Accademia Lingua Italiana Assisi

Since there was very little information about Accademia's program from Language International, I did not know what to expect. I asked Language International the many questions I had, such as class size, housing, transportation from Rome Airport, etc., and the responses I received were vague. As soon as Gaia from the Accademia started communicating with me, I started realizing that their program was the challenging and productive program I was looking for.

After taking a written test and a follow-up interview on zoom, I was placed in the Intermediate class, which is what I was hoping for, as I wanted to be challenged. There were only three students in my class, which gave each of us the individualized attention we each needed, without holding back anyone.

The textbook was the best Italian textbook I have ever used as it is multi-dimensional with reading and writing exercises and can be accessed online. I was pleasantly surprised that the program had a module with a pronunciation expert who was excellent.

The program also included a cultural module that took us or taught us about Assisi cultural gems that are not in your average in guide book.

As far as housing, Gaia arranged for a very reasonable and comfortable apartment for me within a 10 minute walk from the school. This was a gem of a program. Not only did my Italian improve, I also learned where I need to focus my studies to continue improving my Italian. Lastly, I plan on continuing my studies online with the Accademia as I really benefited from their program.

The instructors were lively and funny, and quite knowledgeable. However, the class that I was placed in did not address my need to improve my listening and speaking skills, which I specifically requested.

I had studied Italian for two years previous to taking a two week course. I was placed in a class that had been meeting for sometime before I joined. All of the students were much more comfortable with having conversations in Italian with the instructors, which sometimes I could get the gist of, but often was lost. When the instructors gave lessons in grammar, I was able to follow along, because I already knew quite a bit about the structure of the language.

During the two weeks, there was only one part of a lesson that addressed listening skills, and I was quite lost. If I had been in a class designed for someone with my experience— intermediate skill in grammar and vocabulary, reading and writing, but beginner skills in speaking and listening. I felt that I had been dropped into an ongoing class, that did not seem to have much structure.

The instructors chatted for the first part of the lesson, and then seemed to choose at random a particular lesson for the text book. I did think the pronunciation instructor was quite good and those lessons were helpful and well structured. The other students were very friendly, but there was very little time devoted to us talking to each other. I’m sorry, but I cannot recommend your program, as it now stands.

I found the teachers, Sylvie in particular, very good, friendly and informative, willing to address all queries.

Class sizes were much smaller than I expected - there were only two other people in my class.
This made the amount of individual attention we received greater than anticipated.

The downside of this was, of course, that there was less opportunity to socialize/interact with other students.
Covid restrictions also meant that some of the resources (eg films and library) were not available at that time.

Location was excellent, right in the middle of the old town.
My accommodation too was faultless. Only a five-minute walk from the college, it was clean and spacious with brand new appliances such as washing machine and cooker.

My only criticism would probably be that I didn't study at quite a high enough level, given the level of Italian I'd already acquired.

But it was only a two-week course in my case, and the lack of student numbers presumably meant fewer classes so that was probably a consequence of that.

Small classes which is good.
Friendly staff und teachers

I really like the School in Assisi and will be there again!!!
Especially the friendly, patient and humorous teachers were great.
I liked the charming classrooms and buildings and the varied lessons (for ex.: the pronunciation lessons, the history class and so on...)
Well done!

I entered a class which had aready been running for a week or so. I felt immediately accepted by the class and the teacher. This allowed me the space to openly express myself in the foreign language.
The school is located in the centre of Assisi permitting direct access to shops, cafés and restaurants where one can apply the learnt vocabulary and grammar.

The school is relatively small which allows the students to get to know the teaching and administrative staff fairly quickly and thus access the facilities more easily.

A two hour session was arranged to allow the students to learn and practice pronunciation. I found this very helpful.

Apart from additional one-on-one conversation (which were not included in the course fees), no extra-curricula activities for the class were organised.

I arranged my own accomodation for my stay in Assisi.

We had a very nice experience at Assisi because we are Franciscans and we love Assisi a lot.

The teachers were nice persons, very good teachers, the location was nice. The facilities ok. The activities good. The housing marvelous.

We did not like the fact that there was a great group of Chinese and Korean students, they had a lot of difficulties to understand the teacher and the teacher had to spend a large time explaining them the meaning of the words. For us it was boring having to wait the Chinese and Koreans understand the exercises.

Thank you

Myrthes

I had a lovely time at Ligua Italiana Assisi. The school was in a great location, it was comfortable and everyone was very friendly. The teacher, Silvia was a great teacher, patient, funny and we learned a lot in those four weeks.

I enjoyed my experience. The only thing that needs to be improved would be providing more opportunity for conversation in Italian and more focus on speaking in class. They focused more on grammar.

Everything was perfect except for two who had a resounding cold, which made us all more or less infected. A week and a half, I was poor but I did the best I could. Unfortunately, nobody could help those who came and were sick.

The schools and teachers were perfect.