Ice-cream dynasties like the Marcantonios made the North East a little more Italian. Live online lessons bring a native Sicilian teacher to Tyneside – no travel required.
Looking for an Italian tutor in Newcastle? Lessons are one-to-one over Microsoft Teams, tailored to you — complete beginner, GCSE revision, holiday Italian or reconnecting with the family language. As a private Italian tutor I charge £30 an hour, with no travel time and no course-book padding: we spend the whole lesson actually speaking.
Learn Italian from anywhere in the UK with live online lessons taught by Laura — a native Italian speaker from Sicily with over 20 years’ teaching experience, fully qualified with QTS, a PGCE and the Cambridge CELTA.
How online lessons work
- Live video lessons — real conversation with a real teacher, not an app
- One-to-one tuition — £30/hour, scheduled around you, Monday to Friday
- Small group courses — £15 per 1.5-hour session, 10-week terms from £150
- Interactive materials — custom resources, BookWidgets and Kahoot activities, all provided
Who they’re for
- Complete beginners building the foundations
- Improvers and returners who want structured conversation practice
- Students preparing for IB Diploma, GCSE or A-level Italian examinations
- Anyone with Italian family, travel plans, or a love of the language
Every lesson is tailored to your goals and level. As a specialist SEN-trained teacher, Laura is particularly experienced at supporting learners who find languages daunting — and at making every session genuinely enjoyable.
Ready to start? Get in touch for a free chat about your level and goals, or meet Laura in her welcome video — wherever you are in the UK.
Ready to start? Join the 10-week online beginners’ course — starts 16 September (£150)
Not ready yet? Grab the free 50 Essential Italian Phrases PDF
“Laura is a great teacher — warm, friendly, knowledgeable and encouraging. I really like the style of the lessons with a combination of conversation and worked exercises.”
— Jess Read all my Google reviews →
Newcastle’s Italian connection
Newcastle’s Italian connection is ancient. The Romans called this city Pons Aelius — ‘Bridge of Hadrian’ — after the emperor’s family name, Aelius, a family whose roots lay in Hadria in Italy. Hadrian’s Wall originally ended here, before being extended to Segedunum at Wallsend around AD 127.
Centuries later, the connection turned sweeter. Antonio Marcantonio arrived as a child in 1895 to join a small Italian colony in Byker, and went on to build Newcastle’s beloved Mark Toney ice cream business. Mark Toney still hand-makes its ice cream to the family’s original Italian recipe, and its Grainger Street parlour is described as the oldest coffee shop in the city. From Roman Latin to Italian gelato, this language has always belonged on the Tyne.
Common questions
Do you come to Newcastle, or are lessons online?
Lessons are online over Microsoft Teams. Distance really doesn’t matter — I teach students all over the UK from my home in Gloucestershire, and my Newcastle learners get exactly the same lively, personal lessons as everyone else, without either of us going anywhere near the A1.
How much do Italian lessons with you cost?
£30 an hour for private one-to-one lessons. My ten-week online beginners course is £150 for the full course — it starts on Wednesday 16 September, runs 5.00 to 6.30pm each week, and runs as a small group.
Do I need any Italian before I start?
None at all. I’ve spent more than twenty years teaching people their very first Italian words, and I love it. We begin with greetings, ordering coffee and introducing yourself — practical things you’ll actually use — and build steadily from there at a pace that suits you.
Is there really an Italian side to Newcastle’s history?
Yes — on two timescales. Roman Newcastle was Pons Aelius, ‘Bridge of Hadrian’, named after the emperor’s family, whose roots lay in Hadria in Italy; Hadrian’s Wall originally ended here before being extended to Segedunum around AD 127. Then in 1895, Antonio Marcantonio arrived as a child to join a small Italian colony in Byker and built Mark Toney, which still hand-makes ice cream to its Italian family’s original recipe.