Commonalities in HPM

As we can see in Table 8.2, the teachers in this study perceive the shift of the emphasis on developing students’ communication skills as an important goal. However, they are not fully clear on whether TETE policy is a practical and accessible goal to be carried out in their actual teaching. Below, TA offers her perception of what communication means based on her experience:

“When I started to go about getting a job, I was taught that communication does not mean the ability of speaking, only. Students who have difficulty to communicate in Japanese must find it hard to communicate in English, too.

Of course we need to communicate verbally… but, then what should I do in the class for communication?”(TAN-1)

TA seemingly knows that having communications skills are more than merely speaking out or reciting utterances. Although it may appear that she has some understanding that the communicative process involves forming ideas, expressing them and receiving ideas of others, this view is ambiguous when we view her practice. She mostly uses English for classroom management purposes in what has been referred to as CRE , “I use English for greeting and directive English such as ‘Open your text books to page~”. (TAN-1). This was observed with all three JTEs: When they used English it

tended to fall into the CRE category of classroom management phrases or for preparing students to do recitation activities, such as ‘please repeat after me’, ‘read aloud’ etc.

These uses are not dialogical but done in a one-way dimensional form from teacher to student(s), which contradicts TA’s own perception of the communication process. Use of CRE is English use, but its link to developing communication skills and TETE is not clearly defined and rather muddled.

The purpose of TETE should be expanded to correspond to increasing the students’

skills of communication and for JTEs to improve on their professional development. One significant outcome that emerges in this study as a pattern is that teacher development should take concrete steps to provide training in communicative approaches, which seeming make it clear to the JTEs that it would create more L2 use from students and teachers. Otherwise, the policy of TETE may be easily perceived to be overwhelming as TC stated “You mean ‘All English?” (TAN-1). There needs to be clear definitions to shed light on the ambiguities that exist between CRE and CLT as showing the interrelationships of these concepts to produce more TETE.

One of the reasons for the ambiguousness of the TETE policy and for the JTEs maintaining a state of HPM can be found in the way the mandated policy was released.

They do not show clearly the way of implementing the policy in the actual class. (An ongoing comment by many JTEs around the author’s school and with others, whom the author has spoken with is that MEXT tells us what to do, but not how to do it.) As TA and TB claim that it is very difficult to find out the time to study materials as they are not only English teachers, but also they have to deal with the duties as homeroom teachers, club activity advisors, and PTA, etc. Even TC, who does not have any duty as homeroom-teacher, is in charge of a volleyball club everyday. JTEs being quite busy, it seems almost impossible to read through all the descriptions of COS for understanding the policy and direction and to design teaching approaches which are supposed to reflect policy demands, it can be easy for them to teach English in the way they were taught as a learner or in the way everyone can easily adapt to without using a lot of energy or creativity and therefore remain in a rather defensive HPM state.

Teaching Behaviors

Teaching behaviors can be underpinned by experiences as a learner. Although all the teachers in this study started to study English at public junior high and high school in different areas in Japan, it was almost at the same time when MEXT gradually started to

take a strong interest in globalization and set out for the ‘Action plan.’ (see Chapter 2) for cultivating students’ communication skills. From around 2000 to 2010, when they were students in junior high school and high school, however, what they took as ‘English education’ was a teacher-centered approach of grammar translation and yakudoku, where no communicative approach can be expected. For example, in their own statements, TA learned English at public education system from 2002 to 2007, TB from 2001 to 2006 and TC from 1998 to 2003, they did not attend classes focusing on developing students’

communicative skills nor being taught English in English, but rather on traditional teaching approaches for passing entrance examinations, where a lot of Japanese was used from teachers. Not having any experiences of being taught English communicatively as a learner, it seems to be a difficult challenge for the JTEs to adjust their behavior to adapt the new policy into practice.

