challenging government policy on english language teaching in japan from bottom-up through...
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Challenging government policy on English language teaching in Japan from bottom-up through collaborative action research
Tamiko KondoYork St John University, UK
CARN Breakfast Café | 29 October 2015 | York St John University
CARN Conference | 6-8 November 2015 | Braga, Portugal
With Ichiro Tanei, Miyoko Ogawa, Yoshimi Masuda and Takahiro Nishikawa, Kobe, JAPAN
1. What are my concerns? (1)
1) MEXT policy on the assessment of ‘communication abilities’
2) MEXT’s intention to introduce the TOEFL test into university entrance exams
MEXT (2013) - The goal of JHS students /
A1 to A2 in CEFR…- The goal of HS students /
B1 to B2 in CEFR, a score of more than 57
in the TOEFL iBT test…
NOT appropriate, from a plurilithic perspective on English (Hall and Wicaksono, 2015)
English language is ‘variable, hybrid, and dynamic’
1. What are my concerns? (2)
3) MEXT’s policy on English teachers’ English proficiency
4) MEXT’s ‘cascade’ design teacher education programs for LEEPs organized by the British Council
MEXT (2013)- The level of minimum requirement for
English teachers / a score of more than 80 in the TOEFL iBT test…
‘native-speakerism’
assumptions about ‘dominant varieties’ (US/UK) of English
MEXT’s policy
(Canagarajah, 2006, p.229)
(Holliday, 2005, p.6)
2. Research question
How do I challenge political and social ideology on English language teaching and English teacher education in Japan through collaborative action research, by transforming my communicative competence into communicative action?
3. My initial action Co-construction of a theoretical framework of communicative competence
Communicative competence
Willingnessa positive attitude
towards others and making
mistakes
Empathya capacity for
being considerate towards others and avoiding a stereotypical perspective
OpennessOpen-
mindedness towards the
other's and our cultural context
Creativitya capacity for
sustaining communication
through designing management
strategies
Originalitya capacity for
stating our opinions in our
own words
Confidencea capacity for trying to make
people understood by
persistently using our own
knowledge
(Kondo, 2015a)
English languageeducation context
social-discursive context
4. Setting up methodology
As a linguist,- Attending to real-life discourses in the process
of theorizing the AR methodology
Qualitative interviews, questionnaires
Content analysis by my standards of judgement as ‘coding categories’ (Burns, 1999,, pp.166-173)
- Showing data as evidence supported by ‘what can be learned from’ (Burns, 2010, p.91)
- Developing ‘reflexivity of action research’ (Burns, 1999, p.179)
Action research methodology for this study
Literature review
AR methodology for this study
Three theoretical frameworksfor this research
Collaboration
Values-oriented
Reflective practice
Theoretical framework 1
Why Collaboration? It empowers us to…
1). Reflect ourselves critically through ‘synchronous and asynchronous’ reflections (Ioannidou-Koutselini and Patsalidou, 2015, p.128)
2). Bridge the gap between reified group’s theory and each member’s thinking
‘I have another look at the interview summary you sent me like this, which leads to my thoughtful reflection’ (Teacher D, 2015a)
‘Through sharing [ideas] with other teachers, I could come across new ways of thinking, which shifted my focus to creativity. Well, I appreciate this teachers’ horizontal connection’ (Teacher B, 2015a)
‘reification’‘participation’
(Wenger, 1998, pp.55-71)
‘I can see the course of what I am thinking and what I want to do [in the interview summary]’ (Teacher C, 2015b)
Theoretical framework 2
Why Reflective practice? It empowers us to…
1). Become flexible enough to reshape our thinking to make sense of it
2). Interpret ‘situated meanings’ of our experience
3). Reflect on our practice reflexively
‘I noticed something wrong by seeing myself reflected in a mirror [my mentee who is trying to learn by copying my practice].’ ‘Each [four] reflective practice stimulated me in different ways’ (Teacher D, 2015b & 2015a)
Our professional practice = ‘amoeba’
(Edy, 2000, pp.49-50)
‘Well, uh I think my students changed because I myself changed after all, in my opinion basically it is not that easy to change other people’ (Teacher A, 2014b).
meaning
‘actual practices & experiences’
(Gee, 2005, p.53)
‘We cannot measure [the students’] willingness, if I mark wrong, he might be losing his willingness. That is what the government is trying to do now, right?’ (Teacher D, 2014b)
‘self-critique’
‘institutional critique’
(Elliott, 1991, p.38)
Theoretical framework 3
Why a values-oriented perspective?
Value of (English) teachers’ professional development according to their local needs and context
critical applied linguistic approach
Action researchers are ‘trying to live in the direction of the values’ (McNiff and Whitehead, 2011, pp.27-28)
‘Learn from the differences’ (Matsuda and Matsuda, 2001, p.118)
‘Democratic form of public discussion’ (Carr and Kemmis, 1986, p.142)
English use with ‘influences of one’s own values & identities’ (Canagarajah, 2014, p.18)
AR is ‘value laden’.
