ABOUT US

Andrea Quarantotto

My name is Andrea Quarantotto (Andrea in Italian is a man’s name).
I was born in Bologna and have always lived here.

I graduated from The University of Bologna with a degree in languages, and ever since those university days I have taught Italian to foreigners, first at Dante Alighieri, and later at other schools.
From 1973 until 2000, while working for a large company, I continued to teach on my own time. In 2000 I left that company and decided that the time had come to begin teaching Italian in “my own way”, in my home.

From this idea was born bolognalingua, a small association of teachers specializing in individual courses for those who want to learn Italian in a natural way, outside the bounds of a traditional language school.

I love teaching this way and I devote most of my time to it.

Although students do not live in my house, I organize almost everything for their stay in Bologna –accommodations, excursions to other cities as part of the learning experience, and naturally, courses tailored to each student’s needs.

Studying a foreign language abroad is an absorbing, complex experience.
It involves not only mastering new words, but also gaining a deeper understanding of the culture in which the language is rooted.
To achieve this goal I devote all my enthusiasm, my skill at communication, and a sense of humor which makes for a relaxed study environment.
Students appreciate these characteristics, and so I look for them in my collaborators as well. We are all university graduates, fluent in at least one foreign language.
We are particularly careful to use from the start a direct method, based on communicative stimuli, which emphasizes the use of current spoken Italian.

Anna Maria

My name is Anna Maria. I come from Veneto but Bologna has been my adoptive town since when I attended university.

I've always worked as a teacher, covering various kinds of teaching positions. I've been working for "bolognalingua" for the past few years.

I consider teaching as another way of learning, a passion, a stimulating challenge that is always present in every different situation of my life.

My university education ( philosophical-arts ), the knowledge of two foreign languages (French and English), my interest in arts along with a passion for traveling and curiosity about cultures other than mine, all this was fulfilled by teaching Italian to foreign students!

Transmitting the love for the Italian language and culture is one of the main aspects which renew my enthusiasm for this job and my pleasure in doing it.

Planning custom-made lessons, tailored according to the needs and interests of students is a way to practise and enrich my teaching experience. In my lessons I try to involve the student by alternating activities that let him/her make progress in all language skills. Flexibility and accuracy merge to meet the final goals that have been set together with the student at the beginning of the course.

Thanks to Andrea Quarantotto, "bolognalingua" has been and still is to me a special occasion to experiment varied methods of learning with students contagiously fond of our language and culture, students strongly motivated to become more and more confident with the language, people with an outstanding cultural and human sensibility. Their satisfaction is a precious reward for my efforts as a professional teacher.

Some testimonials:

"I am passionate about Italy and all things Italian, a regular visitor to the country and particularly attached to Siena, but this year was looking to study Italian in another city as well, and friends recommended Bologna. So, I investigated schools there and BolognaLingua appealed because, after a number of years of studying in group classes, what I needed was an intensive course of one-on-one lessons. Andrea Quarantotto's personalised, small-school model seemed ideal. And it was!
In May I spent two weeks in the delightful city of Bologna under the expert tutelage of Anna Maria, with some shared lunches also with Andrea and his wife and several other students. With this structure I could feel part of a small-school "family" while benefiting enormously from Anna's highly professional but friendly, individually tailored lessons. Materials were carefully selected to be both challenging and relevant to my interests, so our discussions were always stimulating and the lessons sheer pleasure.
It was such a rewarding language learning experience that I will return for another course at BolognaLingua, hopefully again with Anna, next year. And as a specialist language teacher myself, there is no higher accolade I can give a school or teacher than that!"

M.D. - Perth, Western Australia


Encontrei na Bolognalingua uma escola diferente do habitual: não tinha salas de aula, mas salas de conversa e trocas mútuas de aprendizagens; não encontrei professores, mas amigos. Anna Maria não foi para mim uma professora, foi uma amiga com quem conversei sobre tantos assuntos e com quem aprendi muito, nomeadamente italiano.

Paula Rocha, Portugal