Университет Лестера, BA (Hons), Italian and Spanish

Year 1: Italian: students be introduced to a range of historical periods and texts; students also study introduction to pre-modern Italy and post-war Italian culture, and are introduced to different authors and genres. Spanish you will choose from a range of modules which cover the history of Spain; contemporary Spain; Latin American society and culture, and Spanish and Latin American literature and film. Year 2: In addition to language classes, students choose from a variety of cultural, linguistic and literary options including: history and identity in twentieth-century literature; history of Italian cinema, Italian linguistics; pre-modern Italy; European cinema. Spanish: options such as Catalan; the theatre of Federico García Lorca; Mexican-US border culture; contemporary Spanish and Mexican cinema; and popular culture in Spain can be studied. Year 3: Study abroad: normally spent dividing time equally between universities in Italy and Spain; students may opt to spend the whole year in 1 country, studying at a university, as an English language assistant in a school, or in other approved employment; students may make their own alternative arrangements for the year abroad subject to the approval of the Head of School. Year 4: Spanish options include: Almódovar; the cinema of Luis Buñuel; Spanish drama (the Grotesque); Latin American boom literature; the Spanish Picaresque; art and society in Spain; Catalan. Italian: contemporary fiction; postwar directors; women’s writing in Italy; or Dante: Purgatorio and Paradiso; students may also choose to write a dissertation in place of 1 of the options.

Beginners in Spanish or Italian take an intensive language course in written and spoken language which brings them up to post-A-level standard as quickly as possible; written skills are developed through the production of small pieces of creative writing and a range of other activities, including online language learning and the use of materials taken from Italian and Spanish television and radio; oral teaching is conducted in small groups by native Italian and Spanish speakers; the School of Modern Languages also offers special training for linguists with its core skills module for language learners; at the end of the 1st year, students normally follow a 3-week summer programme in Italy or Spain, subsidised by the university.