PPLI was delighted to welcome Naoko Takatsuka, Japanese Language Advisor, to the team in September 2024. Naoko is seconded by the Japan Foundation to the Department of Education, and deployed to PPLI to support and promote the development of Japanese in the curriculum.

For her postgraduate studies, Naoko specialised in education (Japanese as a foreign language at primary and post-primary levels). She has an interest in second language acquisition and contrastive linguistics.

Naoko has recently worked on continuing professional development (CPD) for non-native Japanese teachers in secondary schools in Spain, collaborating with Japan Foundation Madrid and the Government of Catalonia, Spain. Prior to that, she worked as a Japanese teacher in primary and post-primary schools in Australia, and as a Japanese language specialist in the Japan Foundation in Japan, Thailand and Australia.