Where: In the Historical Centre of Lecce

When: Throughout the year. Class starts at 10 am on Monday, ends on late Friday evening.

DO NOT COME TO THE SCHOOL. We meet in Lecce’s main piazza under the column at 10 am on Monday.

Where you sleep: in local bed and breakfasts. We have recommendations in Student Services.

How much? 1995 Euro.

Taught in: In Italian, and English where needed.

Placement: Upon booking you’ll be sent a short quiz that Francesca will use to ascertain your placement in one of the two levels. Most people overestimate their own abilities but proper placement benefits everyone.

Interested?

Write us. 

We will copy your first email and send it to Francesca (our partner on the Italian/Cucina/Vino course). She’ll send you a quick online quiz to establish which class would be best for you. (You can book level 1 right away if you know you are starting from zero but you’ll need to take the quiz to start in level 2).

She’ll write you and propose the proper level for you. We offer both courses twice a year.

NB: Keep in mind that we tend to overestimate our own abilities and underestimate those around us. The quiz is a better litmus that any language app which are designed to give us the sense of progression and movement versus actually teaching as much as they say. Consider the sensation of spending an entire week profoundly behind the other students before you cheat on the quiz or ask to be placed in the second level without having the proper foundation. We want to send you away so happy that you return for other courses in the future.

This course is held in our owner’s private home. You’ll cook for the week using Silvestro’s easy personal copper pots and pans, eat of antique ceramics and taking full advantage of what is likely the largest Southern Italy’s largest bilingual cookery book library (you are free to borrow books during your time
here). If you have a secondary copy of any cookbook bring it with you and contribute to our ever-growing library.

Before the course
Book a room in Lecce for 6 nights or longer, but at least from Sunday night to Saturday morning. See Student Services after book your course for our list of trusted partners.

Arrive in Lecce whenever you like but plan on being here the Sunday evening before your course.

Lunedi
Monday
You’ll meet Silvestro at 10 am in Lecce’s main square- Piazza Sant’ Oronzo– under the column that used to mark the end of Via Appia (‘the Appian way’, the superhighway that connected Ancient Rome to Ancient Greece).

You’ll learn to see what makes Lecce and the Salento special, decidedly geologically apart from the rest of Puglia. We’ll head back to the Lecce school and you’ll meet Francesca your language teacher (Italian lessons run from 10:00 until 13:00).

*Monday’s language lesson: Greetings (informal and formal), making small talk and marketing skills

*NB: The talks are not the content but the skeleton on which the content will be placed. Rather than ‘crunch grammar’, Francesca will be using these daily pragmatic arguments to provide structure to her lessons, keeping the focus on practice rather than merely theory and grammar.

At 13:00 we’ll have guests arrive -native speakers- and the focus will move from language lessons to language application. Silvestro and Anna will prepare lunch and it will begin to arrive in waves while you practice what you just learned with friends of the school. Lunch will be local and feature a different local wine (grown less than 20 kilometres from the school, made from grapes that have been here for at least 300 years).

Lunch will last a few hours and then you’ll have the afternoon free (from 15:00 until 18:00) to rest, spend time with a travel companion or to hit the coffee bars to converse with locals.

After the break you’ll meet Silvestro back under the column again and we’ll head to the market to use your new Italian to order the bread from Salvatore, vegetables from Cesare and fresh meat from Stefano the butcher.

Back at the school we’ll make a local pasta shape from scratch, have a cooking lesson and then cook our dinner (always, antipasto, primo, secondo, 4 contorni, dolce).

Monday night’s food and wine lesson: The Carbohydrates of Italy: Pasta, Risotto, Polenta and Pane; who eats what, where and why.

Dinner will run late. A new and different wine will flow. It’s your choice of language with dinner. A leisurely walk through the historic centre back to the main piazza.

Martedi
Tuesday
You’ll all meet at 9:45 under the column in Piazza Sant Oronzo and walk to the Lecce school as a group.

Tuesdays’s language lesson: Italy’s Service Industries. How to order a taxi, room, food and wine in markets and restaurants in Italian—and respond to any follow up questions from drivers, vendors and waiters. How to express your hopes and desires (versus only needs).

Two hour, four-course lunch (prepared by Silvestro and Anna) in Italian with native speakers. A new wine (with guided tasting). A tasting of three extra virgin olive oils.

A three hour break for resting, time spent with a travel companion, individual study or passed chatting in caffès and supermarkets.

At 18:00
After the break you’ll meet Silvestro back under the column again and we’ll head to the market to use your new Italian to order the bread from Salvatore, vegetables from Cesare and meat from Stefano.

Back at the school we’ll make a different local pasta shape from scratch, have a lesson and then cook our dinner (always, antipasto, primo, secondo, 4 contorni, dolce). We’ll open the wine for….

Tuesday Evening Chalkboard Talk: Cabbage and Bread: Two Thousand Years of Food in Italy.

The dinner that you prepare will run late. Your choice of language with dinner.

Mercoledi
Wednesday
You’ll all meet at 9:45 under the column in Piazza Sant Oronzo and walk to the Lecce school as a group.

Italian lessons with Francesca.

Wednesday’s Language Lesson: Italian celebrations,
observations and customs. How and why does Italy celebrate or observe its annual holidays. And how that differs from your home countries. How religious is Italy anyway? (Short answer, between very little and not at all).

Two hour Lunch (prepared by Silvestro and Anna) in Italian with native speakers. A new wine (with guided tasting). A guided tasting of three extra virgin olive oils.

A three hour break for resting, wandering the city with a travel companion or time chatting with locals in caffès and supermarkets in Italian.

At 18:00
Off to Lecce’s oldest market where you’ll do all the ordering with Silvestro and then back to the Lecce school to make fresh pasta from scratch.

