Ana Maria Ducasse

I am an English/Spanish Bilingual/Bicultural Applied Linguist. As a fluent speaker of Spanish, French and Italian, in addition to English,  I have been deeply immersed in multilingual community activities in Melbourne. My challenge is for people to enjoy learning and using an additional language.

 

Coordinator Spanish Studies (2017 sem 1, 2018-20 & 2024-26) in Global and Language Studies, in RMIT's School of Global, Urban and Social Studies. I develop, teach and coordinate Spanish language and culture courses at all proficiency levels taught in Spanish, in addition to two sociolinguistics courses taught in English.

 

Director Spanish Resource Centre (2015-2017 & 2021-2023)

I  have promoted Spanish language culture as the Director of The Spanish Resource Centre of Melbourneat RMIT, a collaboration between the Spanish Ministry of Education and RMIT University. I organize and present at annual Teacher Professional Development seminars and workshops in Victoria, and am on the Spanish Teacher National Conference committee- which was celebrated at RMIT in 2024. I also coordinated and examined Spanish DELE Proficiency exams. In this role I curated Spanish film nights, and continue to collaborate with the Instituto Cervantes, the Spanish Embassy and the Spanish Consulate General Melbourne.

 

Program Manager (Nov 2015-Jul 2017) for the Tertiary Diploma of Languages RMIT.

Research Theme Leader: Language Culture and International Education  LCIE (2019-20)

 

Scholarship of Learning and Teaching

As a reflective practitioner, I adapt and learn from teaching for extended periods across the education sector: in primary Italian; Spanish Yr 11 at Victorian School of Languages; Adult Education Italian  and Spanish; adult ESL/Literacy; ELICOS; IELTS exam preparation (and examination) and 25 years in Higher Education Language and Culture Education.

 

Since  being part of the HERDSA Vic Chapter on the organising committee for its Melbourne Conference in 2014, I have maintained  contact with a suppportive  TATAL network, from five institutions. In over a decade of group reflection and peer mentoring we have received a HERDSA grant, published papers and presented at conferences while becoming Fellows. In 2022 I was made Fellow of  the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia HERDSA  the first one awarded to a staff member while teaching at RMIT. Commencing 2002,  a HERDSA Fellowship provides recognition of teaching, based on a portfolio designed to support promotion appliactions.HERDSA site quote 'Most people completing the Fellowship agree that it is difficult and required a lot of persistence to finish it. They also express the value of the process that teaches the value of deeply reflecting on the work that they do''. 

 

Teaching awards:

Vice Chancelor's Award for teaching excellence awarded to the Spanish Program,  La Trobe University.

Citation for Outstanding contribution to Student learning: for developing innovative assessment and curriculum practices, La Trobe University.

Citation for Outstanding contribution to Student learning: developing effective communication skills and engage learning with content in a bilingual subject, La Trobe University.

 

EU Erasmus:

Twice awarded European academic mobility funding  EU Erasmus +  Mobility Projects  (2017, 2024) for teaching and research at RMIT partner universities in Spain. This initiative supports the exchange of knowledge, teaching methods, and cultural experiences between institutions in different countries by funding teaching staff  to spend time teaching at higher education institutions abroad. 

 

International Research Group Collaboration Work group (Equipo de Trabajo)

• University of Alcala de Henares Spain : (January 2014 -June 2018) EMO-FUNDETT - focus on persuasion, funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad . Its main area of research is the field of linguistic discourse-pragmatic studies. 

• University Pompeu Fabra, Spain (2021–2025) Inter‑ECODAL Assessing Plurilingual Discourse Competence- focus on feedback, funded by The Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MCIU) and The State Research Agency (AEI – Agencia Estatal de Investigación)
• University Pompeu Fabra , Spain (2025 - 2029 ) RASiCORAL  : 'Situated feedback in oral discourse competence: mediating 
  the learning of general and specific discourses in plurilingual and intercultural contexts' funded by MCIU/AEI/UE

 

Key research grants:

IELTS Grant awarded Round 15:  Ana Maria Ducasse & Annie Brown

The role of interactive communication in IELTS Speaking and its relationship to candidates' preparedness for study or training contexts  

This study compares the  Speaking sub-test of the IELTS Test with speaking required in a university setting. IELTS Speaking was found to be largely dyadic (1:1) and structurally controlled, whereas university contexts demand less predictable, multi-participant, and more complex interaction.

 

TOEFL Committee of Examiners Research Grant  Annie Brown & Ana Maria Ducasse

Comparing TOEFL iBT Speaking Tasks with Realworld Academic Speaking Tasks: Tasks, Performance Features and Assessment 

The findings reveals a partial but incomplete overlap: The real-world academic tasks demand a broader set of communication skills and contextual behaviors not captured in the test. TOEFL iBT speaking tasks do not fully represent the complexity of authentic academic speaking performance.

 

Editorial Board member:

As an advocate for HDR and  ECR publishing I have served as Editorial Board member and reviewer since 2010 for Studies in Language Assessment (SiLA -formerly PLTA. A peer-reviewed research journal of  of the Association for Language Testing and Assessment of Australia and New Zealand (ALTAANZ) it is the only "Diamond Open Access" journal (with no charges for authors or for readers) in Language Testing.

 

Professional memberships: - AILASA (Association of Iberian and Latin American Studies of Australasia) - ALTAANZ (Association for Language Testing and Assessment of Australia and New Zealand)
- ALAA (The Applied Linguistics Association of Australia)
- HERDSA (Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia) - ILTA  (International Language Testing Association)
- LCNAU (Languages and Cultures Network for Australian Universities)
- SERC (Social Equity Research Centre) RMIT - SRAP (Spanish Researchers in Spanish Pacific)