Chika Ogura

Lecturer in Japanese

Office: 520 Kent Hall


Office Hours: Wed & Thu 2:30- 3:30PM


Email: co2657@columbia.edu

 

Educational Background

MA: Liberal Arts Studies, Wake Forest University


BA: Commerce, Osaka City University

Classes Taught

JPNS 1002 Introductory Japanese B


JPNS 1101 First Year Japanese I

Research Interests

Language Pedagogy
Intercultural Communication

Chika Ogura joined the Japanese Language Program at Columbia in
2025. She received her BA in Commerce from Osaka City University and her
MA in Liberal Arts Studies from Wake Forest University. Before coming to Columbia, she taught at Wake Forest University, where she developed extensive experience in teaching Japanese at various levels. Her research interests include Japanese pedagogy and intercultural communication. She is committed to supporting students in applying their classroom learning to real-world contexts.

 

Miharu Nittono

Senior Lecturer in Japanese

Office: 520 Kent Hall
Office Hours: TR 4:00-5:00
Teaching Hours: MW 11:40-12:55, MTWR 1:10-2:15
Phone: (212)854-5500
Email: mn70@columbia.edu

Educational Background

EdD: Teachers College, Columbia University
MA: TESOL at Teachers College, Columbia University
MA: Waseda University

Classes Taught

JPNS UN2201 Second Year Japanese I
JPNS UN2202 Second Year Japanese II
JPNS GU4516 Fifth Year Japanese I
JPNS GU4517 Fifth Year Japanese II

Research Interests

Japanese Linguistics
Japanese “Hedging”

Miharu Nittono is a senior instructor of Japanese at Columbia University, where she has taught all levels of Japanese. She also has experience teaching intensive summer courses in Japanese, including “Japanese Language and Culture” at Sophia University in Tokyo as an invited professor. She has also served as the Administrative Director of the MA Program in Japanese Pedagogy at Columbia University.

Publications

Hiyaku: An Intermediate Japanese Course (Routledge, 2011; co-authors: Shigeru Eguchi, Fumiko Nazikian, Keiko Okamoto, Jisuk Park)
“Follow the Old Ways: A New Approach to Kanji Learning” (The Seventeenth Princeton Japanese Pedagogy Forum Proceedings, 2010)
“We’re doing traditional rakugo!: Striving towards acquiring the ‘five’ skills through performing rakugo” (The Sixteenth Princeton Japanese Pedagogy Forum Proceedings, 2009)
“Show & Short: A Journey through 10 Years of Student-Written Short Stories” (The 20th Annual Conference of the Central Association of Teachers of Japanese (CATJ20), 2008)
“Contrasting Group Size and Hedge Use” (The Fifteenth Princeton Japanese Pedagogy Forum Proceedings, 2008)
“Avoidance and Appeal: A Two-Fold Motivation for Japanese Hedging Use” (Sophia International Review, 2007)
“Hedging at Work: How Occupations Affect the Use of Hedging in Japanese Interactions during Non-Work Conversations” (The Fourteenth Princeton Japanese Pedagogy Forum Proceedings, 2007)
“Two-Fold Conversation Management Function of Japanese Hedging: Speaker-Centered and Listener-Centered” (Humanities Conference 2004 Proceedings, 2006)
“The Golden Mean: Japanese Speakers’ Use of ‘Downtoners’” (Hawaii International Conference on Arts and HumanitiesProceedings, 2005)
“Japanese Hedging in Friend-Friend Discourse” (Teachers College, Columbia University, 2003)

Fumiko Nazikian

Senior Lecturer in Japanese, Director of External Relations (Japanese Language Program)

Office: 516 Kent Hall
Office Hours: M/R 3:00-4:00, or by appointment
Phone: (212) 854-5502
Email: fn2108@columbia.edu

Educational Background

PhD: Japanese Linguistics, University of Sydney
MA: Japanese Linguistics and Japanese Language Pedagogy, Australian National University

Classes Taught

JPN UN1001 Introductory Japanese A
JPNS UN1101 & UN1102 First Year Japanese
JPNS UN2201 & UN2202 Second Year Japanese
JPNS UN3005 & UN3006 Third Year Japanese
JPNS GU4017 & GU4018 Fourth Year Japanese
JPNS G4010 & G4214 Japanese Language Pedagogy

Research Interests

Japanese Linguistics (pragmatics)
Language Pedagogy

Fumiko Nazikian joined Columbia University in 2004, serving as the Director of the Japanese Language Program until the Spring of 2015. In addition to teaching regular language courses, she is a regular instructor in the Columbia Summer M.A. Program in Japanese Pedagogy. Prior to her time at Columbia, she spent 16 years as a Senior Lecturer at Princeton University. She has also taught at the Australian National University, the University of Sydney, and the University of New South Wales.

Her research interests lie in linguistic pragmatics, with a focus on discourse analysis and the connections between linguistics and language pedagogy. She has served as a reviewer for the AP Japanese Language and Culture Course and has been a committee member for the Japanese SAT.

She has also reviewed for publications such as AATJ Journal, Japanese Language and Literature, Journal of Japanese Linguistics (JJL), Pragmatics, and Journal of Pragmatics. From 2008 to 2012, she was a board member of the American Association of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ) and co-directed the AATJ Spring Conference from 2020 to 2022.

Publications

A Practical Guide for Scholarly Reading in Japanese (co-editor, Routledge, 2023)

Social Networking Approach to Japanese Language Teaching: The Intersection of Language and Culture in the Digital Age (co-editor, Routledge, 2021)

“Sentence final particle, yone as an ‘involvement’ marker” in Natural Conversation Analysis in Japanese: Elucidating human communication through the BTSJ Natural Conversation Corpus (ed. M. Usami, Kuroshio Press, 2020)

“Yone as a Discourse-Pragmatic Marker in Blog Messages: An Epistemic and Evaluative Stance” in the Journal of Communication and Media Studies, Vol. 5 (2019)

“How to Develop ’21st Century Skills’ in Foreign Language Education” in Japanese Language and Literature Vol. 50 (co-author, AATJ, 2016)

“Robots can talk—but can they teach?” (Walter de Gruyter, 2015)

Modern Japanese Grammar: A Practical Guide & Modern Japanese Workbook (co-author, Routledge, 2014)

Hiyaku: An Intermediate Japanese Course (co-author, Routledge, 2011)

“The Role of Style-Shifting in the Functions and Purposes of Storytelling: Detective Stories in Anime” (Georgetown University Press, 2010)

“Bringing learners’ perspectives into assessments: Self and peer Assessments in a Blog project” in the AATJ Special Issue of Japanese Language and Literature: Japanese Pedagogy  (co-author, AATJ, 2008)

“Danwa ni okeru jootai no kinoo nitsuite[On discourse functions of da detached style in Japanese]” (Kuroshio Press, 2007)

“Developing Learners’ Communication Skills through Story-Writing in Japanese Language Teaching” (co-author, Princeton University, 2007)

Genkokyoiku no Shintenkai [New Perspectives on Language Teaching]  (co-editor, Hitsuji-shobo, 2005)