ProfessorPaolo Acquaviva

Students are persons, and persons are different from each other. This simple truth lies behind most of what I've learned (and am learning) as a teacher. Being truly 'student-centred' doesn't mean following some fashionable methods, but having an informed approach to the learning mechanisms (never-ending professional development) and having the passion and the empathy needed to guide young people through their educational experience. For me, these responsibilities take the form of teaching Italian and linguistics, most often to absolute beginners. There are recurring challenges, usually stemming from the mindset whereby learning consists in reproducing information (and that language learning consists in memorizing and retrieving pre-packaged expressions). The ways to meet these challenges vary, but behind them is the constant awareness that teaching and learning are facets of human development, which is always dialogic. A real teacher has the empathy to dialogue with students individually, as well as with colleagues (especially tutors). And the best reward is to see people (including oneself) develop, especially students who discover new ways of being in the world through the gateway of a language.