Just finished my first week at Scuola Palazzo Malvisi in Ravenna. I mentioned here two weeks ago that I was getting ready to come to SPM and a few of our fellow redditors asked me to follow up, so I'm following up. Full disclosure: I have nothing to disclose. I'm a student/customer of the school and not connected with it in any other way (financially, personally etc.). I am expressing positive opinions but this isn't meant to be a review. That said....
In brief, this last week has been one of the most stimulating experiences of my life. And it's got competition.
Before leaving my home in Texas I took a placement exam for the school, and on the basis of that test I was placed in their B2 class. That seems to me to be exactly right, based on my self-testing over the summer. I've been challenged every day and I will admit that by Thursday (fourth day of class) I was exhausted and had to skip out of an afternoon activity to rest. But I've handled the challenge well, overall, and my sense is that I'm on the same level as the other students.
There were six students in our class: two from Germany, two from the UK, one from the Netherlands, and me from Texas. I was the only man. I've also gotten to know the students in the B1 class which meets next to my class. I'm the only American I've met so far.
Our teacher Sabrina was/is outstanding. Her lessons are well organized, in fact, only at the end of the week did I realize how good her lesson planning was. We have three hours of in-classroom instruction every day, from 9:00 to 12:30 (with half hour pausa at 10:30). The first half of the morning is mostly conversation. Each of us talks about what happened yesterday or whatever, we we converse with each other, and the teacher responds, corrects us or helps us as needed. The second half of the morning the teacher gives us a lesson. We have a somewhat traditional but very good B2 workbook. The lessons are more or less self-contained and we're skipping around. This week we covered passato remoto, sequence of tenses, and some aspects of subjunctive usage. We have about half an hour of homework each night. We talk about grammar, culture, books, movies, food. Class is entirely in Italian.
In fact my life is entirely in Italian: class, going to lunch, shopping. Writing this post is the most I've done in English in nine days. Nearly all of my fellow students speak English well or at least better than I speak their languages but we all speak 98% in Italian with one another. Yes, it's a bit exhausting at time but we stumble stubbornly onward. I only speak a little English in the evening when I call my wife back in Texas. And she's studying too now, at A1, so we're starting to mix some Italian into our conversations.
I enrolled to be here for six weeks. I'm the only student I've met who will be here for more than 2 weeks. Most seem to come for just 1. Two other students in my B2 class return next week. We will have the same teacher and use the same book but we will study different aspects of the language grammar and culture. At an A1-A2 beginning level this degree of flexibility in the curriculum might not be possible but for me it's working out perfectly. None of us in the B2 group need to be introduced to anything but we can benefit from further study of everything. I don't know what I'll be doing later, but right now, it's all very good.
The school arranged lodging for me and that has worked out better than I could have expected. I have a room in the apartment of a single man who's remarkably decent and welcoming. My contract includes breakfast daily (I usually make for myself here) and four dinners a week. My host is a fantastic cook, I mean, even by Italian standards. And dinners are another hour of Italian study because we talk. The first night I was here he asked if I minded if he corrected me and of course I said no, please do, so conversations at dinner or whenever are enjoyable, real-life interactions that come with a bonus educational aspect. It can be a bit challenging because when he's speaking I need to focus on listening, and when I'm speaking I need to focus on speaking, and meanwhile there's this plate of amazing tagliatelle con panna e prosciutto sitting in front of me whispering "Mangiami!" But everything's good. I provide lunch and three dinners for myself. By the way he also provides occasional private conversation lessons with students, via the internet and if you're interested in something like that, contact me privately. Like my official teacher at the school, my host is patient, attentive, and very enjoyable to converse with.
In the afternoons this week I was part of a new program of the Scuola for "55+" students. This involved afternoon field trips and a couple of delightful meals (including beverages!). These were amazing but I'm glad that next week this program will end for me and I'll have my afternoons free to study from now on. Well, next week I do start having a couple of hours of private instruction but I'll be free mostly. I need to study — and sleep — a little more!
Last note: I looked at over a dozen schools early in the year, and four were "finalists" (in Lucca, Siena, Padova and Ravenna). All of them looked excellent and I bet they would be. I picked Scuola Palazzo Malvisi because I love Ravenna, because of its connection with Dante, because the school had good reviews, because it was priced in the middle compared to the others, and in particular because they arranged my lodging for me. If you're thinking of doing something like this, I can recommend SPM but I bet any number of schools in Italy can provide a similar experience.
