How to Actively Engage Our Students in the Language Classes

Carmela B. Scala received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the City University of New York. She is the Director of the Italian Language Program at Rutgers University and the Study Abroad Program Director. She is the founder and chief editor of the academic journal 'Language Teaching and Technology' (LTT). She has won an entrepreneurial grant to develop a Professional Development workshop entirely online for Italian teachers and many other small grants to create innovative online language courses. She received the prestigious Rutgers Ernest E. McMahon Class of 1930 Award for the 2019-2020 academic year.Her main field of research is Baroque literature, fairytales, folklore, and dialect literature. She has published a book on Basile's work titled 'Fairytales - A World Between the Imaginary: Metaphors at Play in "Lo cunto de li cunti" by Giambattista Basile' (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015) and an Italian reader, 'Un viaggio fantastico nella lingua e nella cultura italiana' (Kendall Hunt Publishing Co., 2016). She is also interested in contemporary literature and has published a book on contemporary cinema, 'New Trends in Italian Cinema: "New" Neorealism' (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013).Her last article, "Matteo Garrone's The Tale of Tales-Visual Metaphors and Transmedial Storytelling," was published in the book entitled 'The Body of Naples: Corporality and Performativity in Baroque Naples' (Lexington Books, 2017). She has recently published a book, 'From Design to Teaching: Granting Our Students An Engaging Learning Experience Online' (Cambridge Scholar Publishing, 2021); an article, "How to Foster Equality in The Language Classroom," in 'Rhetoric and Sociolinguistics in Times of Global Crisis' (IGI Global, 2021); and "Replacing the 'melting pot' with a 'colorful mixed salad' in the language classroom," in 'Global and Transformative Approaches Toward Linguistic Diversity' (IGI Global, 2022). She has also published articles on language acquisition in the NEMLA Italian Studies journal.