Learn Italian in Rome, with Torre di Babele school

School of the month: Torre di Babele, Rome

September 16th, 2008
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Posted by Torre di Babele, Italian language school in Rome.

A LETTER FROM A STUDENT

«First of all, I would like to state that the school did not ask me to write what you are about to read. After three fantastic months learning Italian in the eternal city, I felt like giving back to the school with the following blogpost and gave them permission to use my words if they wanted.

Torre di Babele school

Over the years learning different languages (six) around the world, you always run into the typical school where students don’t matter and are only seen as the daily source of income. At Torre di Babele it’s a whole different ball game. There indeed, students matter. You can feel it from the first moment you step into the school. I don’t know if it’s the homely school atmosphere, their international staff (which by the way, speaks 7 languages all together - English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Dutch and Japanese) that’s ready to answer to your needs, or the school’s location itself (Art Noveau District of Rome); but when you step in, you start learning Italian.

The first day at Torre di Babele you get tested for your Italian skills. The school’s academic committee comes together and evaluate each student as an individual case. Then, levels are form and in a matter of minutes you find yourself in a classroom mingling with other 10 to 12 people. Something that caught my attention right away was that I didn’t know anyone, but people were talking as if they were friends before. I ask whether they knew each other or not, the answer was giggly yes. Uhh??? That’s odd. To each language school I’ve been, none of the students know each other. Why do they here? It turns out that they come every year. You meet friends in Rome and after throwing a coin backwards at the Trevi Fountain, it seems you actually come back. People with the desire to learn the Italian language make of Torre di Babele a second place. They all told me they loved the school’s teaching, ambiance and the city so much that they swear to come back.

Rome and the Tevere river

I began to wonder why Torre di Babele was so good at teaching Italian. So I dig up into Torre di Babele’s history and I found out how it got started which lead me to the reason why students’ come back every year.

Four PhD’s, from different nationalities, had a dream of teaching their languages to foreigners founded a language school with an special purposes in mind: instill foreign languages to those with a desire to learn. So they wrote out their teaching methods with one perspective, teach with passion to all ages. They decided later to specialize only in Italian to foreigners and for 25 years, they have been passing the torch to Italian teachers trained in the school’s culture and methodology. Indeed, Torre di Babele has its own training courses for teachers.

But Torre di Babele and Rome are not just about teaching Italian, but living the Italian language. What you learn in the classroom you apply directly into your daily life in Rome. The city has many sides. Depending on who you are and what you like, you will find a variety of activities which range from visiting a museum to playing beach volleyball at the beach.

Castel Sant'Angelo

Of course activities depend on the weather but boy, did we have fun. Tuesday was “La Pizza con Alessandro”, Wednesday we went to an OpenAir concert of Italian opera. Thursday, some friends and I (about 10 in total) went to have an “Aperitivo” at
“Freni e Frizzioni” in Trastevere and finally for the weekend we took a train to Napoli and when later on to burn our white skins at the “Amalfi Coast”.

I’ll never forget my experience at Torre di Babele, in fact, I just made friends for life and we just promised to each other to come back next summer. Maybe you can join us…

To all of you out there that are still thinking that Torre di Babele it is not for, just go over there, the worst thing that can happen is that you have fun, learn Italian and get to live among more than 2000 years of history. I promise once you get there, you don’t want to leave.

Oh I almost forgot. If someone who reads this blogpost ends up going to Rome in September, please go to the madonna concert for me, and also the “Belcanto Festival”. I know they are two different ends of a music spectrum, pop and classical music, but as I told you before, Rome has everything you could need depending on who you are and what you like. Unfortunately, I had to come back to work and leave Rome behind for the next eleven months, but hey… maybe I’ll see you next year. I know Mike and Sandra are going.

Cheers,

Joey! »

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 at 9:00 am and is filed under italian language. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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