The "Critical" in Our Critical Friendship: Honest, Candor, and Respect

Abstract

The chapter focuses on how two non-Japanese Asian teachers who found an unexpected career in language education in Japan use critical friendship to reaffirm the teaching principles which they have shaped on their own in the past years. Such teaching principles stemmed from personal experiences since childhood, including events inside and outside of the classroom. These experiences include ups and downs that have turned into valuable self-reflections and ideas for the teachers to incorporate into their approaches toward education. Given that the teachers had similar career experiences, they also reflect on how a critical friendship that was built on understanding and cooperation has influenced the way they looked at their own teaching principles. Through their peer reflections, the two teachers build upon their teaching beliefs as well as their critical friendship moving forward. This study uses two methods to analyse the data. The first is individual self-reflection of the two teachers where they identify their teaching principles and their attitude towards those principles. Next, semi-structured in-depth interviews are used to discuss the two teachers’ critical friendship and other critical friendships that they may have had throughout their careers. The structure of the interviews include topics such as background, culture, gender, and identity which have influenced the teachers on adopting certain teaching principles and how they may have changed and/or evolved throughout their careers. It is hoped that this chapter will provide insights to teachers who would like to try new ways to reflect on their teaching principles and environment through guided self-reflection and partners beyond their institution.