Our Instructors

The teachers at the Vancouver Italian Language School are native speakers with university qualifications and experienced in teaching Italian as a second language. To view each teacher’s bio, please click on their name;

There are many ways to teach and learn; I prefer to do it while having fun with my students. And I do it every day, because teaching the language and culture of my country is a marvelous experience, which enriches not only my students – to whom I try to transfer the love and passion for my language and my country – but also me, thanks to the continuous exchanges with students and colleagues.

I was born and raised in Italy, where I studied Information and Communication Sciences. Passionate about politics, I worked for several years in the public administration, before deciding to move to France to continue my studies. Once there, I started teaching the most beautiful language in the world, Italian, at the Maison des Langues of the Université de Reims Champagne Ardenne. I haven’t stopped since.

I hold a Master’s degree in Political Science, but to be able to teach at my best, I also obtained the First Class Certification in Didactics of the Italian language to foreigners CEDILS at the Università Ca’ Foscari – Venezia. I also hold the title of examiner CELI (Italian Language Certification) of the Università per Stranieri di Perugia. The world evolves and the languages with it, for this reason, in order to always give the best to my students, I continue to update and follow trainings.
For some years now, I have moved to Canada where, after some teaching experiences in college and university, I now teach Italian language and culture at the Italian Cultural Institute in Montreal and in several other private schools. I’m passionate, patient and very willing to help students improve their Italian skills.

Anna is an international business consultant with extensive economic training. She graduated in 2001 cum laude in International Economics in Pavia and in Management International in Strasbourg (EM), she obtained a master’s degree in Strategic Marketing in London (2007) and an MBA in Buenos Aires ( 2016).  Beside working 20 years as marketing executive  and consultant in leading companies and in the promotion of Made in Italy in Europe, Asia and South America, Anna always cultivated her passion for italian culture, language and cuisine and is a certified language trainer (CEDILS -Ca’ Foscari) with more than 850 hours of university -level teaching experience. Her teaching mixes different  approaches, integrating  CLIL and TPR.

Italy is not only my Country but represents an entire style of life.  I love speaking about it, and I believe this love transfers into my passion for teaching.  I think that only through being able to speak Italian will you be able to truly understand this country to its fullest.  I have always loved to learn foreign languages; I’ve studied: English, French, German, Chinese and Korean. I received my Laurea in Modern Foreign Language and Literature from the Istituto Universitario di Napoli, Italy where I studied Chinese, English and Korean as well as Far East Asian history, philosophy, arts, and linguistics. I studied and worked in China for two years where I met my Canadian husband and moved to Vancouver in 1999. I truly enjoy helping my students to achieve their goals, and when goals become successes, these are also my successes.  I think that a good teacher should be fun, kind, patient and enthusiastic, and I try to bring these things to all my classes.

 I was born in Canada to Italian parents. Grew up in a vibrant Italian-Canadian community in Metro Vancouver while spending the summers at my family home in the Veneto region. I studied French and Italian Studies at the University of British Columbia and received my Masters degree from the University of Toronto. Along with guiding cycle tours in Puglia, I also studied at the Università di Lecce, the Università per Stranieri di Siena and the Università per Stranieri di Perugia where I took classes for Italian language teachers. I teach French Immersion and Spanish with the Vancouver School Board and I am always excited to share my love of Italian language and culture through storytelling with students attending courses at the Chamber of Commerce.

Born and raised in the countryside close to Milan, Erica studied Chemistry, Science Communication and Sustainable Business, and worked in Canada, Italy and Germany. Living abroad has been important to understand how critical it is to learn a foreign language to communicate with people of other countries. Erica’s passion for interacting with people and sharing ideas between different cultural backgrounds brought her to learn new languages, and, since 2007, to teach Italian, her native language, to adults and children.

I moved to Vancouver from Italy in November 2009, but I have never actually left it; on the contrary, my attachment to my birthplace has grown since then.

Being far away in a very different country made me realize the beauty of a culture whose biggest strength is diversity, stemming from two common factors: harmony and elegance.

I am originally from Lecco (Lombardy) a small and quiet city at the foot of the Alps, facing a lake that resembles a fjord. I studied foreign language and literature at the University of Bergamo and I am currently a PhD candidate at UBC, where I teach Spanish and research 19th-century Italian and Spanish literature and politics.

To teach languages is, in my opinion, to open doors to new paths and encounters. This is what I have experienced as a student, and it is for this reason I now deeply enjoy sharing my knowledge of Italian culture with my students, as well as with my kids.

Lorenzo Camerini was born in Rome where he studied Humanities (Middle Age History) at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. He worked several years in Italy in different fields, and he was also an Italian volunteer teacher for migrants in the NGO “Casa dei Diritti Sociali” from 2010 to 2013.

In 2014 he moved to Vancouver where he worked as a teacher of Italian language at the Italian Cultural Centre and in an elementary school as an assistant teacher. Currently he is a full time Master’s student at UBC in Archival Science and Record Management.

Lorenzo loves to teach Italian and to share with his students the history and the wonderful artistic and cultural heritage of his home country, hoping to spread the love for the “Belpaese“.

Sara was born and raised in the south of Italy, in the Campania region and studied in Naples at Federico II University. She holds a Master Degree in Social and Territorial Policies.

Sara started to teach Italian at the University of Tennessee as volunteer for adults and young students. After three years, with her husband, they decided to move to the beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia where she teaches Italian in different schools.

I am very happy to continue to teach and help students who are interested and love the Italian language and culture.

I was born and raised in Northern Italy (Novara – Piedmont).

My love for languages began at a very young age, when contrarily to all my peers, I decided to study French instead of English. I eventually added the latter as a third language in High School, and then Russian in University. I hold a Master Degree in Translation from the University of Genoa and languages have always been the core of my everyday life.

I love helping people overcome language barriers and successfully communicate, and I do that through both my profession of translator and teacher. What I love about teaching is that it allows me to learn a lot about other cultures, while sharing the love I feel for mine.

I was born in the small region of Molise and then moved to the north of Italy (Emilia-Romagna) at the age of 19. There I obtained my Master’s degree in International Cooperation and Protection of Human Rights. I discovered the passion for teaching while working as Assistant Grant Writer in an NGO in Greece. There I started to teach Italian to young refugees and to hold seminars about human rights in high schools and other non-formal educational settings. Once back in Italy, I continued to teach Italian to migrants and I started to study at Università per Stranieri di Siena.

Furthermore, as a Grant Writer, I had the chance to promote inclusion and diversity in the education system, thanks to proposals I made in the areas of Youth and Children, Disabled people, Education and Social Services. I proposed strategies for parents, teachers and community workers to confront educational poverty in disadvantaged backgrounds, introducing intercultural teaching practices with the help of cultural-linguistic mediators.

To me teaching holds so many invaluable meanings: it is turning into success the potential that every student has; it is understanding our communities to build better ones; it is a life-learning process thanks to the engagement with students from different backgrounds; it is falling in love every time with the Italian culture.