Yuri Kumagai

Yuri Kumagai has been teaching Japanese language to college students in the United States for more than 30 years. At Smith, she teaches all levels of Japanese language courses as well as culture courses. Well-grounded in her training and expertise in applied linguistics, sociocultural theories and critical approach in foreign language education, she has been developing a project-based language and culture learning curriculum by collaborating with other language teacher-researchers worldwide.

Her research interests include critical literacy and multiliteracies in foreign language, analysis of classroom discourse and interactions, and ideology of language.

Kumagai has been active in presenting her research findings nationally and internationally, and her publications appear in numerous journals and in edited books both in English and in Japanese. Her recent publications include: “Multiliteracies in World Language Education” (co-edited, 2015, Routledge), “Reading Japanese Linguistic Landscapes for Critical Multiliteracies” (2024), “‘Incompetence’ as a productive force for making the invisible visible” (2024), and “ともに生きるために：ウェルフェアリングイスティクスと生態学からみたことばの教育” (co-edited, 2021, 春風社).