Director: STEFANO RASTELLI
Stefano Rastelli teaches Second Language Acquisition and Italian as a Second Language at the University of Pavia. He has previously worked at the Universities of Milan, Verona and Greenwich (UK). His publications cover L2 syntax, phenomena at the syntax-semantics and syntax-discourse interface, statistical models of L2 learning and neurolinguistics. For a selected list of publications in English see https://univp.academia.edu/StefanoRastelli
ITALIAN COURSE TEACHERS
ELENA VOLTAN (Teaching Coordinator)
After a Master’s degree in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics at the University of Pavia, Elena Voltan obtained a M.A. in Teaching and Promoting Italian language and culture to foreigners and a Certification in Teaching Italian as a Foreign Language from the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Over the past ten years she has been teaching Italian as a second language in different educational contexts, but mainly to university international students. At the University of Pavia she has been teaching Italian in international exchange programs, such as in Study Abroad, Marco Polo Turandot and Foundation Year Programs. At the moment she is also the Teaching Coordinator of the Foundation Year Program. She has been involved in research projects dealing with Language Acquisition, Language Testing and CLIL-Content and Language Integrated Learning, and on these topics she published and presented studies at international conferences.
MARIANGELA CASTRONOVO
Mariangela Castronovo graduated in Foreign Languages and Cultures from the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. Later, she obtained the Ditals Certificate for teaching Italian as a second language at the “Università per stranieri” of Siena, and a Master’s degree in Teaching Italian as a Second Language at the “Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore” of Milan. Over the past ten years, she has been teaching Italian as a second language in universities to international students, in particular the Marco Polo/Turandot and the Foundation Year students. In her career as an instructor of L2 Italian, Mariangela has gained experience in different educational contexts, including the universities of Rome, Bergamo, Milan and Pavia. Furthermore, she delivers the CILS and the PLIDA exams of L2 Italian. She has also published studies on second language acquisition, especially related to Chinese-speaking students’ population.
NICOLETTA CHIAPEDI
Nicoletta Chiapedi graduated in Modern Languages from the University of Pavia in 2002 with a thesis in Sociolinguistics. From 2002 to May 2004 she attended the Master’s in Teaching Italian as a Foreign Language at the University for Foreigners in Perugia, obtaining the diploma (30/30 cum laude) in 2004. In February 2008 she obtained a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Perugia with a thesis on the acquisition of Italian articles by native speakers of Chinese. She has a long experience teaching Italian as a second language: she has taught, among others, at the University of Pavia, at the University for Foreigners in Perugia, at the University of Bologna and at the University of Genoa. At the University of Pavia she has been teaching Italian to the students of the Marco Polo Programme since march 2011 and to the students of the Foundation year Programme since 2018. She has also been involved in research projects dealing with Language Acquisition and she worked as a tutor and author of two teaching modules for the online Master’s in Teaching Italian as a Foreign Language held at the University for Foreigners in Perugia.
ILARIA BORRO
Ilaria Borro received her MA and postgraduate L2-teaching degree from the Università degli Studi di Milano. She is about to complete a Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition at the University of Porsmouth (UK). She has been teaching Italian L2 for ten years, mainly to university international students. She is an active member of GRAAL, Research and Action Group on Language Learning (Università di RomaTre). She trains language teachers and she carried out, published and presented at international conferences experimental studies of language teaching.
MARIA ILENIA RUSSO
Maria Ilenia Russo is an Italian-as-second-language teacher. She got a bachelor degree in Modern Literature obtained at the University of Palermo. Afterwards She’s studied Linguistics at the University of Pavia. Here She developed a passion for Second Language Acquisition and Teaching. During this specialization She’s devoted her studies to the mechanisms of Spontaneous Languages Acquisition. That’s the reason why her classes have a purely communicative method, following the natural orders of the language acquisition. She’s taught Italian-as-second-language at the Dante Alighieri Society and She practiced all these methods for the last two years within Marco Polo – Turandot and Foundation Year projects at the University of Pavia, where She was an enthusiastic teacher of Italian as Second Language.