Your Italian course is triple-guaranteed!

Guarantee 1. A recognised, inspected school with a permanent staff

There are certain indications of a quality language school which should reassure you:

• Membership of a national association which regularly inspects its members. Madrelingua is a member of ASILS & AISLi
• ISO 9001 certification - demonstrates the organisation has a good level of organisational competence
• Recognition by local or national government organisations - Madrelingua is accredited as a training organisation by the Emilia Romagna Region
• Size - there are 10 classrooms at Madrelingua
• Seasonal or all year? We're open all year.
• Permanent teaching staff. We have four full-time, permanent Italian teachers, plus freelancers.
• Who's in charge? Madrelingua is owned by two teachers, husband and wife, not some faceless corporation which knows nothing about language-learning.

But you'll also want to feel reassured that the school really cares about your language-learning, and will do everything possible to make sure it happens... For this reason Madrelingua Italian Courses offers not one, but TWO ADDITIONAL GUARANTEES!

Guarantee 2. Your Italian improves, or we'll extend your course!

Language-learning is a very personal thing: your success is partly dependent on us (quality teaching, correct group, appropriate materials, sufficient hours of classes, social programme, etc.) and in part dependent on you, your background in language learning, your attitude, even your ability.

Almost everyone IS capable of learning a foreign language, but it does take time - approximately 4-5 weeks per level (there are six levels in total). So, if you wanted to go from complete beginner in Italian, to a high level of proficiency (good enough to work in an office, say), you'd need around 30 weeks of classes at 20 hours a week.

Clearly, we can't guarantee that every client will significantly improve his/her fluency and comprehension, no matter how short the course. But that doesn't mean we can't do everything possible to make your experience a positive one!

Here's our promise: if you attend each day of your course, do your homework, and generally follow our advice (i.e. ask the "tutor" for help with things you don't understand, join in the social programme so as to be able to practise what you've learnt, etc.), and you STILL don't make reasonable progress, WE'LL EXTEND YOUR COURSE, or (assuming you can't stay longer in Bologna for reasons of your own such as your return flight, work commitments, etc.) OFFER YOU A CREDIT FOR ANOTHER FUTURE COURSE!

Guarantee 3. Things not as we promised? Wouldn't come back for another course if we paid you? So ask for a refund of your course fee!

O.K., we admit it, this is not a "no questions asked, money-back" guarantee. If you're not happy and ask us for your money back, we're definitely going to ask questions, because we want to understand what the problem is, and fix it so it doesn't happen again. Not to you, not to other clients. Our reputation is very important to us, and we want to be the best!

So, you'll need to tell us WHY you're not satisfied, and give us the chance to make ammends (for example, by changing you into a different group, or talking to your teachers and asking them to modify their teaching style to take your needs into account). But once we've done our best to verify your problem and meet the promises made on this website, and you're still not satisfied, we'll consider GIVING YOU YOUR MONEY BACK. Why only "consider"? Read the "small print" below.

The small print

We can't please everyone every time, though we do try. Sometimes our clients have unreasonable expectations about what progress could be made in the time available, sometimes clients simply do all the wrong things and fail to learn anything as a consequence, sometimes it's clear that a client's preferences (i.e. to do ALL the grammar from the beginning, or do ONLY conversation and NO grammar) couldn't possibly be met as part of the group course in which they have chosen to study, where it's necessary for the teacher to consider the varying needs of all of the students in the class.

In short, sometimes the client is being unreasonable.

For this reason, both guarantees above are subject to our discretion - if you have genuinely made little or no progress in relation to the length of course that you have completed, we'll extend your course, or offer you a credit, as we promise in Guarantee 1.

Likewise, if we verify that you have a valid complaint which we have been unable to resolve, we'll give you all or part of your money back, as we promise in Guarantee 2.

Fair? We hope so! As we said above, our reputation is the best form of publicity.