An Attempt to Visualize the Career Formation Process of Novice Japanese Language Teachers

By Use of the Trajectory Equifinality Approach

Abstract

This study aims to visualize the career formation process of Japanese language teachers who left their previous jobs and took up a teaching position. Using a survey method based on the Trajectory Equifinality Approach, we targeted four teachers for visualizing the process from admission into the training course to the end of its second year. First, we prepared TEM diagrams of the four individually, by means of which life paths, obligatory passage points, bifurcation points, and environmental factors that support or hinder the path selection were examined. Next, these diagrams were integrated to find out their common paths and different paths depending on degree of similarity. This study indicates that at the end of the training course, the four were unhesitatingly following common paths to start working as Japanese language teachers, encouraged by assistance in finding employment and changes in personal sense of values. After that, however, their paths bifurcated due to differences in their situations among the schools where they were employed, which greatly affected environmental factors that support or hinder their path selection. Although the four were on diverse paths by the end of the second year, each of them followed a path towards a future career perspective as a Japanese language teacher.