Exploring Language Teacher Efficacy in Japan - Gene Thompson Psychology of Language Learning and Teaching

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It highlights the ways in which the current study contributes to knowledge within this developing field, and suggests some areas where further study is needed.

      The following two chapters move from the why and what towards the how. Chapter 4 discusses conceptual and measurement considerations for LTE researchers, introduces some approaches for examining language teacher efficacy and, as an example, provides the research design for the study discussed in this book, including discussion about the limitations of the research.

      One concern for teacher efficacy researchers is how to design surveys with strong construct and cultural validity that reflect the actual tasks where teacher efficacy beliefs operate in specific settings. Chapter 5 introduces the design process of the efficacy scale used in the research reported in this book. The Japanese Teacher of English Teacher Efficacy Scale (JTE-TES) represents an attempt to design a scale with task and contextual relevance for a specific population (i.e. for Japanese teachers of English). However, given that many of the challenges faced by JTEs are reflective of difficulties faced by language teachers in various contexts, the scale may also have utility for examining language teacher efficacy in other countries and teaching situations.

      Chapter 6 discusses efficacy towards different teaching tasks, and introduces various domains of language teacher efficacy. Three of these dimensions are further explored in Chapters 7–9. Chapter 7 examines efficacy towards the use of the L2 as part of the teaching process, Chapter 8 discusses L2 instructional efficacy and Chapter 9 focuses on L2 teacher efficacy beliefs towards collaboration. In each of these chapters, both the dimension of efficacy and factors that may influence these beliefs are examined.

      Chapter 10 focuses on the development of language teacher efficacy beliefs. This chapter synthesises findings from interviews with teachers and teacher consultants working in Japan, to discuss the sources of efficacy beliefs and their development. It notes the strong influence of social forces on teacher efficacy beliefs in the Japanese context, contributing to a growing discussion about the potential role of cultural forces as an influence on the development of teacher efficacy beliefs.

      Finally, this book concludes by looking forward. Chapter 11 provides a brief summary of the main contributions of this study, before providing suggestions for future language teacher efficacy research. The research presented in this book highlights the multidimensional nature of language teacher efficacy beliefs, and identifies a number of personal and contextual variables that could be explored in future studies, both within Japan and in the wider field of language education.

      Teachers are people; they make choices about the courses of action they pursue in trying to influence student achievement. They have agency. By proactively carrying out and reflecting on actions they take, they not only react to environmental forces, but also have the capacity to exercise control and effect change by setting goals and regulating their teaching behaviours (Bandura, 1991). They work with students, as part of teams, and within the confines of classrooms using the technology and resources available to them. As such, they are crucial contributors to what happens in their classrooms (Bandura, 1997), and in many cases, may be the strongest outside influence on the success of their students (Hattie, 2003). The beliefs and practices of teachers have therefore become a key area of research activity.

      Teacher efficacy refers to the confidence that teachers have in their capability to organise and carry out educational activities to influence student learning. The application of teacher efficacy to the language teaching field began during the early 2000s (e.g. Chacon, 2005) and has now reached a point at which reviews of language teacher efficacy (LTE) research are being released (e.g. Hoang, 2018; Wyatt, 2018b). This book introduces the reader to this developing field, with a focus on the LTE beliefs of Japanese high school teachers of English (JTEs).

      This book helps readers to locate LTE within its theoretical framework (Chapter 2), explains key findings from LTE research (Chapter 3) and outlines approaches to investigate LTE beliefs (Chapter 4). It then introduces an efficacy scale developed specifically for language teachers (Chapter 5), and highlights the multidimensional nature of LTE beliefs (Chapter 6), before focusing on personal and collective domains of efficacy related to perceived second language (L2) capability (Chapter 7), instructional L2 efficacy (Chapter 8) and language teacher beliefs about collaborative capability (Chapter 9). It finishes by discussing how LTE beliefs can be developed (Chapter 10) and highlights areas for future study (Chapter 11).

      This chapter introduces the background to the study, highlighting key difficulties of policy and methodology change within (and beyond) Japan, before discussing the rationale for studying LTE beliefs towards such challenges. Although this chapter focuses on language education reform efforts (and research) from the Japanese context, it also attempts to show how such movements reflect wider trends in the language teaching field.

      English has become a global language of business, science and education. Foreign language – and specifically English – skill has become a commodity that enables transnational mobility for individuals with sufficient ability (Cameron, 2012). As a result, in many countries where English is used as a foreign language (such as Japan), policies have been introduced during the past 30 years with the specific purpose of encouraging the development of foreign language ‘communicative’ ability in students (e.g. see Hato, 2005; Kirkpatrick & Bui, 2016; Nunan, 2003).

      These policies have generally emphasised oral communication in response to a perceived need for ‘communicative’ skills during this period of globalisation (Cameron, 2002), often due to requests from business groups, such as the Japan Business Federation (2000), who bemoaned the lack of English language ability in Japan. At the same time, there was a shift within language teaching towards communicative language teaching (CLT), an approach that focuses on meaning and authentic language use during language instruction (Richards, 2006; Richards & Schmidt, 2002). CLT was derived from L2 acquisition research that emphasised the negotiation of meaning as a crucial aspect of language development (Canale & Swain, 1980; Hymes, 1972; Krashen, 1981), resulting in a change in teaching methodology and policy.

      Primarily, reform efforts have been introduced as part of new (and revised) national curricula. For example, policies emphasising the teaching of CLT were introduced in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam (see Butler, 2011; Nunan, 2003). Beyond Asia, similar efforts have been implemented in countries across Africa, South America and in the Indian subcontinent (see Diallo, 2014; Kamhi-Stein et al., 2017; Obaidul Hamid, 2010). Within Japan, curriculum guidelines are known as the Course of Study (COS). New guidelines for secondary schools were introduced in the late 1990s (Ministry of Education, 1999) with further reforms in the early 2000s by the amalgamated Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2002), referred to using the acronym ‘MEXT’ in this book. These reforms specifically emphasised the importance of CLT as a means of developing the foreign language communicative ability of Japanese.

      1.1.1 Challenges to CLT implementation

      Unsurprisingly, such reforms created a range of challenges for teachers and administrators, including significant gaps between classroom realities and policy intentions. Similar to the experience of other countries (e.g. Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Senegal, see Diallo, 2014; Mok-Cheung, 2001; Obaidul Hamid, 2010), change in teaching and assessment within Japan has not necessarily followed policy directives. A substantial body of teacher cognition research investigated Japanese teachers’ beliefs and practices during the 2000s (e.g. Kurihara & Samimy, 2007; Nishino, 2008; Nishino & Watanabe, 2008; Sakui, 2004; Taguchi, 2002) with a focus on the implementation of CLT at the high school level and the difficulties that teachers had in implementing communicative-focused language learning. A number of structural problems were shown to limit the integration of communicative teaching in Japanese and secondary school classrooms: (1) the continuing orientation on university entrance preparation in classes at the expense of communicative activities (Brown & Yamashita, 1995; Nishino, 2008; Underwood, 2012); (2) the continuation and reliance on teacher-fronted grammar-translation (yakudoku) teaching

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