Foreign language pedagogy: be sure, we know what we do!
All the teachers of our Italian language school have graduated from the University and speak at least one foreign language, often two and sometimes three! They therefore perfectly understand the difficulties in learning a foreign language. They have attended language courses abroad and have made a specific training course to become teachers of Italian as a foreign language to comply with the communicative teaching method in use in our school and regularly attend teacher development courses on foreign language pedagogy regularly organized by our school or by other institutions in Italy and abroad. All our teachers have obtained the Certification in “Teaching Italian as foreign language” DILS II, released by the University for Foreigners of Perugia. The DILS-II is a professional certification that assess teachers competences in foreign language pedagogy essential to effectively teach Italian to foreigners with professional awareness and skills. Many of our teachers are also certified with DITALS Certification of the University for Foreigners of Siena or ITALS Master of the Ca ‘Foscari University of Venice in teaching Italian language and culture to foreign students.
Creativity and ability in adapting authentic materials to create lesson units!
All our teachers have been especially trained to be able to adapt authentic materials to appropriate learner age and level. Our Italian language teachers will bring always current and “fresh” material in class that best meets the needs of each class or groups of students. By using “authentic material” (newspapers, video interview, downloaded material from Internet, movies, books and so on, in other words, exactly the same material that Italians use on a daily bases in their everyday life), our goal is to have our students becoming familiar with “real life” in Italy and with the Italian society and Italian culture.
A group of teachers who is also a group of researchers in foreign language pedagogy.
It is very important for us that our faculty consist of a group of professional teachers who know each other well and who have been working together for years. Only this has allowed us to grow and improve our teaching offer from 1992 to today and to be today a group of researchers in foreign language pedagogy nationally and internationally recognized in the field of teaching Italian as a foreign language.
As an Italian language school accredited by the Italian Ministry of Education (MIUR) our teaching programs have been inspected and as member of A.S.I.L.S. and I.A.L.C. our teachers’ professionalism has been and is continuously throughly checked.
Continuously monitoring student progress.
In class, student progress during their Italian language courses is constantly monitored by our teachers. Our teachers meet during our Weekly Teacher Meeting to discuss what has been done in classes during, the activities carried out and the new teaching activities proposed, in order to guarantee to each student a correct development during their learning process and a level suitable to their language abilities. The Weekly Teacher Meeting are of great importance to us in order to provide students in our Italian language courses with the highest teaching in accordance with new researches in the field of foreign language pedagogy .
Legality! Beware of schools that do not offer certain and stable work contracts.
Unfortunately, many language schools hire seasonal teachers with very poor (and sometime none) professional competence in foreign language pedagogy, in order to save money and propose cheaper courses to interested students. This is simply unfair and illegal!We believe that teachers have a duty to be professional, competent, certify teachers but, on the other hand, they have the right to see their work properly recognized with a legal contract with a payment scale fixed legally. Unfortunately there are many schools that employ “teachers” only because they are native speaker, regardless to the that they have been professionally trained in foreign language pedagogy and without a legal contract to the, just to save money and taxes. As said above, these are the schools that are able to offer the best prices, in unfair competition, in spite of the National laws on job. In general, these schools are not accredited Italian language schools and no independent third body has ever inspected them nor they apply to any National or International Quality Scheme. At the Italian language school BABILONIA, all working relationships with teachers and school staff are regulated by the National Labor Contract ASILS-AISLI for schools of Italian as a second language which protect teachers and school staff trade union rights.
REMEMBER, QUALITY AND LEGALITY HAVE A COST
BUT THE COST OF ATTENDING NON PROFESSIONAL AND NON ACCREDITED ITALIAN LANGUAGE SCHOOLS IS DEFINETELY HIGHER FOR YOU!
