Narrative Inquiry into Collegiality in the Team-Taught Classes Conducted by an ALT and JTEs in a Japanese Junior High School

Abstract

The present study explores how an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) traced his teacher professional development through his narratives. Since 1987 when ALTs began to be hired for the first time in Japan, they have realized team-taught lessons with Japanese Teachers of English (JTE) in public junior and senior high schools. They take the roles of assistants in language classrooms in the schools. Their historical and cultural backgrounds vary: some have teaching experience in their native countries, and others start to teach as novice teachers. The points to be argued here are their constructive process of identity in the new context, and the trajectory of developing themselves as teachers. The first focus of this paper will be ALT’s construction of relationships with students through analysis of his first interview. Second, through the analysis, the second interview will reveal the fact that collegiality between ALT and JTE supported his teacher development. The qualitative analysis of an ALT’s oral narratives demonstrates his professional development, in which he experienced awareness of the collegiality fostered in his classroom and in his teaching life.