Papa, Mario

Short biography

Mario Papa taught English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in upper secondary schools between 1962 and 1986. In 1978 he managed a special project of the Italian Ministry of Education offering training courses to foreign language teachers (Progetto speciale lingue straniere).
He authored several books for teaching and learning EFL, alone or with others, and he wrote essays for journals such as Modern English Teacher, Perspectives, Practical English Teaching, and Rivista italiana di linguistica applicata (RILA).
He was an active member of the Italian teachers' association Lingua e Nuova Didattica (LEND).
With Giuliano Iantorno he translated into Italian two books by Andrew Wilkinson: The Foundations of Language (Fare scuola col linguaggio, La Nuova Italia, Firenze, 1981) and Language and Education (Educare al linguaggio, La Nuova Italia, Firenze, 1981).
In 1986, Mario Papa was awarded the Penna d'Oro (Golden Pen), a prize given by the publisher Zanichelli to authors who have sold more than one million copies.