Professor John Hajek (Project Leader) is current Discipline Chair of Languages in the School of Languages and Linguistics at the University of Melbourne where he was also for a number of years Head of the Department of French, Italian and Spanish Studies. He has extensive experience in language teaching, course development and design as well as program management at university level. He is a past recipient of the University of Melbourne’s Universitas 21 fellowship for excellence in teaching. He has taught and developed materials in both European and Asian languages. He is also Director of the Research Unit for Multiculturalism and Cross-cultural Communication (RUMACCC) which, among other things, promotes language learning and monitors language programs and enrolments in primary and secondary schools in Australia. A fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, he serves on the Academy’s Languages Committee. He was a chief investigator (CI) on two ARC-funded Learned Academies Special Project (LASP) studies of beginners’ languages in Australian universities (Nettelbeck et al., 2007; 2009). He was also lead CI on the evaluation of cross-institutional language exchange programs, part of a national report to DASSH on alternative ways of providing language access at Australian universities. His experience and achievements, including extensive language teaching today, make him an ideal person to take the lead role in the project.
