My career in education started as a secondary teacher in Victorian government schools teaching Italian, French, ESL and English. I have also worked in education departments and government authorities where I held positions as a Bilingual Education/Community Languages Consultant in the Multicultural Education Services Branch, a Languages Consultant in the Northern Metropolitan region, a project officer at the VCAA in the 90s, a consultant to Language Australia, and as pedagogic advisor to the Le@rning Federation of Languages in 2003 for the Asian languages online project.

These positions have given me solid practical experiences that involve deep understandings of Languages policy and principles of pedagogy in the delivery of professional development, and test and curriculum development. My work at the VCAA as Chief Examiner and State Panel Chair for VCE Italian until 1998 added to this skill set by enhancing my experience in high stakes test development and test administration, skills recognised by ACER in my subsequent employment there from 2002 as Project Director and later in 2007 as Senior Research Fellow responsible for the development of a suite of language tests including an English as a Foreign Language test for the Czech Republic.

A two year sojourn in Switzerland enabled me to live the multilingual experience, to make connections with European Universities, to present papers on bilingualism and global English for the international school community in Basel and to work as a consultant for ACER to develop tests online.

My university teaching began at the University of Melbourne with subsequent appointments at RMIT, VUT and LaTrobe before joining Monash in 2011.

Conversation Analysis
The interactional properties of First and Second Language acquisition and learning
Early childhood interaction
Classroom interaction
Bilingualism
Language assessment
Spatial discourse