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 PhD in Spanish Linguistics from The University of Alabama. After graduating from the University G. d’Annunzio of Pescara, Italy, he received an MA in Romance Languages, Applied Linguistics track and an MA 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 data-driven second language acquisition, technology for language learning, and open education. Dr. Zimotti currently leads a large-scale, two-year longitudinal study involving over 1,000 participants, investigating the potential existence of a natural order in adult second language acquisition and the role of instructional methods. He is also curating various VR projects designed to expose students to transcultural experiences. A strong advocate of OER (Open Educational Resources), Dr. Zimotti works to make higher education more accessible and affordable. He has authored two OER textbooks for Spanish for the professions; Salón de Clase, and Maletín Médico, and one for Elementary Spanish (Semillas). Dr. Zimotti serves as 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 

Recent works

• Zimotti, G. (2026). A Framework for Verb Annotation of Spanish L2 Written Corpora Using Local LLMs. Research Methods in Applied Linguistics.
• Zimotti, G., O'Shea, C., & Frances, C. (2025). Changing the world language requirement: A case study of challenges and impacts. Foreign Language Annals, 58(4).
• Zimotti, G., Miller, A. (2024). Virtual Reality for Medical Spanish. S. Goerlter & J. S. Gleason (Eds.), Technology-Mediated Crisis Response in Language Studies. Calico.
• Zimotti, G., Frances, C., & Whitaker, L. (2024). The future of language education: Teachers’ perceptions about the surge of large language models like ChatGPT. Technology in Language Teaching & Learning, 6(2), 1-24.  

OER language textbooks

• Zimotti, G., Olivares-Cuhat, G., Klevar, R., & Jones, E. (2024). Maletín médico. Intermediate Spanish for Health Care Professionals. Maletín médico. Intermediate Spanish for Health Care Professionals. https://pressbooks.uiowa.edu/maletinmedico/
• 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/