The History of La Lingua La Vita



La Lingua La Vita is a program of The Language Center of Todi and was created in 1988 through an idea of Stefania Belli, then a young graduate in Languages and Foreign Studies, an entrepreneur with a strong commitment to language teaching, and a woman capable of introducing and innovating revolutionary teaching methods and solutions.

Here is the story of La Lingua La Vita directly from her:
"The program grew from my great passion for understanding a mix of cultures, encompassing my Vision of the international aspect of the world and of life. As founder of The Language Center, I give utmost importance to words and their content and this concept in particular has been for me and the program a key point for growing and development.
‘In the hazy period after my graduation, my only certainty was the desire to create an international cultural educational center.

I believed so much in the Vision that I determined to have faith in the idea and to overlook my situation at the time – very far from my project – and began to use the basement of my parent’s house (like Bill Gates!) and to invest my scanty resources in some minimal advertising both in Italy and abroad.

‘At first, the responses to my proposal were not encouraging in that so few people knew about Todi – which hadn’t been yet proclaimed ‘the most livable city in the world’ – and my interlocutors turned out to be rather skeptical. Although I was alone, I kept believing in the Vision and went on selling the idea to an increasing number of institutions, associations, universities, cultural centers, agents and teachers. I finally began to get positive replies from both national and foreign clients, with an increasing volume of bookings year after year.

‘I then started to work with more cultural institutes, international universities and schools in Japan, North America and Europe; with agents, members of the U.S., Dutch and Belgian diplomatic corps, etc., all of whom seemed interested in letting their publics learn of our small school, so different from those in big cities, where students would be continuously stimulated to speak Italian, could study in small groups, and could easily integrate in the local lifestyle, feeling like they were at home.

To my great advantage - and for those who started with and now continue to work for the school - I still give great importance to the Vision and to the entire La Lingua La Vita project, as I believe in the power of every individual to transform his/her own reality and to apply the principle that nothing is impossible.
Students today choose our institution from among hundreds of schools all over Italy for the quality of our teaching, for the kind and supportive reception received from the faculty and from the whole of the Todi community, and the beauty of the region; for our good faculty-student ratio compared to other programs and for the variety of our cultural offerings - including cooking, ceramics and painting courses.

Over the years we have been able to make major changes like the transfer to our new headquarters in a lovely palazzo in the Via Mazzini, opposite the municipal theater; the expansion of our teaching staff and support team - all qualified and friendly people - the enhancement of our quality control, the integration of our courses with innovative teaching materials, the creation of an internal and original system of evaluation and certification, and the increase in number of families and landlords who take pleasure in accommodating our students.
Furthermore I am now perfecting a new teaching method based on the technique of overcoming emotional blocks inhibiting the expression of foreign languages. I have already started to test this successfully in the past months in various Italian classes that I recently taught in California and New York and this new format will be perfected for our 2005 academic program.

‘To many, this may seem the end of the story but to me and all of us at La Lingua La Vita it is still the beginning, as we constantly brim with enthusiasm and look forward to the future - a future that we hope includes you!"

Stefania Belli