The role of schools in Japan

As was stated earlier in this chapter, one of the challenges that ITE in

Japan faces is the theory-practice dichotomy (Hartley, 1993). While a theoretical knowledge base provided through HEIs is significant in student teachers’ expertise development, the quality and quantity of time student

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teachers’ professional expertise. In the case of the UK, after major

educational reforms in the late 1980s and 1990s, the length of school-based

training is currently extended to 120 days for prospective secondary teachers in one-year PGCE courses. In addition, usually serial and block practice is

carefully implemented during school-based training so that student teachers can regularly go back to HEIs for both academic and emotional support and

follow-up (Furlong, Barton, Miles, Whiting, & Whitty, 2000).

In comparison, in Japan, while experiential training in ITE has been

considered to be more important than previously in order to teach more effectively and deal with new challenges in education, the level of teaching

practice is still peripheral. In 2001, one week of hands-on experiential training at a facility for the elderly or at a school for children with disabilities was implemented as a requirement during student teachers’ third year of training.

This hands-on experience is assumed to provide prospective teachers with

work experience so as to enable them to understand and effectively deal with problems which challenge traditional values of Japanese society, such as

juvenile delinquency or students with developmental disabilities. Another change implemented in 2001 was the extension of the length of the teaching

practice. During their fourth year, student teachers are required to go to a local secondary school of their choice for a teaching practice. This spanned

only two weeks for both upper and lower secondary schools until 2000;

however, for the same reasons mentioned above, the length of time was extended to four weeks for lower secondary school teachers in order to gain a

better understanding of the work of schools (i.e. administrative work, student counselling, supervision of extracurricular activities) and of various problems

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such as bullying, non-attendance at school or class disruption, which more commonly take place at lower secondary schools. As we shall see in Chapter

4 (section 4.4.1), the slight extension of teaching practice may raise student teachers’ awareness of the reality of the workplace; however, it may not

directly enhance the quality of training as a subject teacher.

The length of teaching practice in ITE in Japan is two weeks for upper

secondary schools and four weeks for lower secondary schools as a minimum requirement. Thus, on the one hand, colleges and institutes of education may

offer a longer period of teaching practice with the cooperation of affiliated schools. For example, one university of education in northern Japan offers a

one-week class observation and participation period at school during the first and second year, then a three-week classroom-based training period during

the third and fourth years. On the other hand, secondary schools may make their own interpretations of the new law, as Bowe and Ball (1992) argue, and

these schools are allowed to take student teachers for only three weeks, not four, owing to their various work circumstances. As a result, the majority of

student teachers, particularly those who are in ITE programmes at universities without strongly established partnerships with schools, seem to

experience a teaching practice of only three weeks. In this way, a lack of consistency in student teachers’ expertise development is found not only in

the ITE curriculum across HEIs but also in student teachers’ teaching practice

experiences.

Longer-term practical experience could possibly provide student teachers

with more opportunities to try out their ideas in specific contexts, communicate with pupils, reflect on their actions and teaching techniques,

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and gain confidence as a teacher. Considering other contexts in which student teachers gain longer-term school-based experiences, such as six

months in Taiwan (Chang, 2004) or at least one month in South Korea (Asaoka & Ito, 2006) or at multiple sites, such as in the UK (Lawes, 2004), the

ITE system in Japan does not seem to offer enough practical experience. San (1999) asserts that this shortcoming is partly due to the fact that “the

university faculty values liberal arts more than teaching skills in teachers’ preparation” (p.17). Moreover, with no additional financial incentives, schools

are unwilling to accept student teachers for a longer term, since “supervising trainees will increase the workload of teachers” (p.18). School teachers’

unwillingness to mentor student teachers also arises from the fact that not many student teachers will actually enter the teaching profession after

graduation17 _{(M. Sato, 1992). Hence, the educational policy changes in ITE is}

an example which fails to understand the school contexts, as Bowe and Ball

(1992) assert, and has led to a more challenging problem (Ota, 2000, p. 53) to be handled in ITE in Japan, such as finding suitable schools and supervising

teachers for school-based training.

The following description elaborates a typical process of school-based

training in Japan. It is usually student teachers who choose which school to go to for their teaching practice. In most cases, they return to a school at

which they were previously educated although this may result in limiting a

range of experiences that student teachers can experience. Prior to the teaching practice, student teachers are provided with a series of

pre-teaching-practice induction sessions at HEIs for asking questions and

17 _{There was no national-level information available on this issue. For the specific}

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sharing concerns. Very often, experienced teachers in the local community or teachers who are graduates of the programmes are invited to share their

expertise and experiences. During the teaching practice, each student teacher is assigned a supervising teacher who can coach subject instruction

as well as overall classroom management. Student teachers are required to keep logs in Japanese in which they keep a record of what they do each day

(e.g. observing teachers and peers across subjects, preparing for lessons, reflecting on teaching classes, supervising students, homeroom activities18

and club activities, getting feedback from peers and supervising teachers). Note that the nature of teaching logs during the teaching practice, as opposed

to reflective journals, will be further elaborated in Chapter 3 (see section 3.5.8). Student teachers receive written feedback from their supervising

teachers at the end of each day. A tutor from an HEI normally pays a visit during a teaching practice, observes his or her kenkyu jugyou (final

demonstration lesson) and has a meeting with a student teacher and a supervising teacher afterward for feedback. If a student teacher is from a

remote town, however, nobody from the HEI may go to observe his or her lesson. After the teaching practice, a post-teaching-practice session is

provided by the HEI, in which student teachers share with cohort students their experiences and reflect on their own teaching practices. An assessment

of the teaching practice is first provided by supervising teachers and HEI teacher educators finalise the grades based on the supervising teachers’

assessment. There is usually no discussion between a supervising teacher

18 _{According to Ito (2011), homeroom activities include daily class meetings, school}

events like sports days or school festivals where students work together on art or drama projects, serving and eating lunch together, and daily classroom cleaning.

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and an HEI teacher educator, either over student teachers’ professional

development or on finalising their grades. This lack of partnership between

schools and HEIs, along with fewer established expectations for supervising teachers’ roles in school-based training, are other challenges that must be

taken into account in a Japanese context so as to improve ITE.

Another challenge, in addition to the length of the teaching practice and a

lack of partnership systems between schools and HEIs, is the wide range of school experiences that each student teacher undergoes. Although the typical

process of the teaching practice is as described above, each school has a different context in terms of school characteristics and students; consequently,

student teachers often go through various experiences during the teaching practice. For instance, schools may ask student teachers to teach a number

of different grades. Student teachers may be asked to teach only the first grade, while other student teachers may have to teach all of the grades, from

the first to the third. Furthermore, the number of classes to teach in two to four weeks varies considerably, ranging from four or five, to more than 30 in total.

Some may be asked to team teach with ALTs in English, while others may have to teach solely in their mother tongue, Japanese. The great variability in student teachers’ experiences with school-based training may result in

difficulty with respect to standardising student teachers’ final assessment. How the variability of student teachers’ experiences influences the quality of

their experiences should be questioned as well.

As we can see, school-based training in Japan currently faces many

problems. The role of school and supervising teachers are not yet clearly defined; student teachers do not have a long enough time to be exposed to

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classroom practices to test their theories received at HEIs. During the teaching practice, not much partnership between HEIs and schools is exercised. Lastly but not the least importantly, student teachers’ experiences

during the teaching practice tend to vary vastly, although how the variability of

their experiences influence the quality of their expertise development has not yet been fully investigated.