Alessia Valfredini

Ph.D.

Senior Lecturer of Italian
MLL Language Program Director
Italian Language Program Coordinator 
Faber Hall 564
718-817-2664
[email protected]
 
FALL 2024 Office hours: 
T: 2-4 pm & by appointment (in person and on Zoom)
 
 

  • M.A. University of Turin, Italy
    Ph.D. The Graduate School of Education, Fordham University

  • After earning her MA at the University of Turin (Italy) and teaching in Italian public schools, Dr. Valfredini moved to New York and pursued a PhD in Language, Learning, and Literacy at the Graduate School of Education of Fordham University, where she's been teaching since 2004. Dr. Valfredini believes in engaged, value-based pedagogy and is invested in raising questions of identity, social justice, and racial justice in world language classrooms and curricula. She is interested in the sociocultural dimensions of language and in multilingual academic literacy. 

    What she likes the most about teaching is being an active part of the community that emerges in each classroom. She enjoys any collaborative interaction with her students. She values languages as a remarkable entry point to world-views and perspectives. She strives for her courses to raise important questions and for the journey spent seeking answers to be worthy and transformative.

  • Italian Community Engaged Learning: Art & Society

    Introductory Italian I and II, Intensive Introductory Italian, Intermediate Italian I and II, Advanced Italian, Italian Language and Literature, Italian Conversation and Composition.

  • Publications and Presentations:
     
    For a Critical pedagogy of Genuine Commitment to All Students in Italian Studies. 
    Studi d’Italianistica nell’Africa Australe/Italian Studies in Southern Africa (2022, Vol. 35, 1, 64-70)
     
    Reflections of and on Diversity: (Re) Discussing Course Materials. 
    In Gibby, S., and Tamburri, A. (Eds.), Diversity in Italian Studies, (177-192). Calandra Institute, Diversity in Italian Studies (2021).
     
    What’s in a book? A social justice approach to FL textual contents (and discontents). 
    Co-authored with Chiara Fabbian and Emanuela Zanotti Carney. In Dupuy, B., and McNichols, K. (Eds.), Pathways to paradigm change: Critical examinations of prevailing discourses and ideologies in second language education. AAUSC (2019).
     
    Developing cultural literacy: The contrastive study of TV advertisements. 
    The Journal of Language Teaching and Technology (2018, Issue 1, 2-14)
     
    (Trans) formative by Design: Curricula for 21st Century Citizenship. Textbook Content and Cultural (Mis) Representations
    Presenter In absentia. Co-presenters: Chiara Fabbian and Emanuela Zanotti Carney
    Italian Language and Culture Conference: Innovation in Italian Programs and Pedagogy
    Georgetown University, Washington D.C. (October 26, 2019)
     
    Fostering a Culture of Diversity: Classroom, Curriculum, and Institutional context
    Presenter, Roundtable “Fostering Diversity in the Italian Classroom and Beyond"
    NeMLA 50th Anniversary Convention, Washington, D.C. (March 21-24, 2019)
     
    Effective Course Design for L2 Writing Development
    Presenter, Roundtable “Crossing the Intermediate Border: Towards Advanced Writing Competency”
    NeMLA 50th Anniversary Convention, Washington, D.C. (March 21-24, 2019)
     
    Reflections of and on Diversity: (Re) Discussing Course Materials
    Presenter, The Calandra Institute Symposium on “Diversity in Italian Studies: Race/Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality, Disability Studies, Class” (January 17-18, 2019)
     
    The TILCA paper was forthcoming but should now be 2018.
     

    Preparing for life and career in the 21st Century: A Role for Italian courses from a multilingual, multicultural,  interdisciplinary, and critical perspectiv TILCA Journal - Teaching Italian Language and Culture Annual (forthcoming)

    An interdisciplinary, multicultural, multilingual, critically-engaged take on Italian conversation and composition
    Presenter, Italian Language and Culture Conference: Innovation in Italian Programs and Pedagogy
    Georgetown University, Washington D.C. (October 21, 2017)
     
    Nutella a colazione: Examining cultural representations in commercials
    Presenter, NeMLA Annual Convention
    Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD (March 23-26, 2017)
     
    Teaching 21st century skills through collaborative multimodal writing
    Co-Presenter with Dr. Kathleen LaPenta, ACTFL American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages
    Boston, MA (November 18-20, 2016)
     
    A study on the impact of contextual elements on the internal resources that mediate writing
    Presenter, SSLW, Symposium on Second Language Writing
    Arizona State University, Tempe (AZ) (October 19-22, 2016)
     
    Laurie: A case study of undergraduate writing across languages
    Presenter, NYS TESOL Annual Conference
    White Plains, NY (November 13-14, 2015)
     
    Studying the process of writing in a foreign language: An overview of the methods
    Published in the Journal of Language Teaching and Research (June 2015, issue 5)
     
    Conversation and composition, redesigned
    Presenter, ACTFL American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages
    San Antonio, TX (November 21-23, 2014)
     
    Undergraduate academic writing across languages: A sociocultural study
    Presenter, SSLW, Symposium on Second Language Writing
    Arizona State University, Tempe (AZ) (November 13-15, 2014)
     
    Providing effective feedback to student writing: Contexts & purposes
    Presenter, IUP Spring Methodology Conference on Foreign Language Teaching
    Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Blairsville, PA (April 25, 2014)
     
    Teaching foreign language composition in the 21st century
    Presenter, ACTFL American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages
    Philadelphia, PA (November 16-18, 2012)
     
    An Italian mode of thinking: Perspectives from college foreign language writers
    Presenter, AERA American Educational Research Association, Vancouver, BC, CANADA (April 16-18, 2012)
     
    Cross-language relations in composition: Understanding the multilingual nature of composition courses
    Published book review, Journal of Second Language Writing (February 2012)
    B. Horner, M. Lu, P.K. Matsuda (Eds.), Cross-language relations in composition Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, IL, (2010) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2012.01.002
     
    How to teach our students to be active foreign language readers
    Presenter, NECTFL, North East Conference for Teaching the Foreign Languages, New York, NY (April 1, 2006)