Summer School (only available for min. 3 students booking together)

Frederika the teacher was fantastic and managed to bridge the gap between students abilities. Location was central and other than the actual classroom, not sure what the "facilities" were. Similarly as I was there for just 5 days, there was just one dinner. Lessons were organised with relevant handouts and a good balance between speaking and listening.

It would be useful to have the payment method on the website as "Sum up" is not available in Australia and I had assumed I would pay by debit/ credit card. I found the first 2 days particularly challenging as the other 2 students were fluent with conversation and were there to perfect their grammatical skills, whereas I was at a more basic level and certainly couldn't freely "chat". It would be valuable if there were some basic italian story books( children's??) to borrow during the course.

Otherwise, it was an enjoyable week (although challenging) I wonder if we were put together due to lack of other students? I may have preferred 1:1 lessons and fewer hours. Would love to return for longer and be taught by Frederika.

My experience with Campus Athena exceeded my expectations!
The school’s location was walking distance to my VRBO, downtown Catania, and the train station. And it is situated in a beautiful Italian building.
The teachers jumped right into giving me the intense courses that I signed up for. Giulia, my professoressa, took me from zero Italian language skills to A2 during my two week study.
Great study/vacation!

This school I liked a lot. I really happy that learned Italian in this school. There are very friendly people in this school. Everybody helped me with any questions with pleasure. Every lesson was very interesting and we talked with the teacher a lot. Location of the school is very good: not far from the center and amazing Opera theatre. Last lesson was at the streets of the city: we walked with the teacher and talked about everything: about the city, the architecture, the kitchen of this country and a lot of things. I think that I will come back in this school soon!

Lucky for me it was a one on one experience. Bianca was patient and employed a number a teaching methods to maximise my learning results. I am happy with the results. Catania has some advantages over some other Italian locations because few of the locals are fluent in English which make engagement in Italian essential. The catanians in general were helpful with understanding my limited Italian. The city is definitely worth the week for it history food and sights. I stayed in an Airbnb not far from the school and close to a tour pickup point.
I would recommend the school and. Catania for learning Italian.

I did a week of intensive Italian at Centro Didattico Athena. The experience was not what I expected. I took an entrance exam geared toward the intermediate level. From the exam results I clearly had some grammatical deficiencies, which I hoped I would get to work on during the class. Additionally, I wanted to have the opportunity to practice speaking - which was my main reason for wanting to do this class. The facilities were good, it was easy to get to by Metro from the place I was staying (I was staying with a friend who lives in Catania). Unfortunately, the course was not what I expected.

I was in a class with one other person, who was quite advance in her level of Italian. Thus, we were a bit mismatched in terms of skill level. Initially this was ok because we had a teacher that was very sensitive to our different skill levels and we were working on grammar that I had just finished studying in my class at home, which was a nice review. This teacher was really good at meeting me where I was at and helping me feel comfortable speaking, even if I made mistakes. She was encouraging and I was feeling more confident in my speaking ability as a result. However, this dynamic changed dramatically with the second teacher. We studied passato remoto for 3 days and the mode of instruction was not very didactic. We did hours of grammar worksheets and very little conversation.

When we did speak, she was not very helpful and made me feel uncomfortable when I made mistakes. I felt like she was teaching only to the other student and at more advanced level than was appropriate for me. She made no attempts to adjust the material or style. Even the other student was frustrated. I left the class feeling a bit traumatized and less confident in speaking that when I started.

I had the benefit of two very talented and dedicated teachers of Italian. With my low level of proficiency, they were very patient and forgiving. The administration was very friendly and accommodating. This is a very serious school, not something for tourists looking for something to do. The three hour classes are thorough, comprehensive and well-planned. The teachers have a very good feel for what the mistakes of English-speakers are likely to be. They insist on grammatical correctness, good listening skills, and, finally, extensive practice in conversation. I would recommend this school (and Catania, for that matter!) to anyone sincerely interested in the Italian language and culture.

I took an intensive language course at Centro Didattico Athena for one month. I couldn't speak any Italian at the beginning but learned very fast because classes were very small and the teachers super experienced and nice.

The balance between grammar lessons and cultural lessons and activities was perfect for me: There were screenings of Italian short films, city tours, museums... but also classic grammar lesons (but in a nice way). In my point of view the key method of the teachers was talking (they encourage you a lot) and that's also how I learned best.