Giovanni Zimotti is the Director of Spanish Language Instruction at the University of Iowa. He is from a little Italian village called Cagnano Varano. He holds a Ph.D. in Spanish Linguistics from The University of Alabama. After graduating from the University G. d’Annunzio of Pescara, Italy, he received an M.A. in Romance Languages, Applied Linguistics track and an M.A. in Foreign Languages for Business and International Cooperation from his Alma Mater. He is also a recipient of the 2021-2022 Collegiate Teaching Award (CLAS, Iowa) and of the 2022 Educator Award (Open Education Award, Open Education Global).

His research interests include second language acquisition, technology for language acquisition, and pragmatics. He is curating various VR projects to expose students to transcultural contact. Dr. Zimotti is also a big proponent of OER (Open Educational Resources) materials to make college education more accessible and affordable. He has authored two OER textbooks for Spanish for the professions; Salón de Clase, which was released on December 3, 2021, and Maletín Médico. Dr. Zimotti is also the president of HEROE-S, an organization that brings together Spanish language educators to create, develop, and share high quality educational resources.

Current research interests:

• Second Language Teaching 
• Technology for Language Acquisition 
• Open Educational Resources 

Current works 

Zimotti, G. & Olivares-Cuhat, G. (2023). Empowering L2 Learners: Role of Relational Empathy in L2 Learning. CSCTFL Report, (Spring 2023).

Frances, C & Zimotti, G. (2023). Robots vs. Humans: Does Chat GPT Pose a Challenge to Second Language Writing? The FLTMAG, (March). 

Zimotti, G., Frances, C., & Jones, E. (2022). If we Build it, they Will Come: our journey to Create a Tool for Can-Do Self-Assessment. The Language Educator, (Fall 2022). [Accepted]

Zimotti, G., & Jiménez, A. (2022). Virtual Reality Training for Language Medical Interpreting. The FLTMAG, (July).

Zimotti, G., & Jiménez, A. (under review - 2022). Maletín médico. Intermediate Spanish for Health Care Professionals. Maletín médico. Intermediate Spanish for Health Care Professionals.  https://pressbooks.uiowa.edu/maletinmedico/ 

Castro Ortiz, F., & Zimotti, G. (2021). Salón de clase. Intermediate Spanish for Education Professionals.  https://salondeclase.sites.uiowa.edu/ 

Morgan, J. W., Zimotti, G. (2018). Study Abroad: History, Structural Components, and Significance to Second Language Acquisition. J. B. Nielsen-Niño & J. A. Johnston (Eds.), Innovative Ideas for Cosmopolitan Educators. Funifelt - ELI.