The Language Teacher

This is the first in a series of four columns about teacher education in Japan. In this issue, Teacher Education N-SIG members Paul Beaufait, Daniel Kirk, Tim Murphey, Junko Okada, and Gordon Wilson look at different innovative possibilities in pre-service and in-service teacher education.

An English School for Junior High School Students Organized by University Students

I have created a student-run English school staffed and administered by the students in our department and serving the JHS students in our community. The university students involved in the project teach one class each week and are responsible for making the syllabus, and planning and carrying out the lessons. Committees of students also see to the administration of the school as well as interaction with the press, which has shown interest. The lessons they create must include some sort of communicative activity, while content is taken from the local JHS curriculum. The skills and knowledge that our students need for this work are covered in language teaching methodology courses and supplemented during staff meetings. The classes and meetings themselves are all conducted as an extra-curricular activity, although I have been negotiating for them to receive elective credits.

There is no doubt in my mind that the students involved in this project will take this experience into their classes when they become teachers--not only the communicative language teaching skills, but also the ability to run an organization. They have functionally taken control of this organization. They are in charge. I have encountered so many people who would like to duplicate this project at their schools that I have begun writing up a detailed description of its creation which will be published soon.

If we are going to improve language teaching, the first place we must begin is with the teachers. If the teachers do not have the skills, knowledge and disposition to teach communicatively, no mandate from above or class name change will alter what is happening in the classrooms. Because teachers tend to teach the way they were taught, they need a really strong positive experience of successful communicative teaching to counteract their hundreds of hours of traditional classes. With this in mind, I set out to create a learning/teaching experience that will stand a chance of having an impact on the way our students will teach in the future.

Gordon Wilson can be contacted at: Hokkaido University of Education at Kushiro, 1-15-55 Shiroyama 1-chome, Kushiro-shi, Hokkaido. Tel: (w) +81 (15) 441 6161. E-mail: gwilson@kus.hokkyodai.ac.jp

Ethnography of Teachers' Resistance to Teacher Education

One of the most serious problems we face in high school English education is teachers' reluctance and resistance to profit from teacher education (TE). While some teachers are now very eager to enrol in TE courses in order to catch up with changes in English teaching, the majority still demonstrate no interest. Even though the quality of teacher education programs is greatly improving, it means nothing if teachers do not want to enrol in them. Thus, the broad questions leading my research are as follows: Why are teachers so reluctant? Why do they resist TE? What are teachers' attitudes towards TE and changes in English education?

In order to answer these questions, I have started an ethnographic study of teachers' resistance towards 1) teacher education and 2) changes in English education. Data are now being collected from various sources: teachers, students and an ALT (assistant language teacher in the JET program), and through observation, interviews and questionnaires.

I am also a high school teacher and received te at an American graduate school in Japan. Although I have met many excellent non-Japanese teacher educators, I sometimes felt that they were not really familiar with Japanese jhs/shs teachers' "culture." If teacher educators become more familiar with this culture and take it into consideration, their te programs may become more suitable for us. Thus, I hope my research will help facilitate te in Japanese jhs/shs settings.

If anyone else is conducting similar research or has information that they would like to contribute, please contact me.

Junko Okada can be contacted at: 3-3-8-401 Park Town, Sengendai Nishi, Koshigaya-shi, Saitama-ken. 343. Tel: (h) +81 (489) 77 6065.

Participant-Centering a Teachers' Seminar

Conceived as an intensive, week-long summer program for in-service junior and senior high school teachers, the English Teachers' Seminar at the Foreign Language Education Center at our university has run for five years, with an average of 12 participants attending one of two separate sessions a year. It now includes both pre- and in-service teachers who propose topics during application, attend voluntarily and participate in a variety of skill and content-based activities. Topics and tasks are chosen for relevance to the participants themselves. Through workshop interaction, and through organized presentations and reports they make to their peers, we hope that the Japanese teachers of English and teacher trainees who participate in the seminar will develop their oral and written communication skills, along with new perspectives on the learning and teaching of English. The long-term goals of the seminar are to enable participants to function more effectively in cross-cultural and classroom situations, to be more adept at coordinating instructional activities with assistant English teachers, and to continue their own professional development.

Seminar sessions originally began Monday afternoon and concluded Friday morning. A session consisted of sixteen periods, each approximately eighty minutes in length. The first period Monday was reserved for introductions of the staff and facilities, ice-breakers, and an overview of the program for the week. Coordinators then gave lectures and workshops till mid-week on topics ranging from public speaking to reflective teaching. Presentations and demonstrations made and evaluated by the participants themselves followed the lectures and workshops. The last period Friday was reserved for program evaluations and concluding remarks.

Though application preferences guided topic selection, participants helped determine course organization and content to a lesser extent than we would have wished. Another drawback of this scheme was that participants had insufficient time to internalize and experiment with ideas and techniques they encountered during the intensive week-long seminar. Two periods in mid-session were set aside for participants to consult with coordinators and, in 1995, the sessions were scheduled around a weekend to give participants additional time after the lectures and workshops to prepare for their own presentations to their peers. Moreover, we ourselves felt strongly that written communication received insufficient attention, so we began to publish participant reports in a newsletter sent to all former participants.

Now, based upon the belief that a distributed rather than intensive program will be more effective in achieving the goals of the English Teachers' Seminar, we also plan to conduct a pre-session in late spring and a post-session in late fall. The pre-session will involve participants directly in the setting of goals. At post-sessions participants will reflect jointly on collaborative experiments after the summer session, and set further goals for their own continuing development.

Paul Beaufait can be contacted at: 14-23-404 Kengun Honmachi, Kumamoto-shi. 862. Tel: (w) +81 (96) 383 2929.

Daniel Kirk can be contacted at: 2432-1 Aza Mizuarai, Kengun-machi, Kumamoto-shi. 862. Tel: (w) +81 (96) 383 2929.

Putting More "Ing" Into Continuing Development

When non-native teachers actually use English in their classrooms they become role models, and send a powerful message to their students that English is useful (Murphey, 1995). To encourage more of this, two projects were recently developed.

The first is a collection of case studies by Japanese high school teachers of English on how they increased the amount of English they spoke in the classroom, and the rationale behind doing so. The collection also contains some of the materials that they found especially useful, reviews of helpful books, and some related studies. (Contact Murphey for a copy.)

The second project is a new course leading to the Certificate of Oral Language Teaching (COLT). This course began in April 1996 and is open to any currently employed teacher. Classes are held at Nanzan Community College on Saturday afternoons, and we hope that after a few semesters the course will be recognized by the prefecture and Mombusho. The two semester course uses self-videoed observation before and near the end of the first semester to evaluate the implementation of oral language teaching techniques. To encourage reflection and experimentation, participants write risk logs about new techniques they are trying in their classes. During the second semester, students design a mini-action research project and exchange videos and risk logs with a colleague.

One of the presuppositions of Teacher Education is that it is a continuing process. Continuing teacher development should thus be encouraged and multifarious avenues of access opened for teachers. I hope that these two projects will be replicated by other teachers.

Reference

Murphey, T. (1995). Identity and Beliefs in Language Learning. The Language Teacher, 19 (4), 34-36.

Tim Murphey can be contacted at: Nanzan University, 18 Yamazato-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya, Aichi-ken. 466. Tel: (w) +81 (52) 832 3111. Email: <mits@ic.nanzan-u.ac.jp>

Article copyright © 1996 by the author.
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