By Emily Delgado

University of Iowa Director of Spanish Language Instruction Giovanni Zimotti is one only a handful of people in the U.S. to receive a Global Open Education Award for Excellence from Open Education Global (OEGlobal). 

Zimotti was honored with the Educator Award for having an impact on open resources for students, which includes textbooks and other learning materials that are easily accessible.

Alongside other professors nationwide, Zimotti co-authored a Spanish textbook titled Salón de clase: Intermediate Spanish for Education Professionals—which is used at Iowa. The textbook is for students who want to become Spanish educators.

“[The book] is targeting people who are wanting to study and become either K-12 teachers, or superintendents, or social workers, professions like that,” Zimotti explained.

On top of being a Spanish professor, Zimotti is also working on a virtual reality project with students, which will help bilingual medicine students who are taking a medical interpreting class.

Zimotti says it is important to teach languages because professionals who can speak more than one benefit.

“We are in a society to speak languages. There are many advantages for people who speak Spanish,” Zimotti says. “It’s kind of like an advantage if you're working in any job, but then even just a language in general, it gives you so many things, which is pretty awesome."