MASAKI ODA (TAMAGAWA UNIVERSITY)

WHAT SHAPES YOUR TEACHING STYLE? : THE ROLES OF IN-SERVICE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION : TEACHER EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

This paper reports an ongoing research project on the relationship between English language teacher education, both pre-service and in-service programs and how English teachers perceive their own teaching style, including a questionnaire survey and follow up interviews conducted to English language teachers at primary and secondary schools in japan with varying length of teaching experience. The aim of the study was to find out what resources English teachers at different stages of their career rely on to shape their own teaching. A preliminary questionnaire survey constantly indicated that teachers rely both on what they had learnt at their pre-service teacher education as well as various in-service teacher education programs they have attended since they began teaching, in addition to day to day informal dialogues with colleagues, regardless of one’s years of experience. However, the follow-up interviews suggested that there were many teachers who placed more emphasis on cooperating with colleagues than on pursuing their own distinctive teaching style. This has led to instances where the work environment has somehow shaped the values of teachers without their realizing it and slowed their subsequent self-development. As an inter-rim measure of the project, I will conclude the presentation arguing for the necessity of designing in-service teacher education to provide the teachers opportunities to constantly reflect on their own teaching and encourage them to explore their repertories to make their teaching more distinctive while adoptable to different contexts with some examples.

Masaki Oda, Ph.D. is Professor of Applied Linguistics at Tamagawa University in Tokyo, Japan His research interests include sociopolitical issues in language teaching and teacher education. He is Vice President for membership of AsiaTEFL and President of the Japan Association of College English Teachers (JACET).