CILS B1 Cittadinanza (Italian citizenship language exam) Articles & Updates

CILS B1 Cittadinanza is a certificate of Italian as a foreign language from the CILS Centre of the Università per Stranieri di Siena (Unistrasi). Its official syllabus says the exam is meant for adults, living in Italy or abroad, who want to obtain Italian citizenship under Law no. 132 of 1 December 2018, and its construct is aligned to level B1 of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). It tests Italian for life in Italy: personal matters, public settings, work and education. There are four abilities. Listening (Ascolto) has two tasks on recorded texts heard twice, about 30 minutes in all. Reading comprehension and grammar has two tasks, finding information in a text and a cloze, in 40 minutes. Writing is one e-mail of 80 to 120 words, asking for information or sorting out a problem with goods or services, in 40 minutes. Speaking is a short personal presentation followed by a dialogue with the examiner, about 10 minutes. Under Unistrasi's marking criteria each ability is scored out of 12, and every paper, including the recorded oral, is marked centrally by the CILS Centre. Unlike the standard CILS levels, B1 Cittadinanza allows no carry-over of passed abilities: if any ability is not passed, the whole exam must be taken again at a later session.