The Italian Language Diploma "Firenze" is the certification of competence in Italian language issued by the Accademia Italiana di Lingua (Italian Language Acadamy) (AIL).

The AIL is an association of public and private schools and cultural institutions active in teaching and promotion of the Italian language. Established in 1984, since its first year the school began to develop certification tests of proficiency in the Italian language.

The AIL Italian Language Diploma is divided into five different levels in relation to levels of the Common European Framework. They range from the DELI-A2 (Italian language primary diploma), to DILI-B1 and DILI -B2 (Italian language intermediate diploma) and the DALI-C1 and DALI -C2 (advanced diploma in Italian).

These certificates are then added two diplomas of Italian trade: the DILC-B1 (intermediate diploma of Italian trade) and the DALC (advanced diploma of trade language).

Since 2007, the Swiss Federal Office for Professional Education and Technology recognizes (in all vocational and trade schools) DILC-B1 as the certification of Italian as a second national language.

Certification tests are designed to verify and evaluate the level of competence and different abilities to use the language. The examination is made up of different sections (writing, speaking, reading comprehension, listening comprehension, lexical and morphosyntactic competence).

For each level, each section has a different weight in the determination of the overall score. To pass the exam you must reach 60% of the maximum score.

The course consists of 40 lessons total distributed in the four weeks (two lessons per day) prior to the exam date. During the lessons, past years’ exams are analyzed and used for exercises. The teacher distributes different tests to students which after, are immediately corrected and commented on. The goal of this preparation is not simply to engage the students, but to provide them with guidance on how to best address the various sections and the criteria used in the corrections. Students at the end of the course must have acquired, in addition to specific language skills, a precise knowledge of what each type of exercise is meant to test.