皇家华人

Professor Kazuya Saito (IOE, UCL鈥檚 Faculty of Education & Society) used UCL-Tohoku University Strategic Partner Funds to develop unique research on language.

Education and neuroscience are two distinctive research fields that have not historically had much crossover. However, this is an interdisciplinary field that holds great potential. While there are some outstanding neuroscience facilities in London, these resources are also in great demand, making it difficult for education researchers to progress their research in this area.

Professor Kazuya Saito was keen to explore some research ideas in education and neuroscience, and discovered that Tohoku University in Japan was interested in this field in the context of natural disasters. He subsequently applied for UCL-Tohoku University Strategic Partner Funds via the UCL Global Engagement Office. As a result of this, he and his colleague Dr Andrea Revesz, have been awarded funds for three projects with Tohoku University since 2020, which has also led to an additional collaboration with the Engineering Department at the University of Tokyo.

Bringing language and neuroscience into disaster research

鈥淎 priority for Tohoku University is disaster research,鈥� Kazuya explained. 鈥淎fter all, they have regular earthquakes there, and people are not surprised when there鈥檚 an earthquake anymore. My expertise is in second languages, and there are immigrants in Japan who need to deal with disaster situations in their second language. I had a research idea that could help with this.鈥�

Kazuya and Andrea set up a series of exploratory pilot studies into the cognitive demands on those using their second language (known as L2). The study explored how L2 tasks affect brain activity while speaking and writing in crisis settings. To do this, they worked extensively with neuroscientists at Tohoku University, and were able to use functional MRI (fMRI) equipment in the lab. The team is still working on the findings, which will include recommendations for support that can be provided to L2 speakers in Japan. 鈥淯sing neuroscience techniques to improve the effectiveness of language interventions is a really new field,鈥� Kazuya said. 鈥淲e will be able to provide a lot of support to immigrants who are second language users in Japan.鈥�

Exploring the intersection of language and neuroscience in adults led the researchers to think about support they could provide to children too. There is an increase in multilingual children generally in society, and especially in the UK and Japan. These children are typically exposed to their heritage language at home from birth, but predominantly use another language at school. This dynamic risks the loss of their heritage language and cultural identity. Furthermore, it can also create a lag in literacy in both heritage and dominant languages, compared to their monolingual peers. There is a lack of awareness of this issue and limited resources to help multilingual children develop both their heritage and dominant languages.听

Kazuya received further UCL-Tohoku University Strategic Partner Funds to explore this topic. In particular, he wanted to understand how they could use AI based training, matched to the profiles of specific users, to train the cognitive and linguistic abilities in multilingual children. 鈥淔or this project, I was able to connect neuroscience researchers at Tohoku University with engineering researchers at the University of Tokyo,鈥� Kazuya said. 鈥淓ducation, neuroscience and AI 鈥� these are three completely independent topics. We usually don't talk to each other as academics in these fields. This is highly interdisciplinary research that holds great potential. And I鈥檝e found myself to be a kind of ambassador for promoting collaborations like this between different universities and departments in Japan.鈥�

Following on from this work, Kazuya has recently been awarded a new research funding from the British Council to further reinforce and expand this collaboration with Tohoku University and the University of Tokyo over the next 24 months. So far, the team has successfully established neuroscience assessments using fMRI and electroencephalogram (EEG), to find out how individuals learn multiple languages differently. Moving forward, they will work with the computer science team to further explore how AI can tailor language training activities while taking into account such neurocognitive individual differences. They will start with adults and eventually work with children too.

Recognition for leading work

While this research is ongoing, Kazuya鈥檚 work is getting noticed in many circles. Earlier this year, he was announced as a recipient of the 20th Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Prize. Kazuya met Fumihito, the Crown Prince of Japan at the award ceremony, where he was recognised as a future leader of scientific research in Japan.

Foreground (left to right): Professor Kazuya Saito, Tsuyoshi Sugino, President of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Background (left to right): Crown Prince Akishino (Fumihito), Crown Princess Kiko

鈥淭o be nominated for this national award, you actually have to be based in Japan,鈥� Kazuya explained. 鈥淎nd if you're not based in Japan, someone has to nominate you. Professor Motoaki Sugiura, who leads the neuroscience lab at Tohoku University, nominated me. I was speechless, and very proud. Without the UCL-Tohoku University Strategic Partner Funds, none of this would have happened.鈥�

Some of the team鈥檚 work has been presented at notable conferences too, including the World BOSAI conference, the American Association of Applied Linguistics, and the European Second Language Research conference.听

On a personal level, this opportunity to collaborate with researchers in Japan has been an important way for Kazuya to reconnect with his home country. 鈥淭here are many international researchers at 皇家华人. We have left our country, and after a while, we feel very far away from our homeland,鈥� Kazuya said. 鈥淭hese funds helped me professionally, but also to personally re-establish my identity. It just shows how opportunities like this can bring many benefits to international scholars at 皇家华人.鈥�

Links:

• UCL academic recognised as future leader of Japanese research
• 听
• UCL in East Asia
• IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society
• Find out more about funding opportunities offered by UCL Global Engagement

Featured image:

Group photo of Kazuya and Tohoku University researchers at a workshop titled 'The neurocognitive foundations of successful second language acquisition' at 皇家华人