Staff Series: An Interview with Dr Riccardo Amorati

Dr Riccardo Amorati is a Senior Tutor in Italian Studies at the School of Languages and Linguistics. His research interests include second language learning motivation, psychological factors influencing language learning and inclusive language.

Valeria spoke with Riccardo about his PhD and teaching experience, his research interests and his advice for graduate researchers.

Valeria Morelli

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Thank you, Riccardo, for taking the time to speak with me. To start us off, could you tell us a bit about yourself?

I currently work as a Senior Tutor at SoLL and I have been teaching here since 2017. I came to Australia in 2016 for the first time to do a PhD. I was lucky enough to start teaching from the second year onwards and I’ve never stopped. I’ve taught a variety of subjects at the school, but now I mostly teach European studies and Italian studies.

How did you get to your research topic?

My PhD was on second language learning motivation. I studied in Italy first, I did my Bachelor and Master of Arts and then a teaching diploma. I worked as a teacher for a couple of years in Italy and I decided I wanted to know more about the inner workings of language learning and teaching. So, I started looking for PhD opportunities abroad and that’s how I ended up here. My PhD was on the motivation for learning languages. For my study I looked at the motivations of learners of English in Italy and Germany and I compared them with the motivations of learners of Italian and German in Australia. My PhD was not specifically on teaching, although, of course, teaching influences students’ motivations, but it showed that it’s important to consider learners’ identity to understand their investment in the learning process.

Now I do research on the psychological factors that impact language learning. Besides motivation, I’ve looked at language anxiety and wellbeing, and how they influence language learning. I also do research with colleagues from the Italian Department on various approaches to teaching languages, for example, project-based and experiential learning. Another research interest of mine is inclusive language, which is something that I’ve started working on very recently. In one of my subjects, Italian 1, I’ve tried to find ways to include inclusive language from the very beginning, when explaining concepts like grammatical gender or adjective agreement. It’s tricky because, when there’s a gender binary in a language, it can be challenging for people that do not fit into this binary to be able to express themselves but it’s not impossible and there are ways of using language more flexibly that allow non-binary people to have an alternative option. Languages change all the time, they’re very dynamic, and so our teaching should be up to date to allow all our students to be represented and seen through the language they are studying.

You mentioned your research about motivations of second language learners, can you tell us more about it?

Motivation has been a very big interest of mine for a very long time. I worked as a secondary school teacher in Italy before coming to Australia and motivating students was very challenging. There’s an entire field of research called second language learning motivation, which is a field within second language acquisition that looks at ways to understand how motivation works. It’s a very intuitive concept, but it’s very difficult to research because it’s multifactorial and can be approached from many different perspectives. Now, research on motivation places identity at the centre of the construct. So, if we want to understand the motivation of language learners, we need to understand their identities and their investment in the learning process. There’s a lot of motivational research now on the concept of vision, i.e. the future identity that we have of ourselves. The idea is that when people study a language, if they see themselves in the future as speakers of that language, they might be more likely to invest in the language learning process. So if you are able to visualise yourself in the future speaking that language, if you think about the people you’re going to speak it to, if you think about the context where you’re going to be using that language, this image, which is tangible and vivid, can be very motivating and can give more direction to learning as well.

I’ve started to include some of this research into my subjects. I want students to reflect on their motivation and the reason why they study a language and keep reflecting on that throughout their learning process, because we have a lot of students that decide to study a language at university maybe because they have some interest in it, but they haven’t really thought about it that much. In Italian 1, for example, we have students talk about their motivations throughout the course: we have a Padlet where they write about why they are studying Italian at the beginning, what they can do after a few weeks of classes and what they know at the end of the semester. And they also have to talk about themselves in the future as speakers of Italian. There’s evidence in the field of L2 motivation that this can contribute to motivated behaviour, that is, students are more likely to put in effort if they have a clear goal to work towards and if they are reminded of that goal throughout the learning process.

Did you find any differences among different languages in terms of motivation?

