Dr Rita Ferraro has designed, developed and delivered academic courses, with a specialisation in Spanish language, for the University of Sydney (USYD) and the University of New South Wales (UNSW), since 2002. She also introduced Brazilian Portuguese language courses to University of Sydney’s Centre for Continuing Education in 2004, which meant it was the first Australian institution to offer Brazilian Portuguese courses for adults.

Dr Ferraro has written and published a series of bi-lingual Portuguese language tuition books and in 2020, she published a book chapter that explores second language acquisition, noting the various challenges native English-speakers face in applying implicit and explicit knowledge to their language learning. Dr Ferraro is an accomplished academic author, course tutor, lecturer, and convenor, with outstanding reviews from her many students.

Dr Ferraro earned a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Portuguese and Spanish from Fluminense Federal University (UFF), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1996 and a PhD in Portuguese and Spanish contrastive linguistics from University of Cadiz (UCA), Spain, in 2005. She also attained various certificates such as CERT IV TAE, IELTS, ISLPR, TESOL and others.

Dr Ferraro’s interests are in advancing language learning, particularly in Portuguese and Spanish, with an expanding interest in exploring and documenting the attributes that constitute ‘best practice’ teaching methods and methodologies.