English Language and Culture

Japanese teachers of English in Japanese
higher education are an under-researched,
yet a highly influential group
of teachers. A yearlong case study with
one teacher, a literature specialist who
is relatively new at teaching English, was
conducted. Through multiple interviews
and classroom observations, it was
found that the teacher’s beliefs toward
language learning and language teaching
are deeply rooted in how she successfully
learned English and are shaped by
her love for literature. The paper concludes
with a call for more qualitative
and quantitative research investigating
the teaching practices and the English
pedagogical beliefs of Japanese university
English teachers in order to deepen
our understanding of English language
education in Japan.

The eikaiwa [conversation] business in
Japan is a multi-billion dollar industry,
and yet very little empirical research
has been conducted on its teachers or
its students. An online survey focusing
on the pedagogical and personal issues
of one group of eikaiwa teachers
(foreign women who are married
to Japanese men) was constructed
and distributed. Results from the 31
respondents indicate an ongoing overlapping
struggle with their teaching in
balancing their families’ personal and
financial needs, their relationships
with their students, and the gendered
constraints imposed upon them by
Japanese society. The paper ends with
a call for more research of all eikaiwa
teachers in more eikaiwa contexts.
日本における英会話産業は今や数十億ドル
産業だが、それに携わる教師や生徒につい
ての実証的な研究はこれまでほとんど行わ
れていない。本論では、英会話学校の教師
（いずれも日本人男性と結婚している外国
人女性）を対象に、教育に関する問題およ
び個人的な問題についてのオンライン調査
を実施した。31名の教師より得た回答から、
彼女らがそれぞれの家庭の問題や経済的な
問題、生徒たちとの関係、そして日本社会が
課している女性特有の制約といった複数の
問題とバランスを取りながら、教育活動を行
うことに常に苦労している現状が明らかに
なった。最後に、本論は、今後より多くの英
会話学校の教師について、さらに多くの研
究が行われる必要性を喚起する。

This chapter explores the relationship between gender and professional identity in 38 foreign female teachers of English in Japanese higher education. Data were collected from 38 participants through a questionnaire, email exchanges, and an
e-group, and qualitatively analyzed using Wenger’s (1998) theory of identity. It was found that these women’s professional identities were shaped by the degree of stability determined by their employment status as standard (tenured) or non-standard
(part-time or contracted) teachers. It was also shaped by gendered attitudes (held by both Japanese and by non-Japanese male colleagues) that view women primarily as
family caretakers and not as working professionals. The results indicate that while some women may remain university teachers purely for financial reasons, others engage in research productivity and own professional development as a means to
enhance their careers and as an attempt to battle institutional and gendered isolation.

This article explores teachers’ identity formation through a narrative inquiry of the professional identity of one EFL teacher, “Andrea,” at a high school in Japan. Data were extracted from four 90-minute open-ended life history interviews and qualitatively examined using Wenger’s (1998) social theory of identity formation. It was found that the shifts in her professional identity were related to the changes in her personal life, which in turn influenced her colleagues’ perceptions of her. Andrea’s story showcases how transient the career of English language teaching in Japan for foreigners may be and that teachers should be prepared to undergo identity shifts as relationships with colleagues and/or institutional policies change.

Teachers at universities in Japan, as elsewhere, are considered to be members of a prestigious occupation. However, the total percentage of tenured female teachers in Japanese higher education is only 14 MEXT, 2006. Female teachers are rarely found in disciplines that have traditionally been considered "masculine," such as engineering 1.2 , agriculture 1.6 or science 3.7 , and yet, even in areas which have been traditionally considered a "feminine" realm, such as home economics 31.2 , humanities 16.5 or education 12.7 , females are still in the minority Fujita, 2006. One reason why there are so few Japanese female academics is that there are two gendered educational paths in Japan that have led to two separate functions of higher education. The purpose of higher education for women has mainly been to signify their membership in the middle class and to enhance their marital prospects, whereas for men, it has been to gain quali

