Amy Snyder Ohta (she/her/hers)

Professor
Chair of Undergraduate Education
Selfie of Amy Snyder Ohta with a river in the background

Contact Information

GWN 247
Office Hours
Wednesdays 11:00am-12:00pm

Biography

Ph.D. Applied Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles
M.A. Teaching English as a Second Language, University of California, Los Angeles
B.A. Psychology (with High Honors), Wheaton College
Hori Award for Exemplary Japanese Faculty (2021)

 

Current Research Projects:

I have a new research project on Individual Networks of Practice (INoPs) in Japanese language learning of people working in Japan. Meanwhile, I am continuing my research on teaching Japanese via Concept-Based Language Instruction (C-BLI), an application of Sociocultural Theory and Usage-Based Linguistics to foreign language pedagogy. I am particularly interested in SCOBA development for teaching Japanese language-in-culture, pragmatics, and grammar. I am also interested in teacher development, research interviewing, and Japanese pragmatics. Here are my most recent research articles (updated 1/2023). See the CV link (above) for a complete publication list:

  • Masuda, Kyoko, Ohta, Amy Snyder and Tsujihara, Rie (Under contract, to appear in 2024) Concept-Based Language Instruction: Usage-based Linguistics and Sociocultural Theory in Teaching Japanese. Routledge.
  • Ohta, Amy Snyder (in progress). Sociocultural theory and zone of proximal development activity. In Julia Herschensohn and Ana Fernández Dobao and Alex Ho-Cheong Leung (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge University Press.
  • Ohta, Amy Snyder (to appear, 2023). Sociocultural theory and L2 discourse: From descriptive to interventionist research in SLA. In Brian Paltridge and Matthew T. Prior (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Discourse. New York: Routledge.
  • Ohta, Amy Snyder (2023). “Casual Friday”: Organizational change, TA development, and languaculture learning in an advanced-beginning multi-section Japanese language course. Language & Sociocultural Theory, 10(1), 21-49.
  • Masuda, Kyoko, & Ohta, Amy Snyder (2021). Teaching subjective construal and related constructions with SCOBAs: Concept learning as a foundation for Japanese language development. Language & Sociocultural Theory, 8(1), 35-67.(Equal co-authors: names in alpha order)
  • Ohta, Amy Snyder (2020). Increasing Diversity of Japanese Language Teachers: Approaches to Teaching-Related Professional Development for College Students in North America.  Japanese Language and Literature, 54(2), 399-414
  • Ohta, Amy Snyder & Prior, Matthew (2019) “That’s a Stupid Question!”: Managing Competing Perspectives and Language Choice in a Japanese-English Bilingual Research Interview. In Kathy Roulston (ed), Social Studies of Qualitative Interviewing: Unpacking Research Methods (pp. 147-179). John Benjamins. (Ohta is first author).
  • Ohta, Amy Snyder & Masuda, Kyoko (2018). Future directions for informed language pedagogy from cognitive linguistics. In Kyoko Masuda (Ed). Cognitive Linguistics and Japanese Pedagogy Usage-Based Approaches to Language Learning and Instruction (pp. 305-321). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
  • Ohta, Amy Snyder (2017). Conceptualizing and teaching Japanese addressee honorifics as expressing modes of self: From SCOBA development to instructional implementation. Language & Sociocultural Theory, 4(2), 1-32.

Research

Selected Research

Courses Taught

Spring 2024

Winter 2024

Autumn 2023

Spring 2023

Winter 2023

Autumn 2022

Summer 2022

Spring 2022

Winter 2022

Autumn 2021

Summer 2021

Spring 2021

Resources & Related Links

Affiliations

Professional Affiliations
American Association for Applied Linguistics, American Association of Teachers of Japanese, Washington Association of Teachers of Japanese

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