Courses
If you wish to learn Italian in Rotterdam, in a funny and interesting way, CENTRO DI LINGUA ITALIANA is the language school for you.
Italo Calvino said “I think that fun is a serious thing” … and we agree!
The courses starting from January 13th 2025 are:
Method
During each lesson:
– we converse on a topic (spontaneous or suggested by a student or guided by a game).
– we read something to improve phonetics.
– we integrate our knowledge of the language with a new piece of grammar.
– we listen to audio’s to “train the ear.”
Since the groups are small, each student receives individual attention and can ask questions and has time to speak.
Structure of the courses and language
The school offers courses consisting of 9 lessons (included a test) of 1 hour and 40 minutes, once a week during 9 weeks, for a total of 15 hours.
At the end of the course, after the test, we plan an evening for the diplomas.
The courses begin every year in September, in January and in April. The groups are small (between 4 – max 8 students) and classes are mainly in Italian; further explanations will be in Dutch if everybody in the class speaks Dutch, otherwise in English.
The knowledge of Dutch is not required.
Missing a lesson? No problem; the lesson and homework are emailed, so you stay up to date.
You can’t leave the house or the office due to illness or work but you can follow the lesson? No problem; we do offer the option of a Zoom link to participate anyway, so you stay up to date.
Teaching material
Check please the course pages to see which books you need to buy.
In addition to the textbooks, we also use a subsidiary in which the most important grammar is further explained with diagrams and examples and in which you can find additional exercises. This is given by the school.
During the lessons we can also use other material, for example magazines, songs, games, videos, etc.
Intakes
The interview consists of a linguistic level test (free and non-binding).
It is important that everyone joins the right group. The tests usually take place during our ‘Open House’ or via Internet.
If you are an absolute beginner (Base 1) or if you have followed other courses with us, you do not need a test.
Final test
At the end of each course there is a test; 1 hour for “Base 1” and 1 hour and 40 minutes for the other levels.
This test is returned with corrections, with a mark and the relative diploma.
Please notice; the diploma you get at the Centro di Lingua Italiana is not an internationally recognized certification.
For this it’s necessary to pass exams called CILS or CELI or IT or PLIDA; these are the official exams to certify your competence in Italian as a foreign language.
For this purpose our courses provide in-depth preparation and we also offer private lessons for more specific training.
Levels
In order to give the students the possibility of organizing their studies in an autonomous way, CENTRO DI LINGUA ITALIANA has divided the levels of the CEFR in trimester sub-levels.
The advantages of this division are:
– the student can decide how and when to proceed with learning Italian, without being tied to a course for 6 months or more. In fact, in case of holidays or other work projects, the student can decide to stay off for 3 months and start again later.
– Each group is quite homogeneous, without big differences that could disturb learning.
