Piero Ianniello, M.A.

I graduated in foreign languages and literature (English and French) at the University of Florence with a dissertation on A. B. Guthrie, which is now owned by the University of Montana. Teaching has always been my passion and an activity that has involved me soon after my degree in a varied number of experiences which all enriched my life from both a professional and a more genuinely humane point of view.

In 2010, I received a Master's degree in teaching Italian language and culture to foreign students, which of course added professional awareness to my work, enhanced my enthusiasm and gave me new inspiration for my courses. Currently, I am studying for my Ph.D. at the University of Antwerp. My research focuses on performing Italian-ness in educational contexts, and includes American, Italian and migrant students in Italy.

When teaching, I try to adopt an inductive method. I personally believe that language acquisition happens when we forget about learning a language and just use it to achieve other goals. Consequently, I propose activities in which the students need the language to communicate content, so they are not concentrating on their own performance. In such activities, knowing the language is not the end but the means through which a goal is achieved, effectively reproducing a spontaneous situation outside the class.

I am also involved in other fields, such as sustainable food, migrations and creative writing, a passion which has awarded me with several prizes. I have also published a number of short-stories, some essays on local history and two novels, Via della Cina, about Chinese migrants in Prato and the latest one, L'Uomo d'Azzardo, dealing with gambling addiction, set in Florence.