Italian Homestay is total immersion in a genuine Italian environment and is an original, flexible and convenient way to learn how to speak and live like an Italian. No need to travel to school: staying in your teacher’s home means living the renowned lifestyle as well as absorbing the language in the most natural way.

Whether you are: sightseeing, ordering in restaurants and bars, buying a ticket for the ferry, shopping or simply chatting to the locals, you will be practising your Italian in the ultimate role-play situation. Your proficiency will improve so quickly you won’t even realize: you’ll be too busy having great time!

Ciao, I’m Irene and I teach language in the North of Italy. I specialise in preparing students for real-life communication by improving pronunciation, speaking and listening skills and I pride myself on my calm, relaxing approach, helping students feel at ease whilst learning. I am currently working as a teacher and institute supervisor and I’ve been teaching English, Italian and French since 2010. I spent 4 years living and working in London, where I gained the Cambridge CELTA certificate to teach English as a foreign language. After returning to Italy in 2012 I completed the DITALS II Master’s at the Università per Stranieri in Siena.

The combination of the teaching skills I learnt while gaining these qualifications has honed my skills for the education of adults.
In my free time I am involved in a local amateur dramatics society and we stage a couple of shows per year. Living near the mountains also lets me to do one of my favourite hobbies of sports climbing, whenever possible I like to take on challenging new climbs.

METHOD OF TEACHING

My teaching is mainly based on a communicative approach, pioneered in the 1970s to teach English as a foreign language.
This approach consists of communicating and interacting at all levels in Italian to gain confidence and improve fluency, rather than just focusing on grammar and spelling.