ISI Florence professors Serena Baldini and David Marini joined the DITALS (Docente di Italiano per Stranieri/Teaching Italian to Foreigners) Expert Group at the Università per Stranieri di Siena. Led by Prof. Pierangela Diadori and Dr. Elena Monami, this group of Italian language teachers and linguists is responsible (among other things) for choosing exam materials on which DITALS candidates will be tested. They also serve as consultants on a wide range of topics pertaining to teaching Italian language to American students.

Prof. Baldini and Prof. Marini have been invited to join the DITALS USA group because of their expertise in this field and their related publications. Among the latter is the Italian language handbook (“Vorrei”, Firenze Univeristy Press, 2016) that they wrote specifically for U.S. undergraduates (absolute beginners, first semester of Italian). They are now about to finish a revised edition of this manual, which will include four new units for second-semester elementary students. The new “Vorrei” will be on our bookshelves in June 2018.