Italian

Are you thinking about learning Italian? Why not take the challenge and combine it with travel and immerse yourself into a language school in Florence. You’ll be rewarded with meeting people from all over the world and also learn some useful phrases to use when out and about.

Last year I had decided to further my learning Italian by attending a language school in Italy. The appeal was that when you attend a language school, there is one rule in the classroom – only Italian is allowed. Up for a challenge I started to do some research into schools. To allow myself to immerse completely into the semi-intensive learning experience, I was allowing four weeks plus a further two weeks to explore Northern Italy (more of that in future posts) and practice my Italian.

It did take a while to select a school. At first, I was looking for a new region to study in, but ultimately, I decided on a language school in Florence. I have been fortunate enough to visit Florence and much of Tuscany several times but there are still some places to visit that are new and indeed some that were first visited several years ago and now with more ‘grown-up eyes’ was keen to see again. In short, Florence was the best choice.

The language school in Florence I selected, in the end, was Linguaviva. I chose the school through a brokerage agency called LanguageCourse.Net recommended by a friend who had used them to study Spanish. Linguaviva won for many reasons; in particular, it is a school that the Italian language school in Melbourne I attend, Centre of Italian Studies, recommends and secondly the location. Linguaviva is one block away from Santa Maria Novella Stazione, the central train station.

The booking experience was seamless. Once the agency had contacted the school, and I paid a deposit I didn’t have to do anything else. I chose the Standard Course for four weeks with a homestay. The homestay option means you board with Italians and can choose to do part board or room only. I chose the latter as I knew I would be doing touristy things every day. Final confirmation details about my first day and homestay came through about a month before classes commenced.

I arrived in Florence on the Sunday before classes started and made my way to my homestay and met my host, Federico (Fede). His flat is in the Statuto district of Florence and about a 20-minute walk to the school. In the literature about my homestay, Fede is described as “Federico is a young worker (37 years old) a very nice person.” When I showed him this, he found this hilarious.

Fede was a fantastic host with a great sense of humour. He helped me a lot with my Italian conversation skills. Rarely did we converse in English. He had lived in London and Dublin to learn English. When we would talk about specific London and English things, only then would we speak English. He loved his time there and got used to the food! Fede is a mad Fiorentina (the local team) fan, and memorably we did watch a match on TV. They played Inter Milan, and thankfully Fiorentina won (2-1). I learned some football-specific words uttered by fans that night!

My first day at the school arrived. I presented myself to the reception at Linguaviva ready to be assessed to determine what level stream I would join. I was commencing that day with another four or so students from far afield as Brazil, Japan, and Argentina. Emanuele welcomed us to the school. He very jovially told us about how the classes work, the support the school can offer and the after-class activities that everyone is welcome to attend for a fee. Next, he presented with what looked like an exam paper consisting of grammar and comprehension exercises. Once completed we would go for a private conversation with the Director, Alessandro to determine our speaking and grammar level.

I spoke to him for about ten minutes. We talked about life in Australia, my impressions of Italy, reasons for selecting a language school in Florence, and of course, food. As nerve-wracking as it was fun. My efforts rewarded me a place in Level 4, which is intermediate level, and more or less the same level as back in Melbourne. It was time to meet my classmates and teacher.

I was joining Level 4 in its second week. At the school, a level is covered over four weeks with an exam in the fourth week. I joined during a role play, an animated one; this looked like fun. In my class were students from all over the world. Most of the students were Columbians as well as, Americans, Taiwanese, Chinese, German, and a Brazilian. Through good humour, our teacher, Alessandra kept the class from reverting into their native language(s) with – “ragazzi Italiano” and then more firmly “ragazzi Italiano, per favore”.

In the class, I was the oldest by far. I wasn’t particularly bothered by this, but I did observe an interesting generational difference in learning. Whenever we would break into group activities, we would be answering questions or constructing a role play response, and on occasion, we would need to stop and question how a verb should be conjugated. Now back in my classes in Melbourne we would ordinarily stop and talk about it, but in my class, in Florence, most of the group would get out their phones (there is free Wi-Fi at the school) out and look it up. The conversation would thus stop until someone got the answer from their phone. If we were stumped this was okay, but not all the time. I was probably guilty of it a couple of times.

I did enjoy my month at Linguaviva. My Italian did improve, once I got over the shock of only speaking Italian in the class.

Choosing Linguaviva certainly was the right choice. Over the month I quickly got myself into a routine where I would attend classes in the morning and then in the afternoon go exploring Florence or a town or village nearby. If I were going to a town outside Florence, I would go to the train or bus station and buy my tickets before classes started. With classes finishing at 12:30 more often than not I was on a train by 12:45 and on my way!

During my time in Florence, I got to visit places to so many places including – Fiesole, Dicomano, Pontassieve, Pistoia, Prato, Borgo San Lorenzo, Settignano, Greve in Chianti and Montefioralle. On weekends it was further afield to Lucca, San Gimignano and Castiglione del Lago (in Umbria). My only rule was to see new things. I quickly realised that a month wasn’t enough to see everything. Here’s hoping there is a next time!