Matilde Gallardo

I have been a supporter of FesTeLõn since the beginning. Remembering back many years ago, when I worked with Mariví in the teaching profession, I believe I
saw then the idea of a Festival of Spanish Theatre in London being born out of her passion for theatre and Spanish language, as she developed innovative
drama activities in her language classes to motivate her students. Since then, I have witnessed the Festival growing from strength to strength every year to
become one of the annual highlights among the events for lovers of Spanish theatre in London. The FesTeLõn community has grown over the years and
provided a space for reunion and exchange as well as for learning.
I hold a BA (Hons) in Hispanic Philology, an MA and a PhD (European) in Spanish Linguistics from the University of Córdoba (Spain). I have extensive
experience as a teacher, teacher developer and researcher in the fields of Applied Linguistics and Spanish language and have taught in a number of
universities in the UK, including Queen Mary College, London South Bank University, The Open University and King’s College London where I currently lecture
at the School of Education. I have published extensively on the history of Spanish as a foreign language in England and the contribution of Spanish exiles to this
field. I am the editor of Negotiating Identities in Modern Language Teaching (2019) published by Palgrave
MacMillan https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030277086 More details are available in the following page, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2788-4363
After many years teaching Spanish in this country, I´m conscious of the role that theatre can play in cultural communication among diverse peoples. For that
reason, I am proud to join the FesTeLõn family and to add mi granito de arena to Mariví´s project in different ways.