Idlewild

Idlewild’s mission

To help students learn a new language in the most enjoyable, effective, and authentic way possible.

Why Idlewild?

Effective. Idlewild will teach you to speak, understand and enjoy studying a language even if you think you can’t learn a language or have been bored with other methods.

Engaging. Idlewild’s classes are fun, practical, and stimulating – with just the right mix of teacher presentation and conversation practice.

Authentic. Our classes and materials feature native speakers using colloquial language in everyday situations. You’ll learn to think in the language, like a native, and not just to translate, like a tourist.

Proven. Our method is based on our own experience teaching group classes for more than a decade in New York City and on the latest research on language acquisition.

About Idlewild

Idlewild was founded in New York in 2008 as a bookstore focusing on travel and international literature.

We began to offer language classes in our bookshop in Manhattan in 2010 and in a second location in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Cobble Hill in 2012.

We added online classes in March 2020, the same month we closed our bookshop and published our first language textbook in 2022.

Our in-person classes are now taken by more than 3000 New Yorkers every year, while our online classes are taken by students in 30 US states and more than a dozen countries.

Idlewild was the original name for New York International Airport, renamed JFK in 1963.