Another experience as a learner is the lack of the knowledge of theoretical frameworks and related training in the course of education in university. In order to get the teachers’ license of English, they took a course or courses on pedagogical principles on how language learning would be acquired or something related to learning and teaching theory at least. However, as the data showed, these theoretical principles were difficult to be implemented in actual classes without any practical training at university including their pre-service practicum, and even in their three years as in-service teachers.

The experiences acquired at apprenticeship without adequate acquisition of professional theory in practice has led to teaching behaviors, such as recitative English teaching and routinized teaching, and a heavy reliance of following the previous lesson plan because of lack of knowledge to create activities for lessons.

The teaching behaviors of all three JTEs to use Japanese for explicit grammar teaching are strong factor for remaining in HPM. Once teachers come to the point of the grammar section in the textbook, they use L1 for explaining each grammar item as all three mentioned this at the initial interview, and it was later observed in their instruction.

TB and TC claim the two reasons for using L1 in grammar teaching : one is because of students’ proficiency level and the other is of using textbook. Both of two are interrelated.

The textbooks are consisted of a lot of explanations of grammar points and reading section and with quite limited activities for communicative practice other than the part of the very end of the each lesson of ‘Challenge: Please talk with your partner about this topic’. They claim that students cannot understand their English if they explain grammar

items in English. In turn, they teach grammar explicitly, where a lot of Japanese is used and recitative teaching is adapted (TA also uses recitation in her teaching). Interestingly two teachers, TA and TB, mention that test scores of practice tests are one of the sales points in the private school to attract the attention and interest of population to take the test of the school. Teachers, especially novice teachers are exposed to the feeling of obsession of having their students get good scores on practice test for the school honor or personal recognition. Placing a priority of teaching to the test is an antithesis to meeting the communicative goal and TETE, and therefore offers resistance to the JTES engagement in teacher development.

Frictional Forces

In the HPM category, for the three JTEs, the forces of friction are considered to cause static friction that act to resist their making changes in teaching. This state has repercussions in professional development. Without interventions of seeking professional knowledge and/or participating in praxis these behaviors can be maintained if they do not meet any chance or force that would awaken in them the recognition for the need to change. Otherwise they remain in a non-growth state. In the matrix above, recognition for change is critically minimized according to the data taken from the JTEs showing they do not really understand the TETE policy; how they would go about implementing it, and do not think it is even realistic. A criticism of curriculum policy made institutionally, far from the classroom (and until this study, not paid attention to at the local school), can be seen as a force of friction that cause resistance because it does not meet the realities of the JTEs. For the three JTEs, uncertainty and impracticality surround the TETE policy and they resist it. On the other hand, the JTEs do see the value of developing students’

communicative skills, which as this study argues would create more opportunities to TETE and could be exploited positively for their teacher development. This outcome will be discussed in the next chapter.

Teasing apart the TETE policy from developing CLT skills seems impossible and unnecessary. They are linked and they are both resisted because of unfamiliarity. A commonality among the three JTEs throughout the study and listed several times above is that as learners they have not experienced classes that were taught mostly in English.

Conversely, their classes were taught in Japanese and far from a communicative approach.

Amazingly, as this study found, is that this pattern of unfamiliarity continued with the

JTEs in pre-service as students and in-service as teachers.

Friction causing resistance to change is also a common theme when it comes to the daily routines at school caused by both academic and non-academic factors. The study clearly documents that the lesson plan and textbooks, which are both artifacts of the curriculum are not conducive to using English or taking on a communicative approach.

Reliance on a yearly lesson plan and selected textbooks focusing on grammar with the aim of preparing students for test (the latter representing a major component of the hidden curriculum), all contribute to a traditional grammar-based curriculum that present obstacles to making additional changes in instruction. Adding to this situation is the extra non-academic duties JTEs have that further take them away from any opportunities to pursue teacher development. All of these frictional forces weigh the JTEs down into a static state of HPM.

8.2.1.2 Differences in HPM