Matteo Santipolo

Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies

University of Padova

Via Beato Pellegrino, 26

35137 Padova – Italy

Phone: +39 049 827 4981

Fax: +39 049 827 8679

E-mail: santipolo@unipd.it

Matteo Santipolo (Rovigo, Italy, 1971) studied for some semesters at the Universities of Warwick (visiting student) and Reading (Erasmus student) in Great Britain and then graduated with high distinction in Foreign Languages and Literatures at the Ca’ Foscari University in Venice with a sociophonetic dissertation on London’s dialect. Part of the thesis has been published on the University’s journal Annali di Ca’ Foscari. At the same University he also obtained the ITALS Master in education and promotion of the Italian language and culture to foreigners. He attended a PhD course in Linguistics at the University of Pisa, studying for long periods of time in South Africa, and between 2002 and 2005 he was researcher in modern language education at the University of Bari. He is currently associate professor in modern language education at the Department of Literary and Linguistic Studies at the University of Padua. In December 2013 he received the National Scientific Qualification (Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale) as full professor in Linguistics (sub-area: Language teaching education). At the University of Padua he was coordinator of the International Relations Commission of the Faculty of Education between 2007 and 2012 during which period he promoted the signature of an International Memorandum of Understanding between the University of Padua and the University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban (South Africa). He is still responsible for the Erasmus Exchange Programme with about twenty Universities. He was Visiting Professor at the University of Melbourne (Australia) in 2010, at the University of KwaZulu Natal-Durban (South Africa) and at the University of Malta in 2011; at Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu (Nepal) in 2012; and at the National University of Tucumán (Argentina) in 2015; and at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest (Hungary) in 2016. Since 1999 he has been collaborating with the ITALS Laboratory at Ca’ Foscari as trainer of teachers of Italian as a foreign language both in Italy and abroad. He was editorial director of the journal Rivista ITALS. Didattica e linguistica dell’italiano come lingua straniera from 2003 to 2012 (when the journal was closed) and is member of several scientific committees of Italian and international journals.

In 2014 he became member of the Scientific Committee of the “Dante Alighieri” Society in Rome, founded in 1889, which coordinates some 500 schools of Italian for foreigners around the world.

Since 2015 he has been member of the Board of Directors of DILLE (Italian Association of Educational Linguistics and Language Teaching Education).

Since 2007 he has been member of Rovigo’s Accademia dei Concordi (Academy of Arts, Science and Fine Arts established in 1580). His main research interests revolve around foreign language education (in particular Italian, English and Spanish as second/foreign languages), the teaching of the sociolinguistic aspects of foreign languages, sociolinguistics and lianguage policies and, recently, the relation between Folk Linguistics and language teaching. In this latter area he is currently coordinating an International research group.

He has held seminars, courses and conferences in the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Jordan, Lebanon, Macedonia, Malta, Mexico, Nepal, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela.

He is author of more than 130 publications (among volumes, essays, articles and reviews).

In 2014 he published his first collection of poems: Sull’altra sponda della Notte (La Luna Nera Publishers).