Hiroaki Kodama has been teaching Japanese in Hong Kong since 2010. Prior to teaching at the University of Hong Kong and other tertiary education institutions in the city, he taught Japanese at Xi’an International Studies University and a number of Japanese language related institutions in Tokyo. As Dr Kodama has been surrounded by a variety of dialects of Japanese and languages in many cities he lived, his research interest lies in Japanese learning for adults, lifelong learning, and variations in the field of linguistics and education. 

Dr Kodama has a Doctor of Education from the University of Hong Kong, a Master of Arts in Japanese Language Education from Tokyo Metropolitan University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Japanese Studies from Musashi University. Patterns of variation and invariance which are the essential components of variation theory of learning premised on phenomenography was utilised in order to identify the effective and professional teaching in the field of teaching Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) in his doctoral study. Dr Kodama passed Japanese Language Teaching Competency Test (日本語教育能力検定試験) and was awarded Best Presenter Award at the Postgraduate Research Conference 2015-2016 organised by the Faculty of Education, the University of Hong Kong. 

Dr Kodama currently engages in JFL teacher education in Hong Kong and thus, serves as a visiting lecturer for the Japanese language teaching training course offered by the Society of Japanese Language Education Hong Kong. Dr Kodama teaches Japanese Language I to III and elective courses on Japanese linguistics and cultural inquiry for undergraduate students.