Basic Japanese

Asako Higurashi was born in Japan, where she graduated from Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo with a bachelor's in English and American literature. After graduating, she worked in business for over five years as a liaison between Japan and New York. Through this experience, she witnessed a communication barrier, which fueled her desire to study second language acquisition. Her desire led her to join a scholarship program (ALLEX) that provided her an opportunity to study linguistics and teach Japanese at the University of Maine at Farmington. Then, another opportunity arose to expand her interest in second language acquisition at Texas Tech University, where she obtained a master's in applied linguistics. Currently, she has been teaching advanced modern Japanese and readings and discussion in Japanese social sciences as a language instructor at Harvard University.