Exams Officer and Secretary to the IB Co-ordinator at The British School, Warsaw, Poland

During our 3 years stay in Ljubljana my family and I focused on exploring Slovenia and neighboring countries. Our favorite was Italy and we quite quickly realised that learning some Italian could really enhance the quality of our exploration. I decided to sign up for one to one course and was very lucky to get Kristina as my tutor. I was a true beginner with no previous experience with Italian. From the very beginning Kristina was very patient and encouraging. Always smiling, she guided me through the early stage of "hello, thank you, where are you from" etc. The classes from the start were in Italian only, although Kristina would explain some more complex language items whenever I got stuck. Once we passed through the early stage and I had some basic vocabulary and language skills to create my own sentences, lessons became even more interesting. Kristina very quickly found out what my interests were and found the way to make me involved in the topic. Kristina was also very attentive and always progressing with the new material according to my pace and capability, revising and repeating whenever I struggled to absorb new structures but also moving forward faster when the topic was relatively easy for me. Kristina motivated me by giving me enough encouragement and praises and at the same time correcting me whenever necessary with a good sense of balance between the two. I could feel progressing almost from one class to another and I was always looking forward to Italian classes. Her passion about Italy, its culture and art was contagious. Luckily I continued classes with her up to the level when I could express myself much better and even was able to read Agatha Christie's novels.I respect Kristina for her passion and enthusiasm about teaching Italian, her genuine interest in clients and finding individual ways to encourage them to learn. I value her sense of humor and genuine interest in people. If I stayed in Slovenia longer, I would have continued my classes with Kristina and would probably become a fluent Italian speaker by now :)