Ritsuko Nakata

Ritsuko Nakata was born and educated in the USA. She has more than 30 years' experience in teaching and specializes in training teachers of children in Japan. Having studied TESL in the USA, Ritsuko moved into an EFL environment, where she began experimenting with getting children to learn English in more practical, effective ways. She found that all students need to really ‘use' the language to see how it works. This led her to develop her own method, called the MAT (Model, Action, Talk) METHOD, which uses unique techniques to get students confident in the Four Skills and speaking in natural English, rather than just repeating. Her method focuses on getting students to ask questions as well as answer them so that they can learn to start a dialog on their own, in addition to learning to read and write. These are some of the techniques used in Let's Go, one of the world's best-selling English courses for children, which she co-authored.

Ritsuko established the IIEEC Teacher Training Center in 1987 and developed the contents of the IIEEC-OUP Teacher Training Certificate Program with Oxford University Press in 2005. Ritsuko conducts seminars and workshops throughout Japan and Asia. She is on an NPO committee, which provides trained teachers to elementary schools. She volunteered as president of the Association of Teachers of Children for 23 years.