Research Areas:

  • teaching (neighbouring) languages,
  • teaching Slovene as a foreign / neighbouring language,
  • teaching Italian as a second / neighbouring language,
  • plurilingual education,
  • intercultural awareness and integrativeness,
  • (intercultural) interpersonal contacts.

Biography:

Irina Moira Cavaion is a research associate at Institute for Linguistic Studies at ZRS Koper. She started with a musical orientation - she graduated in violin from the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice in 1994 - and in parallel developed an interest in teaching languages. Therefore, in 2003 she graduated cum laude in Pedagogical Sciences at the Faculty of Education of the University of Trieste with a thesis on Linguistic Didactics. In 2015 she obtained her PhD in Educational Sciences at the Faculty of Education in Koper with the thesis Teaching and learning primary neighbouring language through cross-border contacts under the supervision of her mentor prof. Dr. Lucije Čok.

During her postdoctoral studies, she started working at Institute for Linguistic Studies at ZRS Koper and got a position in July 2017. From 2017 to 2019, she was the Deputy Director and Head of the Institute of Linguistics.

In 2021, Dr. Irina Moira Cavaion was awarded the ZRS Koper Messangers of ScienceAward (Glasnik Znanost) for individual outstanding scientific achievements by young researchers.

Since October 2021 she is leading the ARRS Basic research project Strengthening a (socio)constructivist approach in Slovenian border regions Primary FL teaching and learning through a co-constructed extension and evaluation of the CoBlaLT model (2021-2024).

Irina M. Cavaion is a researcher with expertise in multilingual and intercultural education in multilingual border areas. Her research focuses on the implementation of learning methods in the context of multilingual education.

Irina M. Cavaion is author of several scientific and professional articles, chapters and scientific monographs. She regularly presents results of her research at scientific conferences.