Faculty Profiles

Dr. John Liontas

Associate Professor of ESOL

Liontas headshot

Email: liontas@usf.edu

Dr. Liontas received his B.A. in Germanistic studies and Education (1985) from the University of Siegen (Siegen, Germany), his M.Ed. in Secondary Education/Foreign Languages (1989) from the University of South Carolina, and his Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (1999) from The University of Arizona. Dr. Liontas joined the faculty at USF in Fall 2010 and is currently a tenured Associate Professor of ESOL and SLA Specialist, performing research and development in second language teaching methodology, figurative competence, curriculum and program design, and multimedia-based learning.

He is the recipient of numerous local, state, regional, national, and international teaching awards and honors, the most recent of which are the 2011 Superintendent Partnership Award, the 2008 APAMALL Researcher Award, the 2000 ASU Professor of the Year Finalist, the 1998 University of Arizona Teaching Assistant of the Year Certificate of Achievement, the 1997 University of Arizona Foundation Outstanding Teaching Award, and the 1997 Pi Lambda Theta International Honor Society and Professional Association in Education Award. As a recipient of the 1992 Golden Apple Award, he was featured on WBTW TV-13 Eyewitness News and was also the 1993 North America Global Classroom Teacher Award Finalist.

Dr. Liontas has previously held several academic faculty positions in higher education, and has taught a wide range of language and content courses in English, ESL, German, Spanish, Modern Greek, ESL/SLA theory, methodology, and multimedia technology, as well as graduate seminars in curriculum theory and development for the second language classroom, cultural literature and cultural norms and practices, foundations of bilingual education, content area English as a second language, linguistics and psycho-/sociolinguistics, and second language acquisition. He has also directed, coordinated, and administered language and academic programs at various institutions and sits on several local, state, regional, national, and international academic bodies as managing editor, chair, reviewer, evaluator, or appointed/elected member.