Is there anyplace on this site where people have the chance to share their experiences at various language schools in Italy? It seems as though a lot of us are going to language programs and it might be good to hear about people's experiences (apart from the trip reports rather incidental mentions). -gedlin

Hi Gedlin --- I am planning to write up some notes on my experiences at Koine in Florence. But not until after I've done my restaurant reviews and photo gallery. (And oh yeah, done a few things in my "real" life. ) But I'll be happy to answer any questions in a PM.

Marian

Just a quick note....the best experience I am aware of is my college aged son's summer at the Universita' per Stranieri in Perugia. He came to the class with a year of college Italian under his belt, six years of high school French, youthful exuberance and lots of experience on stage which helped him avoid the common unwillingness to make mistakes and look foolish. After two months of class and determined efforts to speak Italian outside of class, his Italian was terrific....

I believe I have written about my experience with Koine in Lucca on the board....I was not that thrilled with my two weeks but I think I had unrealistic expectations. I expected them to have a magic potion to unlock the 10 years of Italian I have internalized but have difficulty speaking. Needless to say in two weeks, studying in the mornings and spending the rest of my time with my wife (who was also in class) speaking English, I learned some but there was no breakthrough.

I can't say anything particularly bad about Koine in Lucca....but I don't think that they are particularly innovative either. It may be that I would have been better served by going solo and living with an Italian family....next time.

I had a wonderful language school experience in Bologna in February of last year. The group was BolognaLingua, and I'd write it up if there were a place on this board that collected such reviews. Apparently not, so maybe I'll do it as a one page trip report sometime. -gedlin

I had a horrible experience with International House language school in Rome. My class was filled with 19 & 20 year olds who were more interested in the fact that they could drink legally in Italy. My teacher had little control of the class and most of the students spoke to one another in English. So many people were late on a daily basis that we landed up waiting 20-25 minutes to start the class.

I did complain and I was moved to another class. Most of the classroom time was spent reading Italian, not talking. We also spent a lot of time listening to the same 2 minutes conversation over and over again, yet we never discussed what was actually said in the conversation. I never knew if I was comprehending the conversation correctly or not.

I had a friend that attend Scuola Leonardo da Vinci (http://www.scuolaleonardo.com/) and she loved it. The students were a bit older and took the lessons more serious.

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I had a wonderful language school experience in Bologna in February of last year. The group was BolognaLingua, and I'd write it up if there were a place on this board that collected such reviews. Apparently not, so maybe I'll do it as a one page trip report sometime. -gedlin

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I've written my notes up twice, and they put them in the Travel Notes section. I hope that you will write them, and Nicolas Inn, too, so that there are reviews of various programs in various cities. I think Jim's comments about Koine' Lucca would be interesting, too. It didn't work for him as well as it has for me, but we all have different ways of learning and our responses will vary likewise to the teaching methods. And I'm counting on Marian and Colleen to summarize their experiences of Koine' Florence. Though Colleen really made it part of her trip report, it would be nice to have a link to it or a summary in the Travel Notes about studying Italian in Italy. More work for Pauline and Chris, but worthwhile, I would hope.

In addition to Carol's comments in the Travel Notes section of SlowTrav, there are quite a few comments about Italian language schools in the Italian Language Talk forum.

I have had two wonderful experiences with language schools, one in Florence and one in Venice. I'm not one to speak up if there are others who will do it instead, so I always take individual lessons. I'm forced to talk - there's no one else to do it. The lessons are more expensive, but for me, they are worth the extra cost.

Callie

I did a very short report in the Italian Language forum of a 3 day (7 hours a day) intensive study that my husband and I did with a teacher in Umbria. I found it to be really excellent and incredibly good value for money because it was one-on-one - well, ok there were 3 of us in total, but you know what I mean - and all of us were "in the antas" so we were not surrounded by 20 somethings who wanted to speed on ahead. We could get down to it and learn at our own pace. I'm sure that Manuela would do longer periods if you wanted to, and the area had lots to see and do if you had any mental energy left at the end of the day.

Having had an Italian teacher in the past that didn't teach all that well, I am now quite critical of teaching styles in a way that perhaps I would not have been before. Furthermore, my husband and I have rather different styles of learning so, for us, it was important to have someone with intelligence and flexibility of approach. All in all, I was very pleased and I really couldn't recommend her highly enough.