Recently, I received a report from Ms. Hirata, an M2 student in the Yamada Lab, about her participation in LAK 2024, where she presented a poster. We are very grateful and proud to announce that Ms. Hirata received the Honorable Mention Poster Award! (Photo courtesy of Professor Shimada, thank you very much.) LAK is a high-level conference, ranked A by CORE and within the top 20 in Educational Technology on the Google Scholar Metrics.

I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to everyone who listened to Ms. Hirata’s presentation and voted for her. We are very pleased. Ms. Hirata’s research focuses on the development and evaluation of an English vocabulary learning support system based on verbal memory strategies using speech recognition technology. While it’s great that speech recognition can be applied to verbal memory strategies, the key aspect of her work is the development and evaluation of features that support pronunciation and understanding of English word meanings based on self-regulated learning theory to promote the use of these strategies. She utilized lag-sequential analysis in her evaluations. Over the past two years, Ms. Hirata has successfully completed her research framed around verbal memory strategies, speech recognition technology, self-regulated learning, and learning analytics. Well done!

Winning the award at the very end and finishing on such a high note is truly remarkable. I hope Ms. Hirata continues to excel and achieve great success in her professional career.