Publications
Noriko Nagata is Director of the Japanese Studies Program in the
Department of Modern and Classical Languages. She teaches Japanese
language, linguistics, and culture.
Professor Nagata received her Ph.D. from the University of
Pittsburgh, jointly directed by the Laboratory for Computational
Linguistics at Carnegie Mellon University. Her general area of
research includes natural language processing, Japanese
linguistics, second language acquisition, and computer assisted
language learning. She conducted a series of empirical studies to
examine the relative effectiveness of different types of computer
feedback (e.g., intelligent vs. traditional feedback, deductive vs.
inductive feedback) and different kinds of computer exercises
(e.g., production vs. comprehension practice). She published a
number of articles based on these studies in
The Modern Language Journal, CALICO
Journal, Foreign Language Annals, Computer Assisted Language
Learning, System, and
Language Learning and
Technology.
In light of the results of her empirical studies, she designed and
produced a software package called
Robo-Sensei: Personal Japanese
Tutor (published in 2004 by Cheng & Tsui) that
employs natural language processing and provides extensive sentence
production exercises in communicative contexts and detailed
feedback in response to a learner's grammatical errors.
She won the 2004-2005 USF Distinguished Research Award. Her current
research project involves expanding
Robo-Sensei to a stand-alone
online Japanese textbook,
Robo-Sensei: Japanese Curriculum with
Automated Feedback.
