This presentation reports a part of on-going project on in-service training for English teachers in Japan, based on interviews conducted with English teachers both at primary and secondary schools with different length of experience.
Boards of education as well as other public agencies across Japan offer various training programs for teachers some of which are mandatory for them. The contents of these in-service training programs are selected based on what training providers believe beneficial for teachers. Based on teachers’ narratives (Barkhuizen 2013 etc.) from the interviews, it was found that training providers tend to pinpoint specific key issues they believe important to many teachers in depth, while teachers need to handle even more diverse situations. Therefore, the training providers’ belief does not match with the needs of teachers. In addition, the study also suggested that English language teachers at primary and secondary schools in Japan with varying length of teaching experience develop their skills to teach English as well as educational perspectives in general based on interaction with colleagues. Furthermore, teachers cannot afford to allocate their time to participate in these training programs as they have various issues of immediate concern to take care.By reviewing several cases of the teachers interviewed, I will conclude the presentation by suggesting that teacher training providers to design programs providing teachers with opportunities to constantly reflect on their own teaching with colleagues and encourage them to explore their repertories to make their teaching more distinctive while adaptable to different contexts.
