Biography
Alessandro Grottola joined King’s College London Language Centre in 2016 as a Lecturer in Italian Language Education. He completed a BA in Foreign Languages and Literature at the University of Padova, Italy (2009), a Certification in Teaching Italian as a Foreign Language at the Italian Cultural Institute in London (2013), and an MA in Teaching Italian as a Foreign Language (ITALS) at Ca’ Foscari University, Venice (2015). He is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Alessandro has extensive experience teaching Italian across a range of leading UK institutions, including King’s College London, London Business School, the Royal Academy of Music, and the Italian Cultural Institute. At King’s, he designs and delivers Italian language modules at all levels, from beginner to advanced, for undergraduate, postgraduate, and adult learners. His responsibilities include curriculum development, designing teaching materials, and creating and assessing written, oral, and portfolio-based evaluations. He also conducts student interviews, placement assessments, and teaches in both online and in-person formats.
Committed to innovation in teaching practice, Alessandro co-created the Beginner’s Italian Podcast to support classroom learning and encourage independent study. He has also organised and facilitated a number of workshops, including Speak Italian like a Comic Hero, Italian Language Clinic – Phonetics for Complete Beginners, and a Cooperative Learning Workshop.
His academic interests focus on interactive and student-centred pedagogy, integrating cultural engagement with linguistic rigour. He has contributed to conferences on AI in language education and continues to explore creative approaches to language learning.
Research, Scholarly projects and Academic Awards
Alessandro Grottola has actively contributed to pedagogical research and academic innovation in language education. In 2025, he co-led a pilot project presented at the Language Teachers’ Nexus conference, titled "Using Artificial Intelligence for Assessing Foreign Language Written Skills and as a Tool for Meta-Reflection on the Language." The project explored how ab initio Italian students engage with AI (specifically ChatGPT) to analyse and reflect on grammatical errors in their own writing. It highlighted both the pedagogical benefits and the limitations of AI in language learning, offering a scalable model for integrating technology with metalinguistic awareness.