Rita Pasqui
Associate Professor of Teaching (Latin, Classics, and Italian)
Education
M.A. in Classics, University of Perugia (Italy)
M.A. in Teaching Italian as L2, Ca' Foscari University, Venice (Italy)
M.A. in Applied Linguistics, Università per Stranieri di Perugia (Italy)
About Rita Pasqui
I am a truly passionate instructor with teaching experience in different countries. In the U.S., I have been teaching Latin and Ancient Greek, as well as Italian, for many years: after four years as a Lecturer at NYU, I was hired at The New School, NY, where I developed and supervised the Italian language curriculum. My second appointment as a Lecturer consisted of teaching Italian at all levels at the University of Pennsylvania, with some extra-academic duties at the Consulate General of Italy in Philadelphia, where I promoted Italian culture through a large array of activities: organizing students' competitions, awarding grants and scholarships for summer courses in Italy, arranging concerts, exhibitions, film series and conferences. After some further experience both in Italy and in the U.S., I moved to Memphis, ready to offer the best of my abilities and to enrich the learning experience of students in this University.
My research interests are wide ranging and include the following areas:
• The application of new technologies and media-based instruction in the acquisition
of classical and modern languages; the incorporation of social networks and other
virtual environments in the FL learning process (face-to-face, blended, at distance).
• Classical Language pedagogy (I moved from a pure Translation Method used in Italy
to the Reading method and the Comprehensible Input methodology used in the U.S.)
• Historical Linguistics (the evolution from Latin to Romance Languages, in particular
Italian and its dialects).
• Fashion and design (I am co-author of Moda, stile e simboli - a reader for Intermediate students of Italian)