Developing New Forms of Discourse for English Language Teaching

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.