Two week Italian course

Stuart (29 yrs old)
1 week Private Tuition &
1 week Standard Italian Course

Stuart felt Italian would be useful for his future career, as he works as an Engineer for Ferrari (yes, really!) you can see his point.       
“Compliments to all the staff at the college, particularly Maddalena and Silvia, my teachers in the first week. I had a great time talking Ferraris with them both! Keep up the good work.

Everyone at CESA were very helpful and efficient, you dealt with my late booking well, no hiccups at all. Thank you!

I wanted to achieve a basic level of conversational Italian and cover the fundamentals of the language as a starting point for future study. I hoped to meet other people at the Italian language school and make new friends, to have the chance to practice my new linguistic skills in a real Italian/Venetian environment as well as in the classroom.

All expectations were definitely met, I was pleased linguistically with the amount of course material, but frustrated at only having 2 weeks to do it all in. I was generally very happy with my time at the school and I feel I have come away with a lot of new friends and relaxed after a very enjoyable time studying and partying in Venice.

I studied one week of individual (Private Tuition) lessons, followed by one week of group lessons (Standard Course). The individual lessons with Silvia were fantastic; apparently we crammed 80 hours of Italian at level 1 into just 15 hours! The group lessons were a bit slow compared to the individual lessons. In saying that, Gregorio and Rosanna were good fun and conducted the lessons well.

The staff and teachers at the Italian language school in Venice, were always approachable, friendly and helpful. The school is in a great location with plenty of good cafes, coffee shops and restaurants nearby. It was nice to be studying in the Academia/University District of Venice, and to absorb the atmosphere of student life.

The best part of the course was the individual lessons in week one. On the Tuesday I was learning how to say “My name is….” On the Thursday I was saying, “I did this, I went here, saw this, saw that” and I could say it in the past tense. I was able to converse in Italian in only 3 days!

The worst part of the course was the fact that 2 weeks was not enough! It would have been nice to stay another 2 weeks to really consolidate what I had learnt.

Venice is a good place to study because you can get around quite easily on foot or by boat. The food prices were ok if you stayed outside of the main tourist hot spots; it’s the same with alcohol. The locals were happy to chat with you in bars, they are friendly but you need to make the effort to speak. The town felt very safe even late at night.

Nightlife was very good albeit with limited nightclubs (I think they are also in Mestre rather than Venice itself). The bars are good fun though and you should definitely go to Lido (Venice Beach). As for museums: the Academia & the Doges Palace are well worth a visit.

I was very satisfied with my accommodation. The host family were very welcoming and helpful. It was everything you could expect, clean, large room, kitchen, washing machine, all ok. Sit down bath, shower was a bit small but I think that is normal in Venice. No major complaints at all.

I had a fantastic time in Venice – I can home with some amazing memories, some cool photos and a lot of new friends. I honestly did not want to leave and wish I could go back tomorrow – can’t wait for next year!! “