xxx

HI 2TO,

if you click on my screen name, you'll find my trip report of a very short course that i did in a language school in italy.

although i have no direct knowledge of language schools in Rome, I have no reason to believe that their approach would be very different to that of the school I attended ie a basic programme of group lessons in the morning, which cover grammar, writing, reading and conversation, and then excursions and activities in the afternoon/evening, with optional private lessons as well. the group lessons are normally arranged for students of the same level and these levels are standardised across all the schools - their websites explain this.

clearly your daughter would be amongst the more experienced students, so she would need to look for a reasonably large school that will have enough students of her level. she could start by doing what i did which was to google "language schools in....[Rome]" and then see what pops up. if she then e-mails them with what she wants to do and details of her experience, she should get a reasonable idea of what they can offer her. she could also take the on-line tests that many of them have so that she gets an idea of the level she should be aiming at.

please come back to me if/when you have any other queries.

buona fortuna alla sua figlia!

HI 2TO,

if you click on my screen name, you'll find my trip report of a very short course that i did in a language school in italy.

although i have no direct knowledge of language schools in Rome, I have no reason to believe that their approach would be very different to that of the school I attended ie a basic programme of group lessons in the morning, which cover grammar, writing, reading and conversation, and then excursions and activities in the afternoon/evening, with optional private lessons as well. the group lessons are normally arranged for students of the same level and these levels are standardised across all the schools - their websites explain this.

clearly your daughter would be amongst the more experienced students, so she would need to look for a reasonably large school that will have enough students of her level. she could start by doing what i did which was to google "language schools in....[Rome]" and then see what pops up. if she then e-mails them with what she wants to do and details of her experience, she should get a reasonable idea of what they can offer her. she could also take the on-line tests that many of them have so that she gets an idea of the level she should be aiming at.

please come back to me if/when you have any other queries.

buona fortuna alla sua figlia!

ttt

it might have been polite of you at least to acknowledge my reply, 2to!

Well, I will acknowledge your generous reply. annhig. It is annoying when you supply an informative and to the point reply and are ignored by the OP.

thanks, tarquin.

obviously not informative enough!

but I have my memories to keep me warm.

Oh dear, annhig, my apologies for not sending a thank you straight away. Your sign off of "please come back to me if/when you have any other queries" seemed to me to be saying that I could leave it for a little while and see what other replies came in. I had been putting the short replies from myself to get the post to near the top of the questions, as when I first checked, my question was placed on the 2nd page, and I didn't think many people would read it there. Then your reply came in, but again I was seeing if anyone else answered. You had also had no direct knowledge of language schools in Rome, so while I appreciate that you did provide an answer, I was also hoping for a more exact answer to our question. However, as I said, I'm sorry if you have been upset by my not sending "thanks" straight away - so I send it now. Thank you.

2to - no probs. it is a bit of a convention here to acknowledge assistance even if it's not quite what you would have hoped for, but I'm sure you didn't mean to give offence. apology accepted!

Trouble is, I don't think that I've come across anyone here with experience of language schools in Rome. when I was researching my trip, I found a few who'd been to Siena, and one to Bologna, i think, but Rome didn't crop up.

why don't you post the details of the schools she is considering, and anyone who has any experience of language schools can chime in. I doubt that schools in Rome are very different from ones elsewhere.

We have an exchange student contact in Rome and my daughter is getting some info from her as well. Of course, she would not have personal experience of being a student of a language school in her home city, but may know of the ones to avoid. We had only heard of people who had been to the schools outside of Rome - Florence and Siena, but as the accommodation my daughter is able to get is in Rome, we are looking there. Perhaps,as you say, we can post about our experiences when she returns, to answer questions anyone else might have on this topic. Thanks.

2to - you keep asking for help then avoiding taking it. so I'm giving up.

i hope that you and your daughter get the information you think you need and that she has a great time.

ciao.

I don't know where you live but in Toronto, I took courses at the Italian Institute of culture and was told by the instructor that I can take courses in Italy for free tuition fee that is, the Institute will match you based on your level and will help you find housing as well. I'm sure if you contact the Italian consulate in your area they will be able to help you. One of my classmates is actually going in the fall in Florence.

hi yankee -

I had a look at the London website - thanks. I couldn't actually find info about fees being paid, but i didn't search the whole of the site. the courses I found by following the links were all at least a month long, some a whole term. is that what you are talking about?

My classmate who did it is actually going for a 2 week course in Florence and I know it's free she told me and my instructor encouraged us to do it we dicussed it in class.

Are you in London,UK just checking because we have a London,ONT.

I'm actually in Cornwall, UK, so the London [UK] institute of culture would be the one to go for for us - don't know about the OP.

i will certainly circulate this information amongst my fellow students taking the same italian conversation as me; it might inspire them to take the final step!

Good luck!

I'm doing the research for schools in Italy right now too. It seems to be a good idea to go with a school that is a member of ASILS (website is ASILS.IT). This is the Italian language schools association.

They at least offer some guarantee that you are getting a quality school. Their site lists the standards that they meet. One example is that all instructors have a university degree and experience.

Apart from that it is tough to know which schools are good and which are not if you don't know anyone that has been. I did just finish reading a guide that I found online called 'Language School Secrets' and that has been fairly helpful - it sets out some of the ways that you can sort out the good schools from the bad. There are also some good review sites but it is always hard to know if what you are reading is unbiased.

hi travel,

good luck with your researches. where are you considering going? i decided to look for schools that offered smaller classes, were not likely to be full of teenagers, and were in a place that I didn't know, but you probably have completely different ideas.

do you have a link to the guide you mention? - I googled it but got no matches.