Dr. Alessandro Benati

Alessandro earned his MA and PhD at the University of Greenwich, UK. He has previously worked at the University of Greenwich, University of London, Middlesex University, University of Portsmouth, and, most recently, the American University of Sharjah. He is known for his research on how L2 learners process information and what internal strategies they use in language processing across romance and non-romance languages. Most recently his ground-breaking research on the pedagogical framework called Processing Instruction has been driven by the use of new online measurements (e.g., eye tracking, self-paced reading, reaction times) to track what happens within language learners’ brains in learning contexts. Alessandro is author and co-author of several research monographs on various aspects of language learning and language teaching with noted publishers: Cambridge, Mouton de Gruyter, Bloomsbury, Multilingual Matters, Palgrave, Springer, and Routledge. His articles have appeared in high-impact and best ranked journals (Second Language Research, Language Teaching, IRAL, Language Awareness, System, and Language Teaching Research).

Alessandro has coordinated national and international high-impact research projects on language learning and teaching funded by the EU, Leverhulme Trust, and British Academy. He is co-editor of a new series for Cambridge University Press called Elements in Second Language Acquisition, and Teaching and Learning English Literacy and Academic Language Skills with Bloomsbury. He is also co-editor for the journal Instructed Second Language Acquisition and general editor of the book series Bloomsbury Applied Linguistics: Research issues and Methods. He is a member of the UK-REF Panel 2021, AHRC,  and honorary professor in various institutions in Europe and the USA.