Staff profile

Personal Profile

Ritsuko Koso-Kirk is Assistant Professor in Japanese in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures. She teaches and convenes second and final year Japnese language modules on the Japanese Studies degree programme.

Ritsuko is the Japanese Studies Year Abroad Officer and the Outreach Officer. She has worked extensively with the International Office to build relations with partner institutions in Japan. Over the past couple of years she has established a new relationship with Teikyo University in Durham and embedded language exchange opportunities within Japanese Studies. Externally, she has led outreach activities for promoting Japanese Studies, Japanese language and its culture, collaborating with the Oriental Museum in Durham, the Japan Foundation London and Consulate General of Japan in Edinburgh. Ritsuko also organises an annual internal Japanese speech contest at Durham, to give students opportunities to demonstate their ability and enthusiasm for Japan beyond the curriculum.

Ritsuko's current scholarship interests lie mainly in materials design and technology-enhanced learning for Japanese language teaching. 

Conferences & Workshop papers

‘Development of a Virtual Year Abroad in Response to Global Pandemic: Inter-university collaborative teaching and learning in the UK​'. The Year Abroad Conference. Keele University and Regent’s University London. September 2021. Collaborative talk given by members of the Inter-University Support Programme (IUSP) (A. Furukawa, E. Darrah, K. Casey, , M. Inagawa, T. Kitagawa, R. Koso-Kirk, F. Narumi-Munro, and M. Takewa).

'Legal Points of Consideration for Online Teaching: A Guide for Teachers of Japanese Language A UK case study’. BATJ Presentation and Forum. September 2021. Collaborative talk given by members of the Inter-University Support Programme (IUSP) (A. Furukawa, K. Casey, E. Darrah, M. Inagawa, T. Kitagawa, R. Koso-Kirk, F. Narumi-Munro, and M. Takewa).

'Online Collaborative Writing: Two case studies’. BATJ Forum. Septmber 2020.

'Enriching linguistic understanding through multimodal texts’. UK LINGUA- Multilingual Language Learning and Teaching Colloquium. Durham University. April 2019.

'Thinking about Multimodality in Japanese Language Education (日本語教育におけるマルチモダリティーを考える)’. Japanese teaching workshop. Durham University. July 2018.

‘Online Collaborative Writing in Japanese’. Japanese teaching workshop. York St. John University. June 2018.

‘Student Engagement through Online Collaborative Writing in Japanese’. UK LINGUA- Multilingual Language Learning and Teaching Colloquium. Durham University. April 2018.

‘Feedback and possibilities in the classroom on ‘Communicating in Japanese’ – focusing on speaking and listening skills'. BATJ SIG Japanese teaching workshop. Newcastle University. July 2017.

‘Independent Kanji learning and possibilities for other languages’. Staff development session, Language Provision Committee, Durham University. Nov 2016.

‘Analysis and Adaptation of Japanese Textbooks (beginner to elementary level)’. BATJ SIG Japanese teaching workshop. Durham University. July 2016.

‘Teaching Japanese Grammar through Visuals’. Staff development session, Language Provision Committee. Durham University. June 2015.

Awards

2018. Excellence in Learning and Teaching Award

Membership

The British Association for Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language (BATJ)