Dr Francesca Nicora is a Lecturer in Italian, at the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, at the University of Galway. She is the Programme Director and Coordinator of the Diploma in Italian Online and the Coordinator of the 2BA Degree Programme in Italian. She also acts as a liaison with Languages Connect in the role of HEI (Higher Education Institution) Outreach Officer (School of LLC).

Dr Francesca Nicora has been appointed as an Adjunct Lecturer at the Università per Stranieri di Siena (Italy) in 2024. She teaches two online courses at postgraduate level (Master ELIIAS E-learning per linsegnamento dell'italiano a stranieri): Metodi di progettazione del percorso di apprendimento linguistico on line (9 hours) and Sviluppo di attività di apprendimento on line (9 hours).

Francesca Nicora holds a BA in Foreign Languages and Literature and an MA in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics from Università degli Studi di Pisa, Italy; an MA in E-learning per l'insegnamento dell'italiano a stranieri from Università per Stranieri di Siena, Italy; an MA in Audiovisual Translation from Instituto Superior de Estudios Lingüísticos y Traducción & Universidad a Distancia de Madrid, Spain. She completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education from the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) at the University of Galway.

Dr Nicora received her European Structured-Ph.D. in Italian Studies from the University of Galway, with a thesis entitled Prosodic training in foreign language: A study with Hiberno-English learners of Italian, which was selected as the winner of the Irish Association for Applied Linguistics (IRAAL) postgraduate award in November 2019, the European Doctorate Award (University of Galway) in April 2020, and the Grant-in-Aid of Publication fund in January 2021 (Moore Institute, University of Galway). 

In 2017 and 2018, as a visiting researcher at the Centro di Ricerca Interdisciplinare sul Linguaggio (CRIL- Università del Salento, Lecce, Italy), she carried out data analysis of the intonational features of La Spezia Italian and Galway Irish-English, under the supervision of Professor Barbara Gili Fivela. This research experience allowed her to gain skills in the application of methods and tools for analysing the phonology of intonation within the Autosegmental Metrical (AM) framework with reference to the Tone and Break Indices (ToBI) system.

In 2021, she was the recipient of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Postdoctoral Fellowship, with a project entitled "Prosody and language learning in Japan: regional linguistic profiles in the spotlight". She completed the first six months of the project at Kobe University under the supervision of Professor Ryoko Hayashi prior to joining the University of Galway.

She has held academic appointments in Ireland, Italy, and Japan.

Her research outputs reflect the diverse, interdisciplinary nature of her work in areas ranging from speech prosody, intonational phonology, corpus linguistics, second language acquisition (SLA) and pedagogy, e-learning and e-teaching, open educational resources (OERs) for language education, language teacher education to didactic audiovisual translation (DAT) in language learning and teaching.

Dr Nicora has presented her findings and has been invited to give seminars, lectures, and oral presentations at over 43 national and international conferences, research days and summer schools around the world, including Ireland, the UK, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Canada and Japan. She has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals and books, mostly as the first and sole author. Recent articles include: Unlocking the potential of audiovisual translation in young audiences language education - The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Young Audiences (2025); Combining prosodic-pragmatic training and free commentary to develop intonation skills in Italian FL: the case of information-seeking polar questions - Journal of Audiovisual Translation (2024); The corpus of Irish English speech (IES), TEANGA, the Journal of the Irish Association for Applied Linguistics (2022); Moving online: Zoom and audiovisual translation tasks to teach foreign languages to children. Audiovisual Translation in the Foreign Language Classroom [Special Issue] (2022).

Dr Nicora has been the recipient of fellowships, grants and awards from the University of Galway, Moore Institute (University of Galway), Hardiman Library (University of Galway), Post Primary Ireland Languages (PPLI), Languages Connect, Irish Association for Applied Linguistics (IRAAL), Japan Society for the Promotion for Science (JSPS), Italian Association for Applied Linguistics (AItLA), Italian Association for Speech Science (AISV), The Italian Ministry for Education, University and Research (MIUR), the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Bulgaria.

Italian as a Foreign Language

Prosody in Foreign Language Acquisition

Explicit Prosodic-Pragmatic Training

Creativity and Didactic Audiovisual Translation (Captioning and Revoicing)

Geoprosodic Variation and Audiovisual Translation

Subtitling for Italian business communication

Learning and Teaching Languages Online

Active Learning - Student as Multimedia Producer 

Since 2015, Dr Francesca Nicora has been teaching Italian as a foreign language at the University of Galway to students of all years, at all levels and of different age groups (children, young adults and adults). She has actively contributed to the evening diploma and online diploma courses in Italian. At the school level, she has also contributed to the GL4103 - GL1101 modules and the MA modules in Advanced Language Skills and Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism (Audiovisual Translation). She has delivered a total of 45 modules to date. She has a very strong interest in the prosodic aspects of speech and during her doctoral studies, she designed a new didactic experience on the use of intonation patterns in the Italian language by integrating computer tools and the speech visualisation software called PRAAT into teaching practice.

Furthermore, she is very involved in exploring cutting-edge software and designing audiovisual translation activities and modules in both online and blended learning environments. Of particular note is the six-week course she developed entitled Impariamo coi cartoni: Learning Italian by captioning and revoicing cartoons (Youth Academy, University of Galway), which has been shortlisted for the European Language Label (ELL) Award for Innovation and Creativity (Leargas) in 2019.

As a research assistant for the LILAC project (funded by the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education), she has extensive experience in creating Open Educational Resources (OERs) by using WordPress software, H5p and innovative educational tools, such as Canva for Education and Genially. She designed and delivered the course Learning and Teaching Languages Online (GL3100), a clear example of a learning format that mimics authentic workplaces. UG and PG students took on the role of instructional designers and content creators, developing OERs for language learners (which were later published on the Lilac project website).

She developed an eight-week course Tra-balliamo: Italian for Secondary Schools. (funded by PPLI ). This course aims to encourage Transition Year (TY) students to expand their imagination, find joy in self-expression and promote psychological well-being by embedding language in performing arts experiences (drama-based pedagogy).

She has volunteered to teach Italian and run Italian workshops in various primary and secondary schools in Galway City and County: Our Lady's College; Dominican College Taylor's Hill; St. Enda s College; Colaiste Na Coiribe; Clarin College (Athenry, Co. Galway); St. Brigid s College (Loughrea, Co. Galway); Scoil Iognáid, Galway; Oranmore Boys NS (Oranmore, Co. Galway). She designed short taster courses and workshops for Transition Year (TY) students and supervised a team of language assistants by planning the necessary training sessions.

She also promoted Italian language and culture in Galway and the west of Ireland by organising events for the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures:

Italian Food Culture meets the Atlantic Way 7th of April 2016

Italian Day 16th of March 2018

#ThinkLanguages Day 1st of December 2023

#ThinkLanguages Day 22nd of November 2024

She was the Didactic Coordinator of the first edition of the Italian Summer Camp (August 2023) in Ireland, funded by Languages Connect and organised by the University of Galway [Italian Discipline].

She was the Programme Director, Camp Administrator, Didactic Coordinator and Lecturer of the second and the third edition of the Italian Summer Camp (June 2024&2025) in Ireland, funded by Languages Connect and organised by the University of Galway [Italian Discipline].

Since January 2024, within the context of the Master di secondo livello E-Learning per linsegnamento dellitaliano a stranieri (ELIIAS), Università per Stranieri di Siena (Italy), she has been teaching two online modules: Metodi di progettazione del percorso di apprendimento linguistico on line (9 hous) and Sviluppo di attività di apprendimento on line (9 hours).