Faculty of Education - Theses

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Subject: Study and teaching × Type: Masters Coursework thesis × Start date: 2000 × Author: Deering, Rod ×

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    Language teaching reform in Japan: implications for communicative teaching implementation and practice from foreign teacher perspectives
    Deering, Rod ( 2004)
    Debate continues over to what extent Japanese language education reform has made substantive progress in its attempt at moving away from traditional grammar-translation methodology, towards a more communicative approach. Using grounded theory, this thesis aims to explore communicative language teaching (CLT) implementation and practice in Japan from the perspectives of seven resident native speaker teachers of English. The study reveals that despite renewed commitments from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Monbukagakushou) towards integrating communicative practice into Japanese language education, foreign teachers generally remain skeptical that impediments between Monbukagakushou's stated aims and the reality of classroom practice, can be easily overcome. This study will investigate some of these impediments which includes: a) teachers', both native speakers and Japanese Teachers of English (JTEs), uncertainty about the actual nature of CLT, what it encompasses and how it can be adapted to Japanese learning proclivities, b) the failure of the curriculum to direct Japanese teachers' and students' attention away from preparing for discrete point examinations, towards a more integrated assessment model and c) the difficulty with which Japan's central and local bureaucratic institutions can maintain administrative consistency in developing stated educational aims into classroom reality.