Drawing, art and movement. Each day gives the children a fun and creative opportunity to use English. Structured language activities lead by expert teachers go hand in hand with the creative process. Each day the children bring a packed lunch from home. The programme offers children a valuable chance to be in constant contact with authentic communicative English while being supported and corrected by mother-tongue English teaches.

Click here for the enrolment form.

During these 11 meetings you will get an idea of how this language works, in order to be able to read and say simple things. And who knows, maybe you fall in love with it?

Start: January 18th, 2021
Type: 11 sessions of 180 min (Monday and Wednesday from 18:00 to 21:00)

How do online courses work at alpha beta piccadilly? What sort of activities can you do? What about the atmosphere in the group? Our video will give you a taster of what an online session may look like!
 

The second wave is rolling… But what does that mean exactly for your language course or language test? Are placement tests still possible? How does the registration work? And what about autonomous learning?

We have summarized the answers to all of those questions here.

Distances, masks, disinfection and disinfectant…take a look at this video in which you’ll find all the hygiene procedures to follow in our in-school courses.

Those who are unable to read and write are often excluded from society. This is especially true for refugees who, without literacy skills, find it extremely difficult to gain a foothold in our society. Maybe in their home countries they had little or no opportunity to attend school. Whatever the reason, what we see is that in the 20 to 30 literacy courses in German and Italian that we organise annually in South Tyrol, the majority of participants are refugees.

The lessons in these courses are not limited to teaching the basic skills of reading and writing. Our teachers also take the participants to the post office, to a clinic or to the registry office, to name but a few. Specially trained literacy teachers work together in teams to prepare teaching materials adapted to the needs of their individual groups, accompanying their students through the four stages of literacy that we have defined.

Our literacy courses are free of charge, with the next ones starting in the autumn. For further information on enrolments and a simple entrance test, see here.

alpha beta piccadilly was inspected by Eaquals in November 2019 and met the high standards required for Eaquals accreditation. The teaching, the course programmes, as well as the course organisation, the learning resources, testing and evaluation were all judged to be of high quality. It was found that the institution takes great care to protect the welfare of its clients and staff, and all publicity materials produced by the institution are accurate and truthful.

The Inspectors identified points of excellence in the following categories:

• Teaching
• Learning Environment
• Course Design and Supporting Systems
• Academic Resscources
• Client Services
• Quality Assurance
• Staff Profile and Development
• Internal Communications
• Management and Administration

At alpha beta piccadilly we firmly believe that learning doesn't start at the classroom door and doesn't end there either. We therefore offer our students and others who may be interested a whole range of opportunities for autonomous learning: from Tandem to the Language Café, an online English course and the Self Access Centre.

Tandem brings together two speakers of different languages who wish to learn the language of the other. The Tandem advisers at alpha beta piccadilly will find you a suitable partner and support you in planning and setting up your learning partnership. Instead of attending a regular course, Tandem partners decide when and how often to meet and what topics to talk about.
 
You can also improve your speaking skills at the Language Café. Like at a real café, people sit together and talk to each other in a relaxed atmosphere. The difference is that each table is dedicated to a different language, with a moderator present to break the ice. This relaxed meeting takes place in Bolzano/Bozen and Merano/Meran several times a month.
 
The Self Access Centre at alpha beta piccadilly in Bolzano/Bozen is equipped with a wide range of multimedia learning resources, which can be used to improve your language skills in combination with a language course or independently. Our tutors are available to give individual advice.
 
The Macmillan Online Campus (MEC) offers over 5000 listening, reading, grammar and vocabulary exercises. You can also work on your pronunciation, play language games and when necessary consult a monolingual dictionary. Our tutors will first evaluate your level then provide you with a specific online course. In case of problems or questions you can always contact your tutor, who monitors your progress in the background.
 
Has your curiosity been aroused? Then get your skates on and give it a try! Whether you're a beginner or more advanced, for exam preparation, as a complement to a group course or just by yourself: all you need is a bit of self-discipline!
 

Over the last 30 years Aldo Mazza has made a name for himself encouraging the two South Tyrolean language groups to live together rather than just to coexist and for this he has been decorated by the Province of Tyrol. 100 years after the region was divided following the First World War, the award of the decoration to Aldo Mazza, a native of southern Italy, has a special significance. He came to South Tyrol some 50 years ago and with the founding of the Alpha & Beta Cooperative created an organisation that has always aimed at promoting intercultural communication and multilingualism. Today the cooperative runs both a language school and a publishing house. Really living together is an art, with language skills being only the first step along this path. Aldo Mazza's decades-long endeavours to achieve this have received official recognition with this decoration of the Province of Tyrol.

 

"Living Multilingualism - between normality and challenge" was the introductory paper at this year's conference to inaugurate the new academic year for the alpha beta piccadilly team last Friday.

In addition to listening to Georg Stoumbos' presentation,  it was a good opportunity for us to celebrate the end summer and toast the new academic year, while interacting with colleagues from across South Tyrol in a relaxed atmosphere.