The actual legislation on asylum permits those who arrive in Italy seeking protection to obtain documents in relatively little time: often one knows if one has been recognized as a refugee or not in no more than a month. With a permesso di soggiorno (permit of stay) in hand, the primary concern of most refugees and asylum seekers is to find work that will allow them to be autonomous as soon as possible. But no path towards integration is conceivable without the learning of Italian.

Centro Astalli’s Italian language school was started at the location in Via degli Astalli, and then transferred in 2008 to the space of Fondazione Il Faro (the Faro Foundation) in Via Virginia Agnelli 21—it’s open every afternoon from the end of September to June. Each year it’s frequented by hundreds of students, asylum seekers and refugees. Enrollment for classes is always open and new students enter into the classrooms almost daily. As a result, the instructors are constantly scheduling and programming lessons, and must be able to succeed in the delicate task of moving each class forward in a uniform manner despite the constant influx of new students.

The students share the common need of acquiring a “useful vocabulary”—the ensemble of words that are essential for living in a foreign country. The difficulties that are encountered in the learning process are diverse, and depend upon the learners’ language of origin, level of prior schooling, and age. The objective is to produce in everyone the linguistic capacity that is necessary for “maneuvering” oneself around Italy. The volunteers who teach appeal to all of their patience and creativity, often exchanging experiences and reflections among themselves. In contrast to a traditional school, success is measures also by the number of students who leave the classes: often these departures indicate that the students are able to make themselves understood sufficiently enough to find a job, and to embark on the long path towards true integration.

The main problem that has had to be faced in recent years regards the actual insertion of the students into classes: the number of individuals asking to learn Italian is far greater than the number of students the system can support. Since 2007 that Italian school has been a part of the Rete Scuolemigranti (Migrant School Network), which was founded by the joint will of various associations that offer an Italian teaching service. It also aims to enhance  students’ formation through an exchange of experiences and a constant training of the instructors, as well as by strengthening the capacity for interacting with institutional actors through ample coordination.

In addition, in 2009 the school became a CELI exam center for certification of Italian at level L2 (in contract with Sinnos-CELI Lazio, that in turn collaborates with the Centro di Valutazione e Certificazione Linguistica dell’Università per Stranieri di Perugia—the Center for Linguistic Evaluation and Certification of the University for Foreigners of Perugia). This is an important outcome, from both an economic and logistical point of view, that facilitates access to concrete “proof” for those who want to obtain formal recognition of their linguistic competency.