Natsuko Shintani is a Professor in the Faculty of Foreign Language Studies, Kansai University. She has taught English to young learners in her own private language school in Japan and applied linguistics courses at the master level at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

Her research interests encompass the roles of interaction in second language acquisition, second language writing, and task-based language teaching for young learners. Her new co-authored book, entitled Task-based language teaching: Theory and practice, has been published with Cambridge University Press.