2023 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Using ePortfolios to Investigate the Long-term Impacts of Language Teacher Education Programs
| Project/Area Number |
20K02845
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| Research Institution | Iwate University |
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Principal Investigator |
Hall James 岩手大学, 教育学部, 教授 (80361038)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
小川 春美 岩手大学, 教育学部, 准教授 (30598561)
宮川 洋一 岩手大学, 教育学部, 教授 (70552610)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2020-04-01 – 2025-03-31
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| Keywords | ePortfolios / critical incidents / reflective practice / teaching dilemmas / qualitative research / teacher education |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
In the teacher education program at Iwate University, pre-service teachers have used ePortfolios as a means of reflective practice. They write about their teaching principles and their pedagogical experiences, or critical incidents, that have influenced their principles.The goals of this research are 1) to qualitatively investigate how the English language teaching principles and instruction of elementary, junior high school, and senior high school teachers evolved from their pre-service stage into their teaching careers; 2) use these results to improve the reflective writing of student teachers.
In FY2023, our primary achievement was identifying the dilemmas pre-service teachers experienced doing language learning activities at schools through examining their critical incident writing. At primary school, the dilemmas included: how to mix fun and learning, how to encourage students to use the target words and phrases, the role of practice, and teachers using English. At junior high school, the dilemmas were related to hesitant students, how much grammar instruction to give, developing one's own English ability, and time management. These results were used to revise the reflective practice rubric to encourage student teachers to coherently articulate the essential details of their critical incidents and relate them to mainstream pedagogical concepts, a rationale for English education in Japan, or their image of a language teacher. Lastly, we produced research for teacher educators on how to help pre-service teachers cope with and understand their dilemmas.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
4: Progress in research has been delayed.
Reason
The pandemic impacted our plans to visit schools. It was not possible to visit schools to do research interviews until COVID restrictions were lifted in May, 2023. In FY2023, we started to visit the schools of in-service teachers. We have extended the project one more year to insure that we can gather the data of a sufficient number of teachers.
One positive thing that has come out of this delay is that we have been able to devote our energy to thoroughly analyzing 8 years of ePortfolio writing to thoroughly understand the impact of the initial teaching experience on pre-service teachers. In addition, we have been able to write up papers on how to supervise pre-service teachers' during their onsite teaching.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
FY 2024 will be dedicated to interviewing in-service teachers who completed the teacher education program to elucidate:
(1) the principles in-service teachers carry over from their teacher education program.
(2) new principles in-service teachers develop.
(3) the way in which teacher education programs can help aspiring teachers prepare for their career.
In addition to these plans, we will write up a paper describing dilemmas student-teachers experience conducing language learning activities in junior high school. Lastly, we will continue to produce research on ways to supervise and support pre-service teachers as they invariably encounter dilemmas in their initial teaching experience.
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| Causes of Carryover |
Much of the "miscellaneous expenses" were used to hire programmers but could not be counted as "Personnel Expenditure and Remuneration." For this reason there is an imbalance in these two budget categories.
For FY 2024, most of the budget will be for travel expenses in order to travel to schools and interview teachers.
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| Remarks |
Students ePortfolios, which are used for tools of reflection, are contained on the above sites.
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