HSC Italian Beginners (NSW) study plan

HSC Italian Beginners (NSW) · Give each week a clear focus.

8 weeks · About 6 hours per week

Week 1

The personal world (family, friends, home, daily life, school) & Reading and responding skills

Build a personal vocabulary bank of at least 80 words covering family members, rooms of the house and daily routines, sorted into three labelled lists
Write 10 present-tense sentences describing your own family using essere and avere, then self-correct agreement of adjectives
Read two short beginner-level Italian descriptions of a family and answer five comprehension questions on each without a dictionary
Record yourself reading your 10 sentences aloud and note three pronunciation errors to fix

A one-page family profile in Italian (80-120 words) with an annotated vocabulary list of 80 items and a corrected error log

Week 2

Conjugate the 20 most common regular and irregular present-tense verbs and use them in a written daily-routine paragraph
Use reflexive verbs to describe your weekday routine in 8-10 sequenced sentences with time expressions
Draft and then rewrite a 100-word email to a friend describing your school or work day, adding connectives such as poi, dopo and infine
Check your own draft against a checklist of five grammar points (articles, agreement, prepositions, verb endings, spelling)

A polished 100-120 word routine email plus a marked-up first draft showing at least eight self-corrections

Week 3

Listen to four short beginner dialogues about home and school life and transcribe the key details (names, times, places) for each
Practise recognising numbers, clock times and prices by ear until you score at least 90 percent on a self-made listening grid
Answer 15 short-answer listening questions in Italian, writing full sentences rather than single words
Shadow one two-minute audio three times to improve speed of comprehension

A listening log of four audio extracts with transcripts, answers and a scored accuracy percentage for each

Week 4

Build a second vocabulary bank of 80 words covering travel, transport, accommodation and holiday activities
Read two short travel brochures or itineraries in Italian and extract dates, prices and opening times into a comparison table
Use the passato prossimo to write 12 sentences about a past holiday, choosing the correct auxiliary verb each time
Identify and record 10 common reading-question instruction words such as perché, quando and quanto

A completed holiday comparison table from two authentic-style Italian texts plus a 12-sentence past-tense account

Week 5

Listen to three short dialogues set in a station, hotel or restaurant and note the transaction details for each
Role-play booking a hotel room and asking for directions aloud, recording both parts yourself
Write and memorise 15 polite formulaic expressions for requests, complaints and thanks
Answer 12 listening questions about leisure and customs, justifying two answers in Italian

Two recorded role-plays (hotel booking, asking directions) with a self-assessment sheet listing five strengths and five fixes

Week 6

Compare Italian and Australian customs in a 120-word written response using comparative structures such as più, meno and come
Draft a 120-word informal letter describing a holiday to an Italian friend, then revise it for tense consistency
Practise using the imperfect tense in 10 sentences to describe weather, scenery and habits on holiday
Time yourself writing 100 words in 20 minutes and check the word count and accuracy afterwards

A timed 120-word holiday letter written in 25 minutes and then revised, with a before-and-after error count

Week 7

Complete two full timed reading papers and two timed listening papers under exam conditions
Mark every answer against a transcript or answer key and categorise each error as vocabulary, grammar or misreading
Re-read the five highest-error texts and rewrite the correct answers in full Italian sentences
Reduce average response time per reading question to under 90 seconds

An error-analysis spreadsheet covering four timed papers with error categories, corrected answers and a timing record

Week 8

Revise both vocabulary banks to reach 90 percent recall on a self-test
Write one 150-word response for each of the personal world and the Italian-speaking communities themes under timed conditions
Re-record the week 5 role-plays and compare against the earlier versions to show improvement
Compile a one-page personal error sheet of the 15 mistakes you repeat most

Two timed 150-word written responses, a 90 percent vocabulary self-test score and a final one-page error sheet

Week 2: Can write 100 words on daily life with correct present-tense endings and adjective agreement on at least 8 of 10 checked sentences

Week 4: Scores at least 70 percent on a self-made listening grid and can extract dates and prices accurately from two Italian travel texts

Week 6: Writes 120 words in 25 minutes with fewer than 8 errors and uses past tenses consistently

Week 8: Scores at least 90 percent on the vocabulary self-test and completes both timed 150-word responses within the time limit