Stephen Ray Shrader

Stephen Shrader has lived in Japan for three decades. He is a faculty member at Notre Dame Seishin University in Okayama, specializing in intercultural communication and language teaching pedagogy, and holds a Master of Arts from the School for International Training (SIT).

His extensive background in education spans the globe and a wide variety of classroom contexts. Before entering university-level education, he experienced Japan from multiple perspectives: as an exchange and homestay student, an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) instructing at high schools, elementary schools, and special needs schools, a juku instructor (Nokai), and a teacher at the Language Institute of Japan (LIOJ). Internationally, he taught Japanese in the United States for Concordia Language Villages and completed his teaching internship at the American Language Center in Rabat, Morocco.

Dedicated to creating practical, engaging materials for language learners, he authors and publishes educational resources under his RealELT imprint. His works include the textbooks Our Japan, Our World: An Intercultural Journey and Little Things We Forgot We Learned. He also actively shares his writing and insights on the note platform under the screen name "RealELT", and authors works exploring the intersection of technology and human connection, such as his Japanese non-fiction book focusing on AI and culture.