Yoshiyuki Hara, Ph.D., assistant professor of Japanese at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has received the 2025 Hamako Ito Chaplin Memorial Award for Excellence in Japanese Language Teaching via the Association for Asian Studies.

Hara teaches in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of World Languages and Literatures. 

The award is made possible by a generous donation from Professor George Chaplin, whose wife, Hamako Ito Chaplin, was a devoted, experienced and highly respected professor of Japanese at Yale University for many years. Each year, a $1,000 prize is awarded to a full-time instructor of Japanese — who has completed graduate study within the past three years — in recognition of excellence in college-level Japanese language teaching.

Hara completed his doctoral degree in Japanese linguistics, and his research and teaching interests include conversation analysis, second language acquisition, foreign language pedagogy and content-based language instruction. Hara has taught all levels of Japanese language courses, from introductory to advanced, and incorporates technology-enhanced tools and culturally significant materials into his teaching.

At UAB, Hara has made a tremendous contribution to the Japanese program, the selection committee noted. By employing backward design, flipped classrooms and task-based learning strategies, Hara aims to create classes that truly foster students’ language development and help them achieve their learning outcomes. He contributed to the development of graduate-level courses for a K-12 teaching certificate program in collaboration with UAB’s School of Education. Hara is also engaged in activities that promote Japanese language and cultural education in the South.

The Association for Asian Studies was founded in 1941, originally as publisher of the Far Eastern Quarterly (now the Journal of Asian Studies). The AAS is a member of the American Council of Learned Societies, actively participating with its sister societies in a wide range of activities, including joint participation in research and informational exchanges.