An Italian language course for beginners during Covid-19

By Clodomiro Cafolla, Postgraduate and International Resident Tutor

Italian is a beautiful and musical language, the language of the cradle of the Western civilisation and definitely the most romantic of all the roman languages. Italian is currently the forth most studied language in the world. This is not surprising considering the impact of Italian culture on food, history of art, music and even business with “Made in Italy” being the third most recognised brand in the world after Coca Cola and Visa.

Since January 2019, the academic and cultural life of the College has been enriched with an Italian language course for beginners. The course immediately received great interest both from John’s students and from University members, with more than 200 requests to join up the classes.

During the lockdown, the course did not stop but continued as a virtual class.

Meeting every Friday on a virtual platform, participants have had the opportunity to keep on practicing and improving their Italian. Currently, participants are able to understand an Italian conversation and talk to each other in Italian. Some of the participants have achieved a remarkably proficient level with a great ability to mimic the Italian accent and perfectly conjugate any verbs at the past, present and future!

As a final note, all the course fees contributed to the fundraising for our very own Learning Resource Center and to the Helping Hands Appeal!

Running the course during Covid-19 has been an invaluable opportunity to confirm, once again, what we are good at in John’s. Independently from any accidental conditions, we always find new ways to create a positive and friendly learning environment where to thoroughly explore a wide spectrum of academic fields .

This is what participants say of the course.

Anne Allen: “Thanks Miro. I was pleasantly surprised to find how much I’ve learned in such a short time. Thank you”.

Hannah and Marinus Buisman: “Me and my dad have been loving learning Italian from home. It is a great way to keep learning through lockdown, and is far more interesting than exams! We look forward to the classes every week as we seem to make so much progress every time. It is very rewarding and Miro is a great teacher! So glad we could continue this even during lockdown!”