Dr Phyllisienne Vassallo Gauci is Resident Lecturer at the Faculty of Education where she holds courses on language teaching and learning, language diversity in the classroom, multilingualism and language awareness. She completed her PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Verona in 2012.
Prior to joining the University of Malta, Dr Vassallo Gauci was a language teacher for many years. She has taught in many different educational contexts, including secondary and post-secondary schools and academic institutions as well as at the Migrant Learners' Unit. In 2014 she was appointed Local Curriculum Development Expert to contribute to the Learning Outcomes Framework Project (ESF 1.228) for the Learning Area Languages. In 2016 she was appointed coordinator of the national campaign for the promotion of foreign languages in Malta. In 2019 she co-developed the Maltese language component of the I Belong Programme (Malta’s national integration programme) for the Ministry for European Affairs and Equality as part of Malta's Migrant Integration Strategy and Action Plan 2020.
Dr Vassallo Gauci has participated in a number of international projects on plurilingual education, multilingualism and language mediation. She acted as local representative for the FREPA (Framework of REference for Pluralistic Approaches to languages and cultures) project within the Council of Europe to which she also contributed through the organisation of national seminars and the production and divulgation of teaching materials. She is currently project partner in the METLA (Mediation in Teaching, Learning and Assessment) project (2020-2022) within the Council of Europe and the DREAMM (Develop and Realise Empowering Actions for Mentoring Migrants) project (2021-2023) funded by European Union’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund.
Dr Vassallo Gauci's areas of specialisation and research interests include teacher training; second language acquisition; language diversity in the classroom, multilingualism; Italian interlanguage and intercultural pragmatics. Her research experience includes work related to the Council of Europe, higher education and curriculum development in various local and international research projects.
