Understanding Japanese university English teachers' experiences as collaborative leaders

Abstract

In traditional Japanese educational settings, teachers are viewed as the ultimate authority in their classrooms. This top-down leadership perception results in teacher-controlled instruction in Japanese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) class settings. Previous studies suggest that teacher-controlled instruction is not conducive to fostering competent English speakers. Thus, this study attempts to investigate Japanese university EFL teachers' leadership identity and its impact on their pedagogical and classroom management strategies. The study was guided by the central research question: How do Japanese university EFL teachers who identify as collaborative leaders describe their teaching and classroom management strategies? In order to understand the lived experiences of the participants, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was employed. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews with eleven university professors in Japan. Since the study explores the influence of the participants' collaborative leadership identity on their pedagogical and classroom management strategies, the theoretical framework was determined to be the collaborative leadership theory, supported by the leadership as practice (LAP) theory. The findings suggest that teachers' leadership identity is influential in their pedagogical and classroom management strategies. In particular, the pedagogical and classroom management strategies fostered from teachers' collaborative leadership identity can be effective in nurturing new learning habits in students and creating an open, democratic, participatory, and collaborative teaching and learning environment.--Author's abstract