The Current State of Japanese Language Education in Australian Schools

4.4 Teacher Backgrounds and Competencies

Many informants commented that there are some extremely competent and professionally active teachers of Japanese, who act as good leaders and mentors for their colleagues, and that they constitute a great resource for the language teaching field as a whole. However, there are areas where past high levels of demand have led to the recruitment of some teachers whose qualifications are less than ideal, either in terms of linguistic competence, familiarity with and preparedness for the Australian school environment, or pedagogical skills.

4.4.1 Teacher Backgrounds

In most states and territories, the majority of teachers are locally born and trained non-native speakers of Japanese. In all states and territories there is also an active but smaller group of teachers who are native speakers. Although information on teacher backgrounds is incomplete, the largest proportion of native speakers is in Vic (about one third of teachers – see Table 7, page 63) with other states and territories having a lower proportion, although this varies according to level, jurisdiction and area. There is also a very small number of teachers born and educated in other overseas countries. Most of these teachers have studied for a Bachelor or Diploma of Education in Australia, although there are still a few teachers in contract or casual positions without having completed local qualifications. Some teachers also have higher degrees and additional teaching qualifications from Japan. Two of the most significant concerns with teacher quality for teachers of Japanese are related to their status as native speakers or non-native speakers of Japanese, namely the linguistic competence of non-native speakers, and the cultural competence, and competence in English of those born and educated abroad – predominantly (although not exclusively) native speakers of Japanese.

Case Study 7: Classroom Teacher Who Teaches Japanese

In a Tasmanian primary school, the Japanese teacher is also a Year 5/6 classroom teacher. The teacher is released from his class to deliver the Japanese language program to other classes.

This example serves as a positive model for the delivery of Japanese and the job satisfaction and security of the teacher. It came about through the teacher’s own initiative, not through a deliberate strategy at the school or Department of Education level. Similar strategies where classroom and language teaching are combined are found in some immersion programs.

Results

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  There is greater flexibility in delivery, both in terms of timing and integration with other curriculum elements. Japanese language education can occur incidentally as well as formally, particularly with his Year 5/6 class.
  
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  The combining of classroom and Japanese teaching means that the teacher is involved in more decision making at the school, and is better placed to integrate Japanese with other curriculum areas such as technology and literacy.
  
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  Teacher and students know each other well.
  
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  Teacher has better career options and working conditions than most language teachers.
  
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  Teacher’s homeroom class benefits from having another specialist deliver a segment of the curriculum.
  

Possible Extension

In this example, there is only one teacher of Japanese, but there are other schools where several ex-Japanese teachers have returned to classroom roles and no longer teach language. If two or three teachers in a school combined language and classroom teaching, the benefits would be even greater.

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  Collegiate support to plan, develop and deliver a quality program.
  
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  Greater stability for the program with more teachers able to ensure continuity of delivery.
  
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  Teachers would be able to concentrate on curriculum development in fewer year levels. They could be relieved of responsibility for teaching their own class in another curriculum area.
  
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  Flexibility of delivery as the teachers would be able to work cooperatively.
  
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  Higher profile for the Japanese language program, and better integration with the general curriculum.
  

Comment

A change in thinking about models for staffing and the delivery of Japanese would provide for greater flexibility, quality, and delivery of primary school programs and better working conditions for teachers, within existing staffing budgets.

4.4.2 Language Competence

Concerns have been raised in the past about the level of linguistic competence of teachers (for example Nicholas, 1993), particularly at a period when Japanese was expanding rapidly, and systems sought to augment supply by offering incentives for teachers of other areas to be retrained in Japanese. While this strategy produced some good teachers in terms of general teaching skills, the linguistic competence able to be attained by adult beginners in a short time was naturally more limited than was desirable. While there are exceptions, such teachers often lack confidence to use Japanese as the language of instruction, provide poor models for students and, having found the study of Japanese challenging themselves, have low expectations of their students. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this situation has improved over the last few years, and that the language competence of teachers entering the profession has improved. Many have spent some time living in Japan. It is still the case, however, that the levels of competence of most teachers who are not native speakers could be improved, and need to be maintained once they enter the workforce. In particular, there are many teachers who do not have the literacy levels to read materials in Japanese easily and fluently, or to write materials at a high level in Japanese. They do not have the confidence to be able to assist senior students if they have difficulties reading authentic material, and this sometimes prevents them from encouraging students to venture beyond the textbook and teacher- provided materials. In addition, the social and cultural knowledge of teachers is sometimes limited or out of date thus limiting their ability to teach using the intercultural learning approach now favoured. Many undergraduate teacher education programs, particularly in primary education, make it very difficult for teachers to study Japanese while completing their qualification and most postgraduate programs also fail to include language training. It is important that teachers be given the opportunity to continue to develop their linguistic and cultural knowledge and skills throughout the course of their careers.