I completed a Bachelor in Education at Osaka Kyoiku University in Japan (2006), and then worked in a Japanese municipal primary school as a classroom teacher. In Japan, the new curriculum was about to commence and would see the widespread teaching of English at primary school level. This was what inspired me to come to the UK to study for an MA TEFL in Education at the University of Birmingham (2010-11). During the MA TEFL studies I became interested in the interrelations between language, culture and identity and the ways we use language in our social lives, i.e. language as social practice. This interest led me to engage in further study at doctoral level. I was awarded a fully-funded PhD studentship in Linguistics at Northumbria University, and conducted the PhD project, “A Critical Ethnographic Inquiry into the Negotiation of Language Practices among Japanese Multilingual Families in the UK: Discourse, Language Use and Perceptions in the Hoshuko and the Family Home” (2011-15). Alongside the PhD study, I worked at Northumbria University as an Associate Lecturer for 4 years (2013-16). I joined York St John University in Sep 2016 as a Lecturer in Japanese and Linguistics, and I am currently teaching Japanese language from beginner to advanced level for Undergraduate programmes, and Japanese linguistics for MA Japanese Language Teaching. My research interests are in the area of sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, and educational linguistics, especially on the topics of multilingualism, language policy and practice, family language planning and maintenance, and language issues relating to culture and identity. I am also interested in language users’ perception and belief of language use, and the ways in which those have an impact on their language practices.