Michal Maciej Mazur
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Research

What helps people participate when languages, cultures, and systems meet?

My research grows from situations I have actually encountered: multilingual classrooms, language-learning systems, tourism encounters, and an interdisciplinary space programme. I study what helps people interpret difference, work together, and learn with greater agency.

Research map

One question, four research contexts.

The topics change, but the underlying concern remains: how design, language, and context shape whether people can take part.

Shared question What helps people participate across difference?
01 · Context

Multilingual classrooms

Interpreting difference, confidence, and belonging through classroom activity and reflection.

Evidence / method 15-week classroom study

Critical incidents, reflective tasks, and a peer-reviewed article published in 2023.

02 · Context

Language-learning systems

Vocabulary in English and Japanese through NLP, system design, and user evaluation.

Evidence / method NLP system design

Code-switching, graded readers, and user evaluation across publications from 2016–18.

03 · Context

Tourism encounters

Resident contact, hospitality, and destination image through surveys and interviews.

Evidence / method 165 surveys + 12 interviews

Five activity-based contact points studied in Kashan, Iran.

04 · Context

Interdisciplinary programmes

Communication, leadership, and project collaboration through facilitation and implementation.

Evidence / method Two annual cohorts

Facilitation, observation, and a collaborative conference presentation in 2025–26.

Together, the projects move between classroom evidence, system design, field encounters, and programme implementation.
2026 · Conference presentationInterdisciplinary space management education

Initial Results from the Implementation of an Interdisciplinary Space Management Human Resource Development Program

My role: Facilitator for the 2025 and 2026 cohorts and co-author of a collaborative presentation on interdisciplinary education for the space sector.

For two annual editions, I helped Ritsumeikan University and APU students work across languages, institutions, and disciplines. My sessions addressed communication styles, leadership observation, feedback, presentation practice, and the human side of international project collaboration.

The presentation was included in the 57th Annual Conference of the Japan Society for Aeronautical and Space Sciences in April 2026. My role is recorded as part of the collaborative research team and conference presentation.

The programme gave me a particularly demanding test of my teaching practice: help mixed teams communicate well enough to tackle problems where engineering, management, policy, and social responsibility meet.

Visit the Ritsumeikan Space Management Program
Recent collaborative project · Data collected 2023Tourism and social sustainability

Face-to-Face Encounters: How Tourist Activities Shape Socially Sustainable Tourism

Question: Which everyday tourist activities create meaningful contact with local residents, and how does that contact shape perceptions of a destination?

This collaborative study examines tourist-resident contact in Kashan, Iran, a historic destination where bazaars, family-run guesthouses, and walkable streets create opportunities for informal interaction. The project combines survey responses from 165 domestic travellers with 12 semi-structured interviews collected during the Nowruz travel season.

It focuses on five activity-based contact points: wayfinding, eating, shopping, cultural observation, and interpersonal communication. The emerging findings suggest that ordinary encounters, especially with shopkeepers and bazaar tenants, can strongly influence perceptions of hospitality and destination image. The project contributes an activity-based framework for thinking about social sustainability and the kinds of local spaces tourism policy should protect.

Status: collaborative manuscript in development.

2023 · Peer-reviewed articleIntercultural communication

Toward the Development of Intercultural Competencies through Classroom-based Activities in Japanese Higher Education

Question: How can regular classroom activities help students develop and recognise intercultural competence?

This study examined 15 weekly general-education seminars at a Japanese university. Drawing on the INCA model of intercultural competence, the project used classroom activities and critical self-reflection to make skills such as openness, interpretation, empathy, and adaptation more visible in students’ learning.

The findings point toward practical ways of embedding intercultural competence in university courses, rather than treating it as an additional topic detached from everyday teaching.

Read the publication record
2016–2018 · Research and publicationsLanguage learning technology

CO-MIX: Code-switching for English and Japanese vocabulary acquisition

Question: Can combining two languages in carefully designed learning contexts support vocabulary acquisition?

The CO-MIX research line grew out of an earlier 2011 proposal for a conversational English tutoring system and explored computer-assisted vocabulary learning for Japanese learners and foreign-language learners. It combined code-switching, graded readers, incidental learning, and user evaluation to investigate how learners respond to vocabulary presented in context.

The work connects natural language processing, language pedagogy, system design, and learner experience. It led to a peer-reviewed article in the International Journal of Distance Education Technologies and a chapter in Human Language Technology.

