Professor
Born in San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy, Fiora Biagi has always lived in Siena. She holds a degree in Foreign Languages and Literatures (1998), the DITALS Certification cum laude (2001), the Diploma of Specialization in Teaching Italian as a Foreign Language cum laude (2001) and a PhD in Linguistics and Teaching Italian to Foreigners (2005).
She has been working for several years as a teacher of Italian language and culture for foreign students. She is a researcher in the fields of language acquisition, language teaching and didactics, intercultural studies, intercultural competence and its assessment, the role of service-learning in a full-immersion context and in acquiring advanced linguistic competencies and deeper intercultural knowledge. She has also worked in the field of teacher training. She has been a lecturer in several meetings and conferences concerning language and content teaching, teacher training and intercultural competence and studies. She has also been working as teacher of English and a translator.
She co-authored the book L’educazione riflessiva interculturale: L’approccio FICCS allo studio della lingua e cultura italiana (Carocci, 2010) and other publications regarding the EUFICCS approachand the RICA Model. She has recently co-authored the book Reflective Intercultural Education for Democratic Culture and Engaged Citizens (Cambridge Scholars, 2020). At SIS she currently teaches Italian Language, History of Italian Cuisine, Medieval History, Intercultural Communication, International Education, and Global Citizenship Education, and she is the program academic coordinator for master courses. She has recently been trained to become a EU project expert and is currently in charge of European project planning. Fiora is currently specializing in Italian Sign Language (LIS); she is also interested in children teaching, psychology and has been herself a ballet instructor.