Rise to the occasion: The trajectory of a novice Japanese teacher’s first online teaching through action research

• Published in: Language teaching research : LTR Vol. 25; no. 2; pp. 306 - 329
• Main Authors: Sato, Eriko, Chen, Julian ChengChiang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01-03-2021; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Action Research; Beginning Teachers; College Students; Computer assisted language learning; Distance Education; Distance learning; Educational Improvement; Faculty Development; Foreign language learning; Integrated Learning Systems; Interviews; Japanese; Japanese as a second language; Language Teachers; Negotiation; Nontraditional Education; Novices; Online Courses; Online instruction; Professional Identity; Second Language Instruction; Second Language Learning; Second language teachers; Semi Structured Interviews; State Universities; Teacher Attitudes; Teacher education; Teacher Effectiveness; Teacher Evaluation; Teacher Improvement; Teacher Qualifications; Teacher Student Relationship; Teacher Supervision; Teaching; Teaching Assistants; Teaching Methods; Virtual Classrooms; foreign language teaching; novice teacher; standard-based curriculum; distance education; multimodal digital tool; virtual mentoring; Japanese teaching; pedagogy; action research; professional development
• DOI: 10.1177/1362168819846794
• EISSN: 1477-0954
• ISSN: 1362-1688

Foreign language teaching in distance education is administratively and pedagogically challenging; research on the perspectives of novice practitioners’ online teaching is also relatively scarce. This study explores how a novice Japanese teacher navigated and negotiated her professional development in a two-way virtual practitionership during her first online teaching. Data were collected from ongoing dialogue journals between the novice and her mentor followed by a semi-structured interview. Qualitative results indicate that pedagogically-sound and personalized digital tools can not only reduce the psychological distance between the teachers and students, but facilitate online teaching and learning via a performance-driven, standard-based curriculum. Informed by Action Research, the study reveals how both practitioners de/reconstructed their teacher identities and achieved professional empowerment through robust supervision and reciprocal teacher evaluation in a virtual environment. It further demonstrates the extent to which this evidence-driven and research-oriented approach can better address the genuine concerns of a foreign language program in distance education. Specifically, this context-responsive study indicates the improvement of online course delivery, teacher training and program sustainability in its own right.