Elena Anna Maria Gandini

Through her knowledge and skills in language testing and test development, Elena contributes to the work of the language testing and Language Academy team in the development of language and academic literacy exams. An experienced teacher trainer, Elena is also the academic lead for teacher training courses leading to Trinity CertTESOL at Language Academy.

Besides her teaching responsibilities, Elena is working on the development of online-delivered language and academic literacy exams. She has also conducted a research project on the assessment of bilingual competence in South Tyrol (Italy). An early career researcher, Elena has presented the results of her research in the field of language testing and multilingual assessment at various conferences and published papers in conference proceedings, as well as a chapter about teachers' education in Germany.

Elena (MA, CELTA) joined UCLan in 2015 as a research assistant working on several projects with the research team in English Language Testing, which produces English language exams at UCLan. In 2018, she joined the teaching staff at Language Academy as an EFL tutor working on the summer pre-sessional, before taking on a lectureship in ESOL/EFL with responsibility for Trinity CertTESOL summer intensive courses offered at Language Academy.

Prior to working at UCLan, Elena worked as a teacher for pupils with special educational needs and migrant pupils in a lower secondary school in Italy for two years, and then as an MFL teacher, lecturer and examiner in Germany for eleven years, mainly in the further and higher education sector (Italian Cultural Institute of Cologne, Bundessprachenamt, University of Muenster, Technical University of Public Administration in Cologne). Elena graduated with honours in Education in 2003 at Catholic University in Milan (Italy). Following a teaching placement in Austria, she decided to continue her postgraduate studies in the area of language teaching, joining the Postgraduate School of the University for Foreigners in Siena, qualifying as a Teacher of Italian as a Foreign Language (Postgraduate Diploma, MA level) in 2008.

During postgraduate school, she started working in Germany as an MFL teacher and examiner, where she developed a keen interest in language testing and assessment and resumed her studies in this area at Lancaster University. In 2014, she completed an MA in Language Testing at Lancaster University.