Dr. Erika Caterina Piazzoli

I joined Trinity College Dublin in September 2015 as an Assistant Professor in Arts Education. In 2023 I received the Trinity Research Excellence Award, for the category 'Broaden our local and global impact'. Since joining Trinity, I have served as acting strand leader for the Drama in Education strand (2015-2017), Dissertation Coordinator (2017-2019) and Global Engagement Director (2019-2023). Currently I serve as Coordinatator for the Master in Education (MEd) programme, a large programme which features 50 modules, including a Dissertation, across 12 strands. Within the MEd programme, I teach on the 'Drama in Education' and 'Language Education' strands. I also teach Arts in Education within the Professional Master of Education (PME), a professional qualification designed for those who wish to work as post-primary teachers in Ireland. I supervise several postgraduate students at Master's, PhD and DEd level. I am the principal investigator of two research projects, 'Sorgente: Performative Language Practice with Refugees and Migrants' funded by the Irish Research Council, and 'Lacunae: Embodying the Untranslatable', funded by the Trinity Long Room Hub. The Sorgente project was selected as one out of the 12 most innovative projects in Ireland, and featured as part of the 'Change Makers' documentary series, run by the Irish Universities Association, on Irish National Broadcaster RTE 1. I have written four books, including a monograph (Palgrave, 2018), a co-authored book (Armando, 2023) and two edited books (Palgrave, 2024; Routlege, 2024), as well as several reports, book chapters and research articles. I am part of the editorial board of Scenario: Journal of Performative Language Teaching, Learning and Research, which publishes two issues per year. I am chairing the conference committee for the 3rd International Scenario Conference, May 9-11 2024, Trinity College Dublin. My research interests are within the areas of embodiment and aesthetic learning; applied linguistics; performative language pedagogy and research.

  Aesthetics   Arts Education   classroom second language learning/acquisition   Drama and theatre in education   Educational Psychology   Neuroscience   Teacher Education

My research focuses on the interplay between performative arts, embodiment and language education, an area known as performative language pedagogy. My PhD considered process drama and its influence on communicative, intercultural, affective, and aesthetic engagement in language education. I noted the impact of dramatic tension in reducing foreign language anxiety, and increasing intercultural engagement. This led me to advance the construct of 'intercultural dramatic tension'. My first book, "Embodying Language in Action" (Piazzoli, 2018), a seminal reference in the field, explored embodiment and intercultural dramatic tension. My chapter in "The Routledge Companion for Drama in Education" (Piazzoli, 2022) expanded this notion and became the basis for a study, which I led as PI, on 'Untranslatable Words' and dramatic tension. My PhD also highlighted the construct of 'aesthetic distance' for affective engagement in language learning. In my second book, "Il Teatro nella Glottodidattica" [Theatre in Language Teaching], I explored aesthetic distance, emotions and play. During the pandemic, I contemplated embodied practice in digital spaces, resulting in a third book, "Digital Displacement" (Piazzoli et al. 2023). Since 2017 I have worked with refugees, researching the impact of creative language practices on belonging and engagement. The Sorgente project, which I led as PI, was selected for the Change Makers series (RTE) and culminated in my fourth book, "Sorgente: Performative Language Teaching with Refugees and Migrants" (Piazzoli & Dalziel, 2024). Here I discussed belonging, creativity and ethical practice, advancing a framework on trauma-informed performative language pedagogy. Lately, I have been interested in the construct of 'presence' in performative language pedagogy, hence I convened an international conference on the topic. I am the PI of a practice-based project, AbSENce-PresenCE" (SENCE) exploring migrant youth perceptions of absence/presence in the community. Currently, I am editing two special issues (Scenario Journal) and writing a book proposal on 'presence'.