We’ll have two lesson in the kitchen, the first on kitchen gear— pots, pans, knives and glassware, acquisition and maintenance- the second on what we are going to prepare for Wednesday night dinner. After preparation we’ll move into the dinning room and have a guided tasting of the wine, followed by…

From Amphorae to DOCG: The History of Italian wine, from Cesare to the Modern Labelling of the DOCG.

Then a long dinner of the complete meal you prepared, with dinner either in Italian or English, as the group prefers. A visit to Silvestro’s private amaro bar (likely the largest private collection of amari in Southern Italy).

Giovedi
Thursday
You’ll all meet at 9:45 under the column in Piazza Sant Oronzo and walk to the Lecce school as a group.

Thursday Language Lesson with Francesca: Coffee and Small talk. Breaking the ice with strangers, in caffès and in the streets of Italy.

Two hour Lunch (prepared by Silvestro and Anna) in Italian with native speakers. A new wine (with guided tasting). We’ll have new local people join us to practise your new conversational skills.

You’ll meet Silvestro under the column and visit a local coffee shop and then back to the Lecce school to prepare the evening’s pasta, then a fourcourse meal. We’ll open the wine for…..

The Global History of Coffee and the European and Italian Contribution to it.

Dinner will run late, with conversation in your preferred language.

Venerdi
Friday
You’ll all meet at 9:45 under the column in Piazza Sant Oronzo and walk to the Lecce school as a group.

* Friday Morning Language Lesson: How Southern Italy sees the world. Stereotypes and characteristics of Italian cities, regions and the nation. And how Southern Italy sees and consumes or avoids the outside world, including your country.

*30 minutes before the end of class corks will pop and Francesca and Silvestro will teach you all the dirty words and blasphemies. They’ll explain why translating and dubbing/sub-titling curse words is so problematic, between Italian and English, English and Italian.

Your face will burn red from laughter

Two hour Lunch (prepared by Silvestro and Anna) in Italian with native speakers. A new wine (with guided tasting).

Say goodbye to Francesca.

Break.
At 18:00 we shop and then prepare your favourite dishes from the week.

We’ll open your (collectively) favourite three wines from your course and have a blow out feast in Italian and English.

Handing out of diplomas.

Walking back through the historic centre to the main piazza. Goodbyes for now, or see you next week for level 2.

Outside looking in, you could be forgiven for thinking that Italy seems like a singular
country. 

Inside though, it’s profoundly, even painfully provincial, with each city focusing on different reference points that rarely have to do with one another or the nation. Millions in Italy don’t speak Italian as their first language, with French, German, Greek, Romanian- speaking communities going back hundreds or even thousands of years.

And the spoken dialects are uncountable. (Linguists joke- not wrongly- that the difference between a language and a dialect is an army even though the more traditional distinction between the two is the presence of major authors that write in the dialect/
language and printed grammar rules).

Legally, Italian didn’t become the official language of Italy until 2007. And while there is no question that television has had a profound impact on the language spoken on the peninsula and islands, most here are bilingual, Italian and the local dialect.

What few in the south though, speak English.

This is what makes Southern Italy so special, is that it is still itself. To penetrate the life and culture, you’ll need to speak the language.

There are many techniques to learning new languages and while you don’t have to use all of them to be successful, you do need to use most of them. You need to speak with native speakers. You need a grammatical footing. You need to be addicted to the rush of hearing and then instantly using new words. You do need to be tickled with the pride in speaking someone else’s language when they cannot speak yours.

This course is designed to introduce you to all of these concepts and techniques. And to close that gap between the Italian that you have in your heart and head and what comes out of your mouth.

Q: How much can I really learn in a week? 

A: Quantities are largely determined by an individual’s desires. Are you taking a stab at answering questions in the classroom? Or are you hiding behind one-word answers? During meals with native speakers, are you telling things about yourself that you learned to say long ago or are you posing questions to gain new understanding? After meals
are you practising with locals in the caffè and wine bars? Back in your room at night, are you falling asleep with Netflix on your laptop set in Italian? How much you are willing to learn is exactly the amount you will learn.

Q: Why does my brain know the answer but my mouth not cooperate?

A: All of our passive vocabularies are infinitely larger than our active ones, even in our first languages. ‘Understanding’ something is a vague concept until we can discuss its moving parts. The glaring difference between our active and passive vocabularies is often what drives this frustration.

Q: Do I need to learn grammar?

A: Yes.

Q: Wait, what? Really?

A: Yes, but studying grammar as an adult is exceedingly satisfying because what you
perceived as boring rules as a child you’ll now see dripping with behaviour psychology,
social status and revelation of world view. You’ll notice those that soften their requests by using the conditional tense and those that don’t (‘I would like a beer’ versus ‘I want a
beer’). You’ll begin to notice why some people rub you the wrong way and why historically you could never put your finger on it.

Q: Will we speak Italian in the kitchen?

A: Yes, we’ll give all instructions in Italian and then repeat in English and then again in Italian.

Q: Can I do level 1 year and level 2 the next?

A: Of course.

Q: Can we do both courses back to back?

A: Yes, but it isn’t required.

Q: Will my English improve as well?

A: Yes. Few of us know why ‘he did good’, is wrong but once you understand the difference between adjectives and adverbs in Italian, you’re not likely to make the same mistakes that native tongue English speakers make, those that foreigners rarely do.

Q: Will I become a kinder person?

A: Yes. As a native English-speaker, it’s likely that you have never had to wrestle with a foreign language. Once you see what it is involved in mastering a foreign language,
you will be forever endeared to those that are still developing their English. You will be kinder and more sympathetic to much of the world, in ways you might not have been before.

Q: Will I become sexier to those that weren’t attracted to me before?

A: Hey Sunshine, we only have a week.