About

Chiyako first trained to teach Japanese as a foreign language in 1988, and since then has had extensive experience of teaching Japanese at all levels from beginners to highly advanced students, including secondary school students, university students, and government diplomats. She has taught in Japan, China and the UK.

In China, Chiyako taught at the Shanghai Foreign Language University Secondary School. In Japan, she taught at the Fukuyama YMC Business School, with a special focus on foreign students looking to enter Japanese universities and requiring levels 1 and 2 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test; and Japanese government scholarship students entering MA studies at Hiroshima University. Chiyako has taught in the UK at the universities of Sheffield, Birmingham and Warwick, first teaching at Warwick in 1999.

Chiyako always takes an approach to teaching that encourages students to enjoy their learning and to look to continue on to further study of Japanese. She supports her students to think about travelling to Japan for study and work. A number of her students have gone on to study at Japanese universities, such as the University of Tokyo, Keio University, Hokkaido University and Nagoya University. Some of her students have also successfully entered the Japan English Teaching (JET) Programme to spend up to two years living and working in Japan. She introduces her current students to former students who have experience of Japan to help advise them about studying and working in Japan. Chiyako has stayed in contact with many of her students after graduation and continues to encourage them to learn about and work in Japan.

She was nominated for the long list of the Warwick Awards for Teaching Excellence (WATE) in 2015-16

In her spare time, Chiyako likes to practice Sadou (Japanese tea ceremony) and Taiko (Japanese drumming).

Qualifications

• BA in English and American Literature
• MA in Applied Linguistics
• Cert Course for Teaching Japanese as a Language in the World
• Cert Teaching Foreign Language (English) for Secondary Schools in Japan