Teachers at universities in Japan, as elsewhere, are considered to be members of a prestigious occupation. However, the total percentage of tenured female teachers in Japanese higher education is only 14 MEXT, 2006. Female teachers are rarely found in disciplines that have traditionally been considered "masculine," such as engineering 1.2 , agriculture 1.6 or science 3.7 , and yet, even in areas which have been traditionally considered a "feminine" realm, such as home economics 31.2 , humanities 16.5 or education 12.7 , females are still in the minority Fujita, 2006. One reason why there are so few Japanese female academics is that there are two gendered educational paths in Japan that have led to two separate functions of higher education. The purpose of higher education for women has mainly been to signify their membership in the middle class and to enhance their marital prospects, whereas for men, it has been to gain quali

Examples of sexism in ESL/EFL (English as a second language/English as a foreign language) textbooks provided by Hartman and Judd (1978) and Porecca (1984) seem almost laughably out-of-date nowadays. It is hard to imagine language-teaching materials today containing sentences stereotyping the sexes such as "Boys become men. Girls become housewives" (Alt and Kirkland, 1973, cited in Hartman and Judd, 1978), or with sentences that trivialize a woman's profession by "adding a title to differentiate its referent from the norm-a male" (Porecca, 1978, p. 717), as in the following example: "A T.V. host is interviewing a famous woman author who is eighty-five years old" (Fingado, Freeman, Jerome, and Summers, cited in Porecca, p. 717). Not only was sexist language found to be rampant, the number of female characters and their participation in dialogues were far fewer than male characters. An example of this was found in a study carried out by ETHEL (cited in Jones, Kitetue & Sunderland, 1997), where in the textbook Functions of English (1977), fifteen dialogues occurred between two or three men, eight

This study investigates Japanese high school students’ attitudes toward English proficiency tests, specifically the Test of English for Academic Purposes (TEAP) and university entrance examinations. Three rounds of interviews with five highly motivated learners at a prestigious high school were held over a period of 1.5 years. The interviews focused on their beliefs about English and their study methods; their impressions of and study methods for TEAP and other entrance exams; and their post-graduation plans. The interview data reveals students felt studying for TEAP provided an opportunity for authentic language study, which was in line with their high school study and would be useful for their futures. In contrast, they felt other entrance exams often focused on different skills and knowledge, making preparation for them both challenging and frustrating. These academically minded students found studying English merely for university entrance purposes to be demotivating, but a nece...

This study investigates how relatively new Japanese teachers of English in higher education in Japan develop their professional identity. Teachers’ professional identity has come to be seen as one of the most critical components in shaping classroom practices (Varghese, Morgan, Johnston & Johnson, 2005). Language teachers, who were previously viewed as technicians who applied appropriate pedagogical methodologies, are now recognized as individual agents who hold individual beliefs, knowledge and attitudes toward teaching, learning, and their students, all of which affect every aspect of classroom teaching (e.g. Woods, 1996; Golembek, 1998; Gatbonton, 1999; Borg, 2003; Tsui, 2007).

This study reports the qualitative results obtained from a questionnaire survey that was distributed by email to 420 Japanese teachers of English in various types of universities throughout Japan. The three questions discussed in this paper are 1) Do you think of yourself as an English language teacher? 2) How did you learn to teach English? and 3) How do you teach a typical class? Although the response rate to the questionnaire was low (7.3%), the analysis showed that a relationship does exist between the participants' self-identity as an English language teacher and their teaching beliefs and practices. In order to better understand English education in Japan, it is suggested that further investigation of Japanese university English teachers is warranted.

This paper presents the results of a study that investigated the professional identity of seven Japanese female teachers of English in Japanese higher education. The study employed a narrative approach and used Gee’s (2000) four perspectives of identity as the theoretical framework to analyze interview data obtained from the seven women, ranging in age from their early thirties to their early sixties. It was found that the participants’ gender plays a profound role in the formation of their professional identity from ( a ) their early access to English language education, which was a foundational step toward becoming university teachers; ( b ) to how they gained the necessary academic qualifications to become university teachers, and ( c ) to how they are recognized and accepted within their academic communities. The paper concludes that there is a complex relationship between gender and power that is directly related to English study in Japan and to the employment of female univers...