related to funding. Given the absence of an in-depth Italian course at that time, it is possible that a decision was reached to "fill the gap" via the publication of the remarkably comprehensive FSI Italian FAST course which truly stands out from the rest of the courses in the series. The course contains a great deal of audio recordings and practice materials and has the potential for taking a diligent student into the CEFR A2-B1 area. The only real problem with the materials is that, despite their exceptional quality, as is the case for the entire series, they are not easy to use in in an independent-learning situation.

Recommendations
Sadly, none of the above. Well, okay, you could try the FSI Italian FAST course, but it’s going to be a real jolt! Otherwise, I would recommend:
Pimsleur Italian I, II (with the assistance of a very basic grammar)
Assimil Italian (with the assistance of a very basic grammar)
Living Language Italian Ultimate (but you’ll probably want to combine it with Assimil if only to vary the practice materials)
Linguaphone Italian (nah, on second thought, go with the above)

Having worked through Pimsleur I, II plus Assimil, you could then try the FSI Italian FAST course for additional practice (the actors on the FSI audio recordings speak much more quickly than in most commercial courses) and then move on to native materials.

EDITED:
Tinkering (OCD).
Formatting.
Insertion of comments on "FSI Italian Basic".

[smallwhite]

Beautiful Language, Very Few (Good) Resources

I don't agree! I loved most of my Italian resources!

Loved:
* Teach Yourself Instant
* Teach Yourself Beginners
* Teach Yourself Complete
* Teach Yourself Grammar
* Berlitz Essential
* Demystified
* Collins Grammar & Practice
* Schaum's Grammar
* ...

Did not love:
* Teach Yourself Further
* Colloquial
* Read & Think

All free from the library.

[garyb]

I agree that Italian is very well covered at the beginner level, even if there aren't really any decent free resources. Assimil is good and all the other usual suspects like Teach Yourself and Michel Thomas are available - more than enough to learn the basics. It's way behind the likes of Spanish and French for intermediate to advanced materials though, as there just isn't much of a market for them.

For what it's worth, I thought the first 8 or so FSI Programmatic lessons were a decent introduction to the phonology, which most other courses ignore. I didn't go beyond these, as I couldn't find the audio and at that point the reasons for the course's terrible reputation were starting to become apparent...

[iguanamon]

L'Italiano Secondo il Metodo Natura is all monolingual- learning Italian through Italian. I respond well to these types of courses. The same youtube user who has uploaded the audio to Lingua Latina has now begun to upload his audio for the Italian course. The first chapter is now online. I've had the pdf for a few years and will use it as one of my resources if/when I ever decide to learn Italian. Obviously, with my language background, Italian will be easier for me to learn with this book even without the audio than a monolingual beginner. The book is out of print and dates to 1962, but there are links at the youtube video in the uploader's description of the course. The book has an early version of IPA along with the text for pronunciation.

There is more about the Nature Method here at this recent thread: The Nature Method Institute's Language Courses

Can't get the youtube video to embed. Also, have a look at reineke's Italian Resources thread.

[lavengro]

Many thanks for the responses, and the heads up about the FSI Italian material, much appreciated!

I am currently working through Pimsleur, Michel Thomas and Duolingo and was looking to potentially throw an Italian FSI course on down the road, but likely will look elsewhere now.

[Cavesa]

Sure, Italian has fewer high quality free resources and fewer English based resources than the FIGS. No wonder. But I strongly disagree with the notion there is too little good stuff to use. Plus we cannot compare "standard foreign languages" to the giants like English or Spanish. It's like hating a very good Škoda just because it is not a Ferrari.

I think you might want to consider monolingual courses. At least three series lead to C1, that is a sign of confidence of the creators that the people using the series might actually learn the language. Of course you need to supplement the classroom aimed courses with some stuff, but some of them are very self-teaching student friendly. There are monolingual grammar books with exercises, but I agree that this sector is really poorer, as garyb said. There are a few exam preparation series, that might be covering some of the gaps the traditional courses tend to leave. There are tons of media to use later on. There are very good looking memrise wordlists.

My Italian has been a mess but I have already put some time into it, got some resources and oriented myself in the offer a bit. Should I look up the names of what I liked?

[Chung]

Would any of you have any advice as to which of the available FSI courses would be best for a relative beginner? I believe the Italian Programmatic, the FAST and the Headstart courses are available.

Thanks for any advice.

If you're a total beginner, and want extra guided speaking practice for situations faced by a tourist/newcomer/member of the American military, I recommend DLI Headstart. The grammar explanations are very bare but it's VERY good for getting you used to hearing and reacting to survival level Italian as you get put through the wringer with repetition/parroting and simple drills involving translation or substitution. For example, in one of the dialogues of Module 2, you encounter the question È libero? "Are you free (to meet me/give me a ride to the airport in your taxi)?" and one of the following exercises is to get used to using it with time expressions and forms of address that you've already encountered. The exercise's example cues are Signora Rossi "Mrs. Rossi" and questa sera "this evening", and so upon hearing these cues on the tape, you're given a pause to give the answer using all of the elements (i.e. Signora Rossi, è libera questa sera? "Mrs. Rossi, are you free this evening?" and then hear the answer after the pause. This is a bit like what Pimsleur sets out to do with tons of repetition, but Headstart is free, and covers more ground with more exercises to get the bare basics to stick. I think that you'd reach something like A1 in speaking ability and listening comprehension after finishing the course with all of the situations taught but the lack of grammar instruction does mean that you'd need to use another course that covers grammar explicitly to help yourself make sense of why the dialogues in Headstart are the way they are.

FSI FAST is a bit like DLI Headstart with the use of pattern and repetition drills to improve your abilities to react in Italian using simple sentences but covers more situations (and by extension exposes you to more vocabulary and aspects of grammar), and has something approaching notes on grammar, terse as they are. It does look useful but could be more intimidating to a total beginner than DLI Headstart. One advantage in FAST's audio over Headstart's is that the MP3s of the former's tapes are divided into many tracks lining up to individual dialogues and exercises. Headstart's tracks are basically MP3s from 10 to 30 minutes long aligning to the original sides of the tapes, and so using those will really feel like language learning in the Cold War with all of that rewinding/fast-forwarding when necessary. I haven't used FAST Italian, but will probably do so after finishing Headstart. For the record, I'm also using "BBC Talk Italian", "Italian Demystified" and "Painless Italian" to build up my knowledge of grammar and vocabulary in addition to any audio practice (especially with the BBC course which comes with 4 CDs), and so have reasonable expectations (I think) of what I'll gain from using DLI Headstart.

I've read about FSI Programmatic on the forum and have avoided it. I've got enough to get going anyway.

[reineke]

Sure, Italian has fewer high quality free resources and fewer English based resources than the FIGS. No wonder.

The "I" in FIGS does not stand for Icelandic.

Lavengro, you mentioned simplified texts with audio. Black Cat Cideb publishes graded readers in several languages. Black Cat is owned by Italy's De Agostini Group.

[Cavesa]

Sure, Italian has fewer high quality free resources and fewer English based resources than the FIGS. No wonder.

The "I" in FIGS does not stand for Icelandic.

Yeah, I meant to write "the rest of the FIGS", sorry

But wouldn't it be fun, if it stood for Icelandic? Or Inuktikut!