Teacher learning in communities of practice: Multiple case studies of assistant language teachers (ALTs) in Japan

This qualitative study uses narrative inquiry to investigate how non-Japanese Assistant Language Teachers (ALTs) construct their professional identities as English teachers in the ‘communities of practice’ (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). In the era of globalisation, the role of English language teachers has become more and more important in school education in countries like Japan, and the processes of teacher learning and their professional development need to be examined more closely. The present study focuses on teacher learning, addressing from both formal accounts of teacher education and non-formal teacher learning as social practice by looking at the realities of ALTs who teach English in public schools in Japan from preschool to senior high school level. The study investigates how ALTs learn to become effective teachers through their participation in the multiple communities of practice, such as the ones with the local teachers within the school, or the communities of ALTs themselves. Becoming effective in turn improves classroom learning and enhances English education, which can be understood as a fundamental teacher learning process. As teachers from outside the Japanese school contexts, the experience of ALTs has the potential to identify important implications for us to understand the multifaceted teacher learning in communities of practice. The research identifies key issues in the way ALTs learn from their experience of teaching in Japanese schools in partnership with the local Japanese teachers, an area which is still largely under-researched. Data from an online questionnaire survey, observations of ‘landscapes of practice’ (Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner, 2014) and their narratives of learning in interviews and reflective journals are analysed for ‘narrative knowledging’ (Barkhuizen, 2011). The analysis shows how ALTs participate in each CoP and learn through their relationships with other members of communities of practice. The study will contribute to our understanding of the realities of ALTs in Japan, and more generally, to give some insights into the process of language teachers’ identity formation and language teacher education