North Rhine-Westphalia Zentralabitur Italian case studies

The Zentralabitur Italienisch in Nordrhein-Westfalen is the centrally set school-leaving examination in Italian taken at the end of the gymnasiale Oberstufe. It is intended for pupils who have studied Italian as a continuing foreign language, typically from year 8 or year 11, and who choose it as a written Abitur subject or, in some constellations, as a third or fourth subject examined orally. The examination is built around the NRW competence framework for modern foreign languages: intercultural communicative competence, receptive skills in reading and listening or audio-visual comprehension, productive skills in writing and Sprachmittlung (mediation between German and Italian), command of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation, text and media competence, and the prescribed content areas on Italian society, culture and history. Tasks are usually material-based: a text or text combination plus a listening or visual input, followed by comprehension, analysis and a production or mediation task, all answered in Italian. The North Rhine-Westphalia Zentralabitur Italian case studies are 5 cases and about 3,715 words.