Il Centro organizes Italian language courses with a range of schedules and durations. Students can choose among groups that meet 5, 3 or 2 times a week, for either 2 or 4 hours per day.
Students with time constraints related to work or other commitments can also opt for individual lessons that can be scheduled to suit their needs.
Group courses have a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 10 students per class, and course content is closely aligned with the students' real needs.
At the elementary levels, for example, we emphasize oral Italian over writing and grammar. The forms and vocabulary needed to deal with common situations related to shopping, public transport, bureaucracy and such are introduced. When selecting teaching methods, we favor those that permit a modular approach to the communication needs of individual students, including differentiation of the materials employed. We try to utilize cultural differences to the advantage of all participants through the exchange of information and experiences that can be used in group activities.
Learning materials include not only the most recent Italian language textbooks, but also worksheets developed by Il Centro's staff. These use passages from authentic Italian, both spoken and written, as well as games, video-based activities and grammatical summaries extracted from real-life experience and indicative of the differences between Italian and other languages.
Outside classroom hours, students may also work on their Italian during cultural-linguistic activities organized in the afternoon or do individual work in the self-study lab.