ELLCI Italian Language School Milano

I absolutely loved my stay in Milano and the ambiance at ELLCI! Definitely learned at lot, I recommend it!

Very bad experience. I cannot rate the class because I never got to that point. Communication was extremely difficult. I was told I can stay in a residence and was asked to confirm with a given price. After my confirmation and payment of part of the price, they told me I also had to pay some ominous tax, which meant 10% more. When I said that I would then rather look for another place to stay, they said, OK, in that case it is fine, you do not have to pay. Very chaotic and badly organized. I then booked a course with another school and ELLCI never paid back the payment I had already made, although it was long-term.

I had a great experience of learning Italian language and culture, also getting to know people from different parts of the world! I have literary started from zero knowledge of Italian, but I could be immersed totally in Italian and practiced day by day! Now I'm confident with my Italian. Thank you!

Do NOT take the CELI exam at this center. It is very unorganized. We had a person in our exam that was disruptive during the entire exam and the test proctor never made her leave. People were copying off each other, the listening section is given on a boombox in a room with a terrible echo, and the oral part of the exam was a joke. The disruptive test taker was allowed to stay the entire exam. I sent a complaint email and nobody responded, but they were quick to repsond when they wanted to collect my money in the beginning. If you want to pass this exam in full, take the test somewhere else or take another exam. You've been warned.

Do not take CELI exams with this school. Very keen about money for courses and happy when you fail so you can pay more. Very unfair way to do CELI exams expecially oral that left many of us with many questions how an oral exam can last less then 10 minutes and funny enough all the blacks always fail it. Very unfair treatment do not waste your money here.

I was enrolled in the 4 hour afternoon course for 6 weeks, having no previous knowledge of Italian. My experience was very mixed. I liked both of our teachers and the diversity in terms of age/origin of the class, but I did not appreciate how the administration would chuck in new people, even absolute beginners, week after week. This was a large source of frustration to everyone, not least the new students, who naturally wanted more explanations of things the rest of us had already gone through. Our poor teachers ended up stuck between a rock and a hard place. The €22 EUR textbook ("gramm.it"), part of the €70 something enrollment fee, was not favored by our teachers (for good reason, I assume) and we instead relied entirely on photocopies from other books. These soon grew to a pretty sizable pile. The school ought to consult with its teachers and get a better textbook, or skip it entirely and charge us €22 EUR less. Most of the classrooms are small and a little dingy. In the rooms we used, all tables were facing the teacher in a traditional classroom setup. I don't this works great for conversation practice and that horseshoe setups are much better. The biggest issue with the classrooms was the lacking AC. When I first complained to a member of the administration we were told there was nothing wrong with it (though in truth it was almost entirely non-functional in that room), but they could move us to a darker interior room without any natural light, to which the class as a whole declined. Feeling frustrated with the heat and suspecting they were really just keeping the AC on low out of cheapness, I left a short 3-star review right here under my real name (like now) saying something like "I can't recommend this school during the summer as the AC is very lacking". Though it was fair and really just an attempt to prod the school into turning the AC up, I had second thoughts about the passive-aggressiveness of it and deleted it within 10 minutes of posting it and went to school. An hour or so later, a man burst in during the middle of a lesson and began to angrily berate the entire class with a raised voice for several minutes, in Italian, which none of us fully comprehended (being A1). Eventually I understood him as saying "if you have a problem, come to me, don't write **** about us on Google!" It turned out this was the director of the school (who had not previously introduced himself to us) and he had received an e-mail notification containing the text of the review. When I realized what he was angry about I identified myself as the reviewer and asked him if we could talk about this after class, but incredulously, he just kept going, in angry Italian. The director gave me a quasi-excuse of the "I'm sorry BUT-" variety afterwards in private (after some prodding) but I really think this whole episode was extremely unprofessional, outright childish, and totally indefensible for someone working in the field of education. We were moved to another classroom as a result of this drama, but as the number of students increased, it became uncomfortably hot again and we moved to a third classroom... which in turn was again soon hotter than ideal. I don't honestly think I'm particularly sensitive to heat as I've lived more than 10 years in cities with humid subtropical climates worse than Milan's, but when it comes to sitting down and studying, learning, I really think any excessive heat will interfere with your concentration. Though I couldn't personally recommend the school after what transpired, it's not an "avoid-at-every-cost" situation. If you can live with the haphazard manner in which the school throws in new students in ongoing classes, if the location, price, timing etc. of their offerings line up with your requirements better than with any other Italian schools in Milan... you could still consider it. I do think the sentiment of my original review still stands, though: avoid in summer. EDIT: I just want to add that some of the school's "clarifications" in the response below aren't actually true.

Great teachers and even greater people behind the success of the school! They helped my partner learn Italian much quicker than she could have ever done on her own, living here in Milan. Recommended!

I have been a student at ELLCI now for a cumulative 11 weeks so I'll try to touch upon a sampling of points. - Teachers are excellent, dedicated to their profession and effective with the communicative method. - Administrative dealings are sometimes difficult to understand, but this is perhaps representative of Italy and part of the culture. - Unfortunately I cannot frame this next point in context, as I did not attend any other private language school, but the facilities are underwhelming with respect to the cost of the courses. The classrooms are squished to the point where you can't move around in your seat without disturbing your neighbor -- think kindergarten classroom style. There aren't enough bathrooms for the number of students and staff, which is important when you spend 4+ hours in lessons. While there is one classroom that is quite comfortable, it seems that space is the exception. - The method of moving students in and out of classes and levels is sometimes frustrating -- a point to understand ahead of time if you anticipate yourself being in the situation of needing to take a leave of absence once in a while. Also keep in mind that the maximum number of students allowed in the courses is what to expect to encounter for most of your experience -- it is a financial venture after all and so the school will pack the classes full whenever they can. If you are a better learner in small classes, consider individual lessons or classes that are explicit about maintaining an 8 or less (for example) class size. - If the study visa is part of your situation, it is absolutely in your best interest to communicate this as early and as clearly as possible. I had a great deal of trouble trying to plan my visa trip (to the US) and everything ended up being much more expensive and included a significant amount of back-and-forth.