Tutoring an American autistic college student in Japanese and its challenges

This article discusses the relationship between autism and teaching a foreign language (TFL) and explores how specific teaching styles may strengthen learners' motivation. Autism is simply considered to be a social disorder of development. Autistic people are often seen as having difficulty in learning a language other than their first language. This assumption has prevented autistic people as well as those who have difficulties with mental and physical development from accessing opportunities to learn a foreign language. Therefore, this article focuses on teaching Japanese to an autistic American university student in the United States. The purpose of the article is to examine how autistic learners are motivated in reaction to specific teaching styles. Based on my tutoring experiences with an autistic American university student and an interview with the student's mother, this study explores an effective method of TFL to autistic learners.