Koinè is a special kind of school. In fact, it was set up in 1980 as an association of teachers, all with personal and professional experience in the area of teaching Italian as a foreign language. Since these teachers were dissatisfied with their experiences, they decided to create a new type of organization which would differ from other private schools in its style of working and teaching methods.

Two goals were identified from the outset:

• teaching the language to foreign mother tongue speakers requires a specific approach and therefore professional training for the teachers.
• Italian is regarded and studied as a language of culture by people with tourist and cultural motivations and therefore learning must be linked to the contemporary presentation of artistic and cultural production representing the history of the Italian people.

Koinè, a Greek word meaning “common language”, but also with a broader cultural sense “everything that is common”, was considered to be the ideal name to represent our project.
Today Koinè offers: its own didactic methods, its own text books, cassettes and videos, teachers specifically trained in these methods, lessons which are not limited purely to the teaching of the language, but completed by a series of introductory courses and guided visits to show our country’s hallmarks.
Koinè has broadened its organization over time by adding to the main school in Florence others in Lucca, Cortona, Rio Marina and Bologna, all made up of teachers trained professionally in the Florence centre, with the intention of improving not only the quality but also the quantity and variety of what it has to offer.