‘Expertise’ is fairer than ‘nativeness’ (Rampton, 1990, p.109)
AR process
Additional language education context
‘I have talked with more non-native English speakers (…) We cannot say a language is valueless because very few people speak it in the world’ (Teacher D, 2015b)
5. My understanding for communicative action
social actions we take in order to reach intersubjective agreements while developing our communicative competence and Discourses, with the aim to make a difference in our context
‘Comprehensibility, authenticity, truthfulness and appropriateness’ (Habermas 1976, cited in McNiff 2014, pp.108-109)
‘Recognition work’ = trying to make others recognize my identity and my activity (Gee, 2005, p.29)
Combination & integration of ‘language, actions, interactions, ways of thinking, believing, valuing…’ (Gee, 2005, p.21)
communicative competence ‘Discourses’
communicative action
6. My communicative actions
Giving Japanese English teachers a chance to think for themselves about their professional development and changing Englishes through;
- questionnaires (October 2014 & August 2015)
- a co-organized workshop
(Wicaksono & Kondo, 20 December 2014, Japan)
Communicating my Discourses to the whole junior high school English teachers in Kobe through their annual journal 2015
Communicating my Discourses to the British Council BAAL Conference (3-5 September 2015, Aston University, UK) Talks with British Council Tokyo (9 December 2015, Japan)
7. My findings
1). Impact & gaps in the British Council’s teacher education programs
‘Teacher learning and language teaching cannot be separated from the socio-cultural environments in which it occurs’ (Johnson and Freeman, 2001, p.59)
2). Effectiveness of a person-centred dialogic form of teacher education & teachers’ collaborative learning
‘… teachers should not be left alone doing their self-reflection and self-evaluation’ (Poon, 2008, p.55)
teachers' professional development
autonomy
action
collaboration
reflection
(Kondo, 2015b)
3). My understanding for teachers’ professional development inspired by Krainer (1998, cited in Llinares and Krainer,
2006) and Zehetmeier et al. (2015)
8. Potential implications
Contributing to the development of a new knowledge base of English teacher education in Japan
Contributing to the further studies on communicative competence
Suggesting the way of strengthening ‘the position of practicing teachers’ own voices’ in action research
(Burns, 1999, p.13)
Suggesting the way of incorporating linguistic approach into educational action research
References
Burns, A. 1999. Collaborative action research for English language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Burns, A. 2010. Action research. In: Paltridge, B. and Phakiti, A. eds. Continuum companion to research methods in applied linguistics. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, pp.80-97.
Canagarajah, S. 2006. Changing communicative needs, revised assessment objectives: testing English as an international language. Language Assessment Quarterly, 3(3), pp.229-242.
Canagarajah, A. S. 2014. Theorizing a competence for translingual practice at the contact zone. In: May, S. ed. The multilingual turn: implications for SLA, TESOL, and bilingual education. New York: Routledge, pp.78-102.
Carr, W. and Kemmis, S. 1986. Becoming critical: education, knowledge and action research. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Edy, M. 2000. Understanding professional development. In: Brechin, A. et al. eds. Critical practice in health and social care. London: The Open University, pp. 48-69.
Elliott, J. 1991. Action research for educational change. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Gee, J. P. 2005. An introduction to discourse analysis: theory and method. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
Hall, C. J. and Wicaksono, R. 2015. Changing Englishes: an interactive course for teachers. [Online]. [Accessed 25 March 2015]. Available from: http://www.yorksj.ac.uk/changing-englishes/changing-englishes.aspx
Holliday, A. 2005. The struggle to teach English as an international language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ioannidou-Koutselini, M. and Patsalidou, F. 2015. Engaging school teachers and school principals in an action research in-service development as a means of pedagogical self-awareness. Educational Action Research, 23(2), pp.124-139
References
Johnston, K. E. and Freeman, D. 2001. Teacher learning in second language teacher education: a socially-situated perspective. Rev. Brasileira de Linguīstica Aplicada, 1(1), pp.53-69.
Llinares, S. and Krainer, K. 2006. Mathematics (student) teachers and teacher educators as learners. In: Gutiérrez, A. and Boero, P. eds. Handbook of research on the psychology of mathematics education. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, pp.429-459.
Matsuda, A. and Matsuda, P.K. 2001. Autonomy and collaboration in teacher education: journal sharing among native and nonnative English-speaking teachers. The CATESOL Journal, 13(1), pp.109-121.
McNiff, J. 2014. Writing and doing action research. London: Sage Publications.
McNiff, J. and Whitehead, J. 2011. All you need to know about action research. 2nd ed. London: Sage Publications.
Poon, Y. K. A. 2008. How action research can complement formal language teacher education. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 17(1), pp.43-62.
Rampton, B. 1990. Displacing the ‘native speaker’: expertise, affiliation and inheritance. In: Harris, R and Rampton, B eds. The language, ethnicity and race reader. 2003. London: Routledge, pp.107-111.
The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. 2013. Gurōbaruka ni taiōsihita eigokyōikukaikaku jisshikeikaku. [Online]. Japan: The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. [Accessed 13 August 2014]. Available from: http://www.mext.go.jp/
Wenger, E. 1998. Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zehetmeier, S. et al. 2015. Researching the impact of teacher professional development programmes based on action research, constructivism, and systems theory. Educational Action Research, 23(2), pp.162-177.
