Ilaria Barbieri

Italian Language

Ilaria is an Italian teacher and a teacher trainer. Since 2012 she has been committed to teaching Italian on all levels (from A0 to C1) to students of many different nationalities and ages, and has held courses about teaching methodologies for over 500 educators since 2016.

Ilaria got her Bachelor’s degree in Social Psychology in Padova, after spending her last academic year at the University of Kent (UK). She then got her Master’s Degree in Lingua e Cultura Italiane per Stranieri from the University of Bologna. The Faculty of Foreign Languages awarded her with a grant to carry out research for her final dissertation abroad, in Spain (Escuela Oficial de Idiomas de Almería) and France (Società Dante Alighieri, Perpignan), where she investigated the fascinating world of learner’s language autobiographies. Ilaria cooperated with NGOs and language schools (both public and private) in Spain, France and Italy.

In 2015 Ilaria moved to Florence, where she continued teaching Italian and she also started to work as a teacher trainer. For Ilaria, education means to sustain students’ motivation and flourishing on all levels: individual and global, intellectual and emotional, personal and professional. As an educator, she believes in the importance of student-centred approaches, critical thinking, creativity and, most of all, Beauty, Passion and Wonder.

In her free time, Ilaria is fond of creative writing, contemporary art, music and sports. She also enjoys “calcetto”, dancing, meditation, surfing in the ocean and, most of all, going to find the ocean.