Takako Aikawa

Takako Aikawa is a Senior Lecturer in Japanese at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she leads the Japanese language curriculum and teaches across all proficiency levels. Her research focuses on integrating technology into language education, including virtual reality (VR) for immersive learning and AI-driven error correction in written Japanese. Prior to joining MIT in 2013, she held academic positions in Japan and the U.S., and contributed to Microsoft Research's work in machine translation and NLP.

Education includes a PhD and MA from Ohio State University (U.S.) and a BA from Tsuda University (Japan). Her pedagogical interests emphasize corpus-based learning, AI applications in language education, and leveraging VR for kinesthetic learning experiences. She frequently presents at conferences on Japanese language pedagogy and has authored chapters in edited volumes such as ICT×日本語教育 and Digital Resources for Learning Japanese.

Her technical work spans statistical machine translation systems, terminology consistency validation, and collaborative translation frameworks. She has pioneered projects like Pecha, an LLM-based language learning tool, and VR child avatars to enhance adult language acquisition. Current initiatives explore AI's role in identifying and correcting common learner errors in writing.