View publications on Google Scholar

Try the idea

Follow one campus task. Meet a word in context. Use it with purpose.

This five-minute Co-MIX illustration follows a learner through an ordinary university morning: finding a room, understanding a task, and asking for help. The story stays readable while a small, human-reviewed set of target nouns returns through recall, feedback, and a second context.

  1. 01FitChoose direction and support
  2. 02MixInsert a few useful targets
  3. 03InferRead the scene before translating
  4. 04RetrieveRecall, receive help, try again
  5. 05ReuseMeet the word in a new context
Reading direction
Follow the story
Learner fit

Core rule Keep the base-language grammar intact, replace only a controlled number of content words, and let context do useful work before explanation arrives.

1 · Read for meaning, then notice

Or click any highlighted word in the passage.

2 · Recall, then reuse

This public illustration saves no answers or personal data.

Learning path · 1 of 4Story · 0 of 3 scenes complete
  1. 1 Read
  2. 2 Notice
  3. 3 Recall
  4. 4 Reuse
What is historical, and what is new here?

Co-MIX was publicly described in 2010 and later implemented in both Japanese→English and English→Japanese directions. The dissertation system combined level-based text selection, noun-focused targets, teacher review, staged quizzes, example-sentence feedback, and result logging. This browser version preserves that learning logic in miniature; its interface and campus story are a new public demonstration.

Evaluation signal · 35/40In the dissertation study, 35 of 40 participants preferred Co-MIX in three preference questions. This is a user-preference result, not a claim that the system proved superior learning.

2017 · Higher-education researchRecognition of teaching professionalism

How can universities recognise professional teaching?

Contribution: A collaborative study of the Higher Education Academy's fellowship and accreditation system, based on an interview with its international team.

The paper examined how the UK Professional Standards Framework brings together areas of activity, core knowledge, and professional values. It explored a question that continues through my faculty-development work today: how can institutions make good teaching visible without reducing it to a single score?

Read the publication record

Academic book chapter

Language-learning systems in peer-reviewed publication.

2018 · Springer · Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 10930

Teaching Words in Context: Code-Switching Method for English and Japanese Vocabulary Acquisition Systems

In this chapter, I contribute to the design and evaluation of a computer-assisted language-learning system that uses code-switching and graded readers to support vocabulary acquisition in context. The work brings together language pedagogy, natural language processing, system architecture, and learner evaluation.

View the Springer chapter record

Publication record

The citations, with the question behind them.

A compact selection of the latest peer-reviewed publications listed on my Researchmap profile. Each entry keeps the formal record close to the practical question it helped investigate.

View selected publications 4 records

2023

Toward the Development of Intercultural Competencies through Classroom-based Activities in Japanese Higher Education

Journal of Higher Education and Lifelong Learning, 30, 39–50.

The classroom study behind the intercultural-learning work on this page: how structured activity and reflection can make participation across difference more visible.

DOIResearchmap record

2018

Teaching Words in Context: Code-Switching Method for English and Japanese Vocabulary Acquisition Systems

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 10930, 332–345. Springer.

A peer-reviewed account of the Co-MIX line of work: using carefully designed bilingual context to support vocabulary learning.

DOIResearchmap record

2017

System for Recognition of Professionalism in Teaching and Learning by the Higher Education Academy

Journal of Higher Education and Lifelong Learning, 24, 131–136.

A collaborative study asking how institutions can recognise professional teaching without reducing it to a single score.

DOIResearchmap record

2016

A System for English Vocabulary Acquisition based on Code-Switching

International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 14(3), 52–75.

An earlier system-design study connecting language technology, learner experience, and vocabulary in context.

DOIResearchmap record

See the complete publication list on Researchmap
Ongoing directionHigher education and learner participation

Language choice, digital media, and participation in global classrooms

Question: How do language choice, digital tools, and classroom design shape students’ participation and sense of belonging?

This developing research direction brings together work on English-medium instruction, student choice of language, intercultural learning, online learning tools, and faculty development. It treats the classroom as both a teaching space and a place where educational programmes can be examined and improved.

The aim is to connect evidence from learner experience with practical design decisions that make multilingual and internationally oriented education more inclusive.

View the research profile

Research Profiles

APU Faculty Information Researchmap Google Scholar