The School

The Rome Language Centre of the Dante Alighieri group was opened in 1981 and specialises in the teaching of Italian language and culture to foreign students. The main school was set up in Florence in 1966 and today the Centro Linguistico Italiano Dante Alighieri has a number of other centres also in Greece. The school has authorisation from the Education Ministry and is open all year round.

The Centre

The Rome centre is housed in a stylish turn of the century building, at 1 Piazza Bologna. It is within easy reach of the city centre and all other areas, amply served by Underground Line B and many bus routes. The classrooms are large and bright and there is a terrace which, in spring, summer and autumn, becomes a meeting-place for students during breaks. All the classrooms are climatized.

The Staff

Our staff is on hand to provide information or help students with any problem.

Giulia Savona, Head of Administration, has twenty years' experience with CLI and handles general management.

Fabrizio Fucile, Head of Studies, has taught Italian and Latin since 1990, with a specialist interest in Italian Studies in which he gained his research doctorate and as well as handling management of studies, co-ordinates relations with oversea teaching institutes.

Elena Lachin is Head of Student Services.

Teaching Staff, Methods and Course-Books

Members of the Danti Alighieri CLI teaching staff are all humanities graduates and have followed teacher training courses in the teaching of Italian as a second language, organised by the school. They keep abreast of new teaching concepts, methods and tools.

The method adopted by the teachers is the communicative grammar method. Each lesson is structured in two parts: in the first, morpho-syntactical structures are presented and written and oral exercises immediately assess the individual student's level of understanding and reproduction. In the second part, the student learns to apply the new linguistic structures in the most varied situations from the colloquial to the more formal and bureaucratic, broadens his personal vocabulary and practices using the idiomatic expressions of spoken Italian.

Course-books have been developed from years of experience and successful teaching methods used at the school: the books are the result of co-operation between language specialists and teachers themselves who have a more direct experience of the problems and needs of the students. The CLI Dante Alighieri course-books are used also by European and American schools and universities.

individual courses

With an individual course, the student has the chance to tailor the course to fit his needs and attain excellent results in a very short time. Such courses are particularly suited to the needs of executives, managers, diplomats, professionals, artists and university Professors and researchers.

Highly-qualified teachers and a carefully planned syllabus are the keys to success which make students come back and recommend us to others.

The timetable for individual courses is drawn up to fit in with the student's schedule. Weekend courses are also available.

With courses D8, D10 and S9 (inclusive of dinner with the teacher in select restaurants) a good level of language may be reached in only two or three weeks.

culture courses

Cultural courses last two weeks and are held in the early afternoon.

The course objective is to introduce the student to the culture, politics and society of Italy.

Subjects offered each month are art, history and literature. Cycles of individual lessons may be organised on the history of politics and Italian society, the cinema, theatre and opera.

The History of Art course covers: From Byzantine Art to Neoclassicism; the High Renaissance: Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raffaello; Venetian Art from Bellini to Canaletto; the Florentine 15th Century; Rome from Ancient Times to the 18th Century.
A sample of the Italian Literature Topics with related reading-matter: Dante, the "Inferno"; the Birth of Poetry; Petrarch's "Canzoniere"; Manzoni's "Promessi Sposi;" Romantic Poetry: Foscolo and Leopardi; the 20th Century Novel; Sicilian writers of the 19th and 20th Centuries.

The History Course covers: from the Unification of Italy to Fascism; from the Second World War to Modern Times.

A student with a basic knowledge of Italian can start courses on any Monday. Courses for complete beginners run on the dates listed below and the student should choose from the following:

* Saturdays included

The school closes for the following National Public holidays. Lessons are not made up: New Year’s Day, 1st January; the Epiphany, 6th January; Easter Monday (following Easter Sunday); Anniversary of the Liberation, 25th April; May Day, 1st May; Anniversary of the Republic, 2nd June, St. Peter and Paul, 29th June; the Assumption, 15th August; All Saints, 1st November; Immaculate Conception, 8th December; Christmas Day, 25th December; Boxing Day, 26th December.

The school closes for the Christmas holidays from a few days before Christmas up to and including 6th January. The school remains open the rest of the year, including during the summer period.