The person who books in January has usually made the decision somewhere over Christmas. A trip, a grandmother, a promise made twice before. The person who books in September has been thinking about it since May and has simply waited for the year to start properly. Different weather, same instinct. After a fortnight it stops mattering which one you were, because what carries a language learner is not the January feeling. It is the fixed hour, once a week, with someone on the other end who expects you. Motivation gets most of the credit. In my experience the diary does more of the work.
Two ways in. One-to-one lessons are £30 an hour, arranged around your week and taught over Microsoft Teams. Or there is an online beginners’ group, kept small enough that everyone speaks in every session, and you can register your interest for the next one. I am Laura Geraci, Sicilian, from Catania, with more than twenty years of teaching behind me and QTS, a PGCE and a Cambridge CELTA to go with it. Ring 07786 107293 and we can work out which of the two suits you better.
What Manchester students usually want
Manchester sends a particular mix. People with a Sicilian or Neapolitan grandparent who understood every word as a child and lost the thread of it somewhere around secondary school. Exam students who need the grammar tightened before a paper. Travellers, plenty of them, because a fortnight in Puglia goes differently when you can order, ask and be answered in Italian. The lessons happen on Teams, which suits a city where nobody wants a second commute once work has finished.
Ready to start? Ask about small-group classes for beginners
Prefer one to one? See how online lessons work
Not ready yet? Grab the free 50 Essential Italian Phrases PDF
Want a tutor rather than a class? How I work as an Italian tutor
Or ask Laura a question
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Ancoats, the Association of 1888, and a procession that still walks
The earliest Italians in Manchester arrived in the late eighteenth century and tended to be skilled or professional men from the north. The larger movement came after unification in 1861, when farming families from Campania, many from towns in what was then the province of Caserta, and from Lazio, settled in the New Cross part of Ancoats. Arrivals peaked between 1891 and 1901, and by 1910 around three thousand Italians were living in that one district, rivalling London’s Little Italy.
They are remembered chiefly for ice cream, and fairly so. By the turn of the century roughly seventy Italian ice cream sellers worked out of Ancoats, among them the Rea, Sivori, Granelli, Meschia, Levaggi and Scappaticci families. But there was a good deal more to the place than that. The Manchester Italian Association was founded on George Leigh Street in 1888 and exists still. Domenico Antonelli, a community leader and businessman, was knighted by the Italian monarchy in 1932. The Second World War fell hard on them, with something like a quarter of Manchester’s Italians interned.
The thread that has never quite broken is the Madonna del Rosario procession. It has walked since 1890, missing only the wars and the pandemic, and on the first Sunday of each July more than two thousand people set off from Hallé St Michael’s on George Leigh Street and make their way through the centre to St Peter’s Square. A plaque marking Ancoats as Little Italy went up on that same street in December 2021.
Common questions
What happens when a beginners’ group comes to an end?
By the end you will have the shape of the language: the present tense working properly, a decent stock of words, enough to hold a slow conversation about yourself and ask for what you need. What people do next varies. Some carry on in a group. Some switch to one-to-one at £30 an hour to move faster. Some take a few months off and come back in the spring, which is far more common than people imagine and does less damage than they fear.
How do I know whether I’m actually improving, or just turning up?
Two measures. Yours: you begin understanding more than you can say, and you tend to notice it outside the lesson first, in a film or a phone call. Mine: I keep track of what you could do in week one and what you can do now, and I will tell you plainly either way. Twenty years of teaching, exam classes and the International Baccalaureate included, makes that judgement fairly quick to reach.
What does it cost, and how does paying work?
One-to-one lessons are £30 an hour. The online group sessions are £150 for a 10 week course, which is £15 a session; register your interest and I will send you the details of the next one. Ring me on 07786 107293 and we will settle the arrangements before your first lesson, so nothing is hanging over the start.