The pandemic caused closing of Language schools in Italy
Sixteen Italian language schools participated in Study Travel Magazine survey on the situation during this challenging year 2020.
The pandemic caused closing of language schools in March due to the lockdown, but many language schools in Italy were able to open again for face-to-face teaching in the summer. One school in Salerno reopened at the end of June with only three students instead of the usual number of 160. The bookings were last minute as this was the trend for the summer booking and the rapidly changing travel restrictions and border reopening. School had to be flexible.
Some schools decided to find alternative ways and to keep their students by switching to the online learning mode. Some school like Scuola Leonardo da Vinci Rome, Florence and Milan had been already having experience in delivering online for some individual and small group courses. Online classes proved to be very much appreciated by students enjoying good group nationality and age mix and that the lessons are held only by native Italian language teachers living in Italy. This school reopened for summer for face to face classes with new rules on social distancing to ensure the health and safety of students and staff. These simple and easily followed rules, made staff and students feeling protected, and the students were able to get a complete learning experience, including outdoor and social activities.
The enrollments for face-to-face courses are still low, so many schools are now offering a mixture of face-to-face and online learning. The Europass Italian Language School in Florence has developed an online course called ‘Europass Agile’. Students can complete activities on a self-learning platform at their own pace. If a student fails to attend a webinar at the scheduled time, they will have access to the recorded lesson later. The lessons are once a week, for various levels and each course lasts four months and is led by a native-speaker teacher from Florence. This has been a good option for students who for various reasons, are not able to travel to Florence to study the language.
Another popular alternative is hybrid courses where students can start a course online, either in their own country or in Italy and then join the school when their quarantine period is over or when they can travel to Italy.
Overall, the schools reported on dramatic decrease or almost no students from key countries like the USA, Japan or Australia. The student’s enrollments have been almost exclusively from students from European countries as the travel bans were lifted in the European countries in the summer.
The schools are hopeful that they can adapt in order to stay in business even with the outlook to 2021 being challenging. Some schools believe that agents play a key role in the design of the new online and face-to-face courses and that collaborating and working together to find creative ways will enable the students to learn the language whether in person in Italy, or online.
