Learn Italian in Tuscany

Il Sillabo, Tuscany:
Il Sillabo is a family-run language school. Anna Paola Bosi, the director, started the school in 1997 with her sister-in-law, Erica. Both studied language and education at University and worked in the fields of education; Alessio, Anna Paola’s husband, teaches cooking classes; her mother, Nicoletta, teaches Italian; her father, an art historian and architect, leads excursions; and her sister-in-law, Erica is the office manager. This highly-qualified team is professional and serious, while at the same time giving the school a palpable family atmosphere.

Italian Language Course (intensive)
The methods followed by our teachers are based on communication, participation and student involvement in each phase of the lesson. Students are continuously asked to use and practise their background linguistic knowledge and what they have learnt in class in activities of various types, so that they can assimilate and build on their linguistic skills in an inductive way: the teacher acts as a non intrusive guide for the student, the student is the central protagonist of the processes of learning.

A significant part of our early lessons is dedicated to learning vocabulary, expressions and phrases that are useful in the situations that students will have to cope with from their very first days in Italy. However, from the beginning we will also look at various grammatical structures that we come across during the lessons.

Students are required to complete homework in their own time to consolidate what they have learnt in the lessons.

Drawing and Painting
The Drawing course, which we recommend to those who approach this technique for the first time, is aimed to: real-life charcoaldrawing using the proportional method and study of chiaroscuro; study of real-life composition; copy from the great masters (portrait study); study of Tuscan landscape, pastel technique outline (facultative).

Wine lessons
Italy is recognized world-wide for its great wines, one of which is Tuscany’s famous “Chianti Classic Gallo Nero” (black rooster). Wine here is symbolic. It is rich, it is beautiful, and it is part of an ancient tradition. During the degustazione of several types of wine, we also cover how to select the appropriate glass, assess the colour and visual qualities of a wine, make an olfactory valuation, taste a wine correctly, determine a wine's components and match wine and food.

History of Art
History of Italian Art and Architecture within its cultural and societal context. This is a cultural immersion Italian Art History course, centered in Tuscany and in Florence but embracing the complete chronology of Italian art and architecture: from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and to the most renown Tuscan artists like Giotto, Masaccio, Donatello, Piero Della Francesca, Brunelleschi, Arnolfo di Cambio, Michelangelo and others.