Developing New Forms of Discourse for English Language Teaching Tamiko Kondo Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds York St John University, School of Education March, 2018 ii I confirm that this thesis is my original work and that I have given appropriate credit to the authors of the work I have referenced in it. This thesis is copyright protected and appropriate acknowledgement is needed for quotation from this work. © 2018 The University of Leeds and Tamiko Kondo iii Acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge the following without whom I could not have completed this study: I am most grateful to the research participants, four Japanese practising teachers, for their cooperation, insights and practices, which have always inspired me to reflect on myself and my practices. I am very proud to be one of their colleague teachers. I am also grateful to their head teachers for consenting willingly to my request for working with their employees; I am grateful to the local educational community members, practising teachers and the Board of Education officials, for participating in the workshop and the forum which I held on 20/12/2014 and 05/01/2016 respectively and giving me some critical but encouraging feedback. I am indebted to the Board of Education also for kindly accepting my three-year leave from work and giving me the opportunity to study in the UK; I am grateful to the academics at the Faculty of Education and Theology at York St John University for their valuable feedback at the validation meeting, which helped me reflect on my practices and get ready to give an account of this study in the public domain; I am grateful to my family members and my partner Hugo for their continual warm support throughout the process; Lastly, I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to my two supervisors. I am truly indebted to Associate Professor Rachel Wicaksono for helping me realise what being an applied linguist means, guiding me in critical applied linguistics and helping me extend my discussions on the ontologies of English. This has enabled me to incorporate a critical applied linguistic perspective into this study, a major contributing factor to its uniqueness. Finally, I am truly indebted to Professor Jean McNiff for patiently and warmly guiding me towards the completion of this study. Her encouraging and thoughtful support has inspired me to engage with the literature and theorise my practices, which has led my work to a doctoral level. Through working with her, I have repeatedly reflected on myself as a teaching professional and thought about how I can develop myself and my future practices, which has been the greatest asset to me during the period of my PhD study. iv Abstract This thesis is an account of how I have worked collaboratively with a group of practising Japanese teachers in order to propose a potentially new form of professional education for English language teachers in Japan. It tells the story of how we have learnt to challenge Japanese government policy on English language education and professional education for English language teachers through the process of our inquiry. It also tells of how I have learnt to find ways of developing my practice as a researcher – through working collaboratively in the teacher research group, developing myself as a PhD researcher, and becoming an independent researcher. The inquiry has led to my appreciation of the action research methodology, used for this study, grounded in collaboration, reflective practice and a values-oriented perspective. Our collaborative practice has led to our generating a potentially new understanding of the meaning of communicative competence for use in a Japanese context. This has prompted my recognition of what the improvement of teachers’ communicative competence might include, which has been further incorporated into a potentially new form of professional education I propose in this thesis: the new form is grounded in a person-centred dialogic approach, and is characterised by the following four dimensions of teacher professional learning: action, reflection, autonomy and collaboration. I hope that this thesis demonstrates that I have done my best to live my values ‘in practice’ and have shown my ‘commitments’ to the values ‘in action’ (McNiff, 2014, p.113). I also hope that the public presentation of the thesis may act as an invitation to policy-makers and those involved in English language education and to a public debate about the current educational context. Ultimately, I hope to influence education policy formation and implementation in Japan. v Table of Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................ iii Abstract .......................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................ v List of Tables ................................................................................................... x List of Figures ................................................................................................. xi List of Abbreviations ...................................................................................... xii Chapter 1 Introduction ......................................................................... 1 1.1 Outline of the thesis ....................................................................... 1 1.2 My current context ......................................................................... 5 1.3 What was my concern? ................................................................. 6 1.4 What did I hope to do? ................................................................... 9 1.5 How did I start this research? ........................................................ 9 1.6 What did I learn during the project? ............................................. 12 1.7 The structure of the thesis ........................................................... 14 1.8 Summary ..................................................................................... 17 Chapter 2 Why did these issues exist? ............................................ 19 2.1 Chapter preview ........................................................................... 19 2.2 Teaching and assessment of ‘communication abilities’ in English ............................................................................................ 20 2.2.1 Government policy regarding the teaching and assessment of ‘communication abilities’ in English ................................. 20 2.2.2 Local policy regarding the teaching and assessment of ‘communication abilities’ in English ..................................... 29 2.2.3 Dominant assumptions regarding the teaching and assessment of ‘communication abilities’ in English ............ 32 2.2.4 The role of English language in the Japanese context ... 35 2.3 Reviewing the current teacher education project ......................... 37 2.3.1 The British Council-led teacher education programmes for LEEPs in 2014 .................................................................... 40 2.3.2 LEEP-led teacher education programmes in 2015 ......... 45 2.3.3 Literature review on teacher professional learning ......... 51 2.3.4 My provisional perspective on teacher professional learning ............................................................................... 57 2.4 Summary ..................................................................................... 58 vi Chapter 3 Methodology ...................................................................... 60 3.1 Chapter preview ........................................................................... 60 3.2 Research questions ..................................................................... 63 3.3 Why action research? .................................................................. 64 3.3.1 Collaboration ................................................................... 67 3.3.2 Reflective practice ........................................................... 70 3.3.3 A values-oriented perspective ......................................... 73 3.4 How did I conduct this study? ...................................................... 78 3.4.1 Research ethics ............................................................... 78 3.4.2 Research timeline ............................................................ 79 3.4.3 Data collection and analyses ........................................... 81 3.4.3.1 Second-person data ............................................. 81 3.4.3.2 Third-person data ................................................. 86 3.5 Summary ..................................................................................... 90 Chapter 4 Investigating communicative competence ..................... 92 4.1 Chapter preview ........................................................................... 92 4.2 Our group’s perspective towards ‘communication abilities’ ......... 93 4.3 Theoretical frameworks of communicative competence .............. 97 4.4 Linking the six factors in Figure 4.1 to theory ............................ 102 4.4.1 Willingness .................................................................... 102 4.4.2 Empathy ........................................................................ 105 4.4.3 Openness .....................................................................