EFL Teachers and Teaching Culture

Beliefs, Practices, and Interactions of teachers in a Japanese high school English Department

Sato, K. & Kleinsasser, R. Teaching and teacher Education 20 (2004).797-816.

Since there is little known about how in-service teachers perceive English language teaching, how they actually teach (or change their teaching), how they interact with colleagues, or how they continue to learn to teach in a Japanses environment, this study in general examines EFL in-service teachers within their workplaces and investigates the relationship among teachers' beliefs, practices, and interactions in their workplaces. Multiple data sources from interviews, observations, and documents of teachers from an English department were used.

The theoretical framework supporting this study is the school cultures by Feiman-Nemser and Floden (1986) which explains how teachers perceive their own work situations and share beliefs about appropriate ways to acting on the jobs. It was suggested that teachers appeared to adapt to teaching cultures. Lortie (1975) points that “People in a similar line of work are likely to share at least some common thoughts and feelings about their work” (p.162).


Methodology:

Multiple Mode of Enquiry: In order to capture the complexities, the authors employ multiple data sources including a survey, interviews, observations, and documents. There were 19 Japanese EFL high school teachers participating in the study.

Findings:

The study revealed these English as a Foreign Language teachers lacked many teacher learning opportunities in their context. It was found that the complexities of this school’s culture were highlighted through the multiple data source analysis. Although teachers reported that they tried new teachinf ideas and innovative teaching experiences shared wit the others, the collaboration of EFL teaching is still remained marginal. The practices that these teachers shared focused mainly on a goal toward examination-oriented English. Therefore, the classroom teaching relied abundantly on grammar and translation. One of the main concerns was to keeping order and keeping in pace with other teachers. Although they did collaborate with colleagues, the collaboration appeared to reinforce the existing teaching culture which held tightly to grammar and translation no matter what kind of skill focuses of the courses.

Teachers' community beliefs also influence thier ideas about teaching approaches and professional development. Community action precede an individual's intention. Pajares (1992) explained the context-specific nature of beliefs that individuals may find that thier beliefs incompatible with the communities' but they have to act consistently with those social beliefs. As these teachers became accustomed to thier routine practices, they seemed to be comfortable with the norm and their beliefs accommodate the school culture to a much greater extent than the school culture accommodates their personal beliefs.