Introduction and Preface: Embarking on the Journey of Reflective Practice

Because we are forced to....

A teacher's response to the question of why she and her colleagues attended the Ministry of Education's professional development seminars

This book narrates my exploration of reflective practice as a novice researcher studying seven (one participant in my pilot study and six in the main study) in-service high school teachers of English in Japan. At the time I embarked on the study in 2007, reflective practice, which is generally understood as a form of teacher development that takes place through close examination of one's own experiences and ideas in teaching, had received little attention in Japan. I planned to be as sensitive as possible to Japanese cultural conventions, while at the same time trying to avoid influencing the expression of the honne (real intent) of the participants and to distinguish reflection from the familiar Japanese practice of hansei (which is typically translated as negative reflection and is widely used in industry, education and other professional contexts).

In the event, my exploration of reflective practice turned out to be very different from what I had originally expected. Beyond cultural conventions, I learned the importance of simply being a sensitive researcher (Mann, 2011). Studying human activity, I learned, did not happen through being a detached researcher who 'objectively' observed the teachers' engagement in the study of reflective practice; rather, my interaction with the participants became an important factor in their reflective process. In addition, I found that cultural sensitivity meant considering local political and historical contexts, which are crucial to the introduction of any new approach.

My journey through the study of reflective practice has its origin in a specific sequence of distressing experiences in my professional life. In the spring semester of 2003, I found myself facing regular difficulty in my English language classes at the university in Tokyo, Japan, where I worked. I was often nervous and tense and unable to teach good lessons, and I did not feel comfortable interacting with my colleagues. I knew something was bothering me but I could not quite pinpoint what it was. One night, frustrated, I sat in front of a computer and started writing questions to myself in order to find out what was bothering me; after about 10 rounds of questions and answers, I began to see the cause of my anxiety: I was in the process of applying for a tenured position at the university and this was influencing my teaching and communication with my colleagues.

Identifying the cause of my stress did not solve all my problems at that time, but my tension was soothed by knowing that I had a legitimate reason to be nervous. I was amazed to find that a seemingly obvious cause of stress such as applying for promotion could be so hard to recognise, and, perhaps even more surprisingly, that the simple activity of asking myself questions could raise my own awareness so much. I did not know at that time that this self-inquiry was a well-established concept known as 'reflective practice'.

In the summer of 2003, a colleague and I were asked by our English language programme to lead compulsory one-day teacher training sessions for in-service public junior and senior high school teachers of English in Japan. These sessions were organised by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) under the action plan Japanese with English Abilities, launched in 2003 to foster the English abilities of Japanese nationals. My colleague (I will call her Hitomi) and I were asked to lead two sessions on the topic 'How to teach writing' to mixed groups of junior and senior high school teachers of English.

Simply put, the sessions were a total failure. The participants were reluctant to speak up and seemed unmotivated about being there. They were hesitant to engage in the activities that we had planned, and they were reluctant even to move their chairs into small groups to talk with other teachers. Even when they did talk, they did not want to speak in English. So, not surprisingly, the sessions did not achieve even half of what we had hoped to accomplish. That one day of 'training' remains among the most difficult and traumatic professional experiences that I have ever had.

After completing the sessions, Hitomi and I were both exhausted and, to be honest, surprised at our failure. Discussing the experience on the train that evening, we considered a number of questions: Why weren't the teachers motivated? Why didn't they seem interested in what we had to say? Why were the junior and senior high school teachers placed together for these sessions? Why did the education centre choose such a general topic – 'How to teach writing' – for these relatively diverse groups? Why were we, language teachers and not teacher educators, tapped to lead the sessions? (The education centres, located in each prefecture, are under the administration of MEXT.)

We first concluded that the education centre, and thus we, as the workshop leaders, had not been well prepared for the compulsory seminars, given that they were conducted as part of a new and unfamiliar scheme, namely the aforementioned action plan, Japanese with English Abilities. The education centre was under severe time constraints to design the curriculum and find trainers willing to hold sessions just five months after the plan was announced. This pressure, we thought, may have been one reason Hitomi and I, who were not teacher trainers, had been asked to lead the seminars.

Another reason for the failure of the sessions was probably our position as university-level instructors. Viewing English language instruction from the perspective of the university classroom made it difficult for us to create a rapport with teachers who worked in junior high and high schools. Our university may have made this rapport particularly unlikely, as it is unusually supportive of English language education. We were teaching in a programme where English was used as the sole medium of instruction and communication in the classroom. We were quite unfamiliar with the contexts in which these teachers worked, and with the different pedagogical roles assigned to them.

In Japan, junior high schools and high schools are typically considered to be stepping stones to the next higher tier, either in education or work;...