Susan Girelli Hill MA BA MA PhD

I hold degrees in Italian from Edinburgh and Manchester universities, including an MA and PhD for my then pioneering work on the speech of Italian immigrants in the UK.

I have wide experience of teaching in the UK and Italy and have taught Italian to students of all ages from children to adults, and all levels from complete beginners to postgraduate students. For many years I was Head of Italian at the University of Salford.

I have also worked as a freelance translator and interpreter in the UK and Italy, and published textbooks and articles.

My love of Italy and all things Italian continues and in 2008 I was lucky enough to buy a tiny house in the lovely medieval hill village of Pacentro, in Abruzzo. The village has been named one of the borghi più belli d'Italia. Since 2010 I have been running one-week courses in Pacentro.

Since moving to Cornwall in 2005, I have found a surprising number of people in south west Cornwall who want to learn Italian or maintain their knowledge of the language and I have been teaching groups and individuals in regular classes and occasional workshops.

2012 will see an increase in the number of workshops and intensive Italian courses offered. I will be taking workshops to venues throughout the UK, providing specialist workshops specifically for those with a home in Italy, providing an Easter course in Sulmona for UK teachers of Italian as well as a beginners' course in Lucca. The dates and venues are already on the relevant web pages.

One of the nicest comments I have had from a student is "One of the best things about learning with Susan is that she sounds like an Italian, but she knows where we're coming from because she's an English native speaker, like us."