In my PhD, I looked at the motivations of learners of English in Italy and Germany and then learners of Italian and German in Australia. I had different languages for reasons that are linked to previous research that has been done in the field. The idea is that most research has been done on learners of English, while learners of other languages have been disregarded. So, all the main theories and models in the field of motivation have been developed for learners of English. What I wanted to do was to compare learners of English with learners of other languages to test whether theories developed for learners of English were also applicable to those learning other languages and vice versa. We might expect that people that study English, for example, are more instrumentally motivated than learners of other languages, because they might consider English as more useful for professional opportunities. But what I found was that instrumental motivations are also relevant to learners of Italian and German in Australia. The difference was that usually learners of English associated these instrumental motivations with the knowledge of a global language, whereas learners of Italian and German associated it with their renegotiated identity as bilinguals. So, their view was: we live in a country where knowing another language is not the norm, it’s the exception, so it’s a skill that makes you stand out and it can give you advantages in the job market. It was not really about Italian or German, it was mostly about being able to speak another language. That was something that they associated with being educated and being more open to the world or having a more global perspective.

Another finding was that learners of English of course said that knowing the language is important and speaking it well is an element of distinction. But the fact that English is taught from primary school means that the language is not necessarily a standout skill anymore, it’s rather a default ability. So interestingly, knowing a language like Italian and German in Australia gives students a more unique skill that can be maybe more marketable on a professional level.

That’s interesting. Many of our students study Italian for family reasons, but some of them did say that they wanted to study it for job opportunities. For example, they want to be doctors and be able to speak Italian with their patients, which I think it’s such a wonderful goal to have.

I looked at many different motivational variables and yes, heritage reasons are also very important, particularly for learners of Italian in Australia. Another thing that was quite interesting was that many wanted to learn Italian also for community reasons. Many wanted to speak a language that is also widely spoken in Melbourne. So, the community status of Italian in Australia was reflected in the findings as well.

Various students also said they wanted to learn Italian or German to travel, but many wanted to be able to speak the language to move away from the stereotype of the Anglophone tourist who is unable to speak the local language, is restricted to touristy places and expects everyone else to know English.

I find the practical side of your research very interesting, the fact that you can apply your research to teaching and, vice versa, get ideas for your research from teaching.

I find my roles as a teacher and as a researcher very linked and, for me, research is a way to step back and reflect on my teaching practice. But teaching is also a way to test whether models and theories that are discussed in the field are actually applicable.

How do you divide yourself between teaching and research?

I think that different people have different strategies to juggle between the two and what works for me is always to work on a deadline. So, I allocate specific periods of time to teaching-related activities and specific periods of time to research and that’s how I keep myself motivated.

I guess it was similar when you were doing your PhD and teaching.

Yes. I’ve always taught during my PhD. It was about prioritising, time management and dedicating time to research and time to teaching or marking and so on.

Any advice for PhD students who would like to continue in academia as you did?

The main recommendation is, while you’re doing your PhD, you should not just focus on your research and your thesis, because at the end of your PhD you’ll enter a job market where everyone has a PhD. Usually what makes a difference is other things that you’ve done during the PhD, whether it’s teaching, research collaborations or even other things that are not directly related to academia but could still be interesting to future employers.

The second consideration is to work on a healthy work-life balance. I know that a lot of PhD candidates work a lot and they find it hard to take breaks from their work. But I think it’s important that people take breaks, go for walks and work on their mental health. I think we should not subscribe to this publish or perish mentality that still exists. We should challenge that because it’s important to take breaks, it’s important to have a healthy work-life balance. Often, we don’t get the best ideas after 8 hours of work, but when we come back with fresh minds.

Another recommendation is to branch out to other disciplines. We might be very focused on our own research and discipline, but I think it could be a good idea also to collaborate with people from other disciplines. We are sort of led to think about certain concepts or ideas in a certain way because of the discipline we are in, but, if we look at them from another perspective, maybe we can get new insights. For example, with motivation, there’s a lot of research in psychology and sociology and those can be perspectives that could help you understand the construct better. So, trying to collaborate with people from other disciplines might be very good.

That’s great advice. Thank you, Riccardo, for speaking with me. It was great to hear about your research and teaching experience!