Language education plays a key role in helping foreign residents settle into society. However, Japan heavily relies on volunteers for it. New research conducted at Doshisha University investigates how volunteer-led Japanese classes function within national policies and local realities. Using policy analysis and on-field research, the study reveals that this reliance results in a “semi-professional” teaching environment that not only influences learning outcomes but may also limit the potential of volunteers and foreign residents.

Steven Elmlinger from Princeton University has studied human infants and zebra finches to understand how immature babbling transitions into adultlike speech. He and his colleagues found that human caregiver responses to sequential vocalizations significantly increased the rate at which infants learned to produce those sequences. Elmlinger repeated this experiment with zebra finches, with the same finding. He will present this work as part of the 190th ASA Meeting.