Rise to the occasion: The trajectory of a novice Japanese teacher’s first online teaching through action research

Abstract

Foreign language teaching in distance education is administratively and pedagogically challenging; research on the perspectives of novice practitioners’ online teaching is also relatively scarce. This study explores how a novice Japanese teacher navigated and negotiated her professional development in a two-way virtual practitionership during her first online teaching. Data were collected from ongoing dialogue journals between the novice and her mentor followed by a semi-structured interview. Qualitative results indicate that pedagogically-sound and personalized digital tools can not only reduce the psychological distance between the teachers and students, but facