How to choose an online Italian teacher — the right one for you

There are a lot of online Italian teachers out there. But how do you find the right one?

A few years ago, I was feeling frustrated because I wasn’t practising my English enough and had the sense that I was slowly losing it. So I decided to take a few lessons to brush up. It was 2021, there was a pandemic, and for the first time in my life I looked for a teacher online. I found him on iTalki, his name was Edward, a young British guy living in Greece, who worked in IT and did English conversation lessons to earn a little extra.

Result: after three lessons, I stopped.

Edward was friendly, had a clear accent and we had some interests in common. But he wasn’t the right teacher for me. I wanted to expand my vocabulary, work on my grammar, discover new things. He offered only small talk.

Today, as an online Italian teacher myself, I know that there are many different approaches and that none of them is perfect — including mine. It works well for some people and not for others. Every learner is different and needs different things. Based on my experience, here are three concrete criteria to help you choose.

1. A native speaker isn’t necessarily a better teacher than a non-native one

I’ll say this against my own interests because I’m a native Italian speaker, born and raised in Italy. But speaking a language fluently from birth isn’t enough to teach it well.

There are many people, like Edward in my case, who speak their own language well but don’t know how to teach it. They don’t have explicit knowledge of grammatical structures, they haven’t experienced the typical difficulties that foreign learners face, and they can’t easily empathise with the learning process.

Especially at beginner level, a teacher who has learned Italian as a foreign language can actually be more useful — someone who knows the journey from the inside. The ideal, of course, is a native speaker who is also professionally trained. But if you have to choose between the two, in the early stages it’s better to prioritise training over native fluency.

2. A teacher who only does small talk won’t help you enough

There’s nothing wrong with small talk — I start every lesson with it myself. Building warmth and a sense of connection is essential, especially when you’re teaching online to people who live on the other side of the world.

But a good conversation lesson also needs to push learners beyond their comfort zone — to use new words, new structures, to stretch what they can do. Talking about the same light topics every week is fine for maintaining a level, but it won’t raise it. At the same time, sticking only to neutral, pre-planned topics makes the lesson feel rigid and unnatural.

The right balance is between lightness and preparation — so that you feel good and actually make progress at the same time.

3. Choose the online Italian teacher who fits your specific needs

Teaching Italian online often means specialising. I have a colleague who works specifically with Italian-Americans who want to rediscover their grandparents’ language. Others teach Italian for professional purposes, or work with children, or with migrants.

I work almost exclusively with adults who study Italian for pleasure, in their free time. I’ve built a method and materials designed for this kind of person — and they wouldn’t work for a bored teenager or a manager who needs to learn Italian because the company is sending them to Milan.

Before choosing a teacher, ask yourself: does this person work with people like me? Do they have experience with my goals, my level, my attitude to learning?

Of course other factors matter too: cost, availability, personality. But these three criteria are the starting point for making a good choice.

Does my approach sound right for you? Book a free introductory call — fifteen minutes to find out together whether I’m the right teacher for you.