Marisa Tesauro

Marisa Tesauro has been teaching English, Italian and Spanish for over 15 years.

She is a certified TEFOL teacher and has completed numerous teaching courses and participated in workshops in her 3 native languages. She also has over 15 years of experience working as a translator and interpreter. Formally trained as an artist at the Rhode Island School of Design, she still works as a visual artist, exhibiting her work Internationally. Her formal education in Fine Arts has taught her how to solve problems and how to work independently and inventively.

Her language classes are tailored to each student’s goals and specific needs. She uses authentic, relevant and current material to supplement the grammar lessons and uses conversation to help her students begin to actually use the language. Marisa believes strongly in “hearing language”. Language is like trying to learn the words to a song you like: little by little you memorize some parts of the lyrics, then you start to sing bits and pieces of the song under your breath until you realize that you know the entire song.

Alida Vatta

Alida was born 1948 in Pirano, Istria, an intersection of languages and cultures. She has lived in many cities throughout Italy from Naples in the south to Trieste in the north. She received her degree in Sociology and has worked as a translator of Cultural Anthropology texts. Alida had a long career as a professor at the Istituto Tecnico del Turismo in Florence before retiring a few years ago.

She decided to call Florence home and knows the cities most ancient and lesser known areas scattered throughout the city. Alida rediscovers her city time and time again, outside of the usual tourist haunts by showing her English speaking friends around. These tours are full of organic and spontaneous twists and turns through Florence often ending in a small bar where she shares the culinary experiences of her city with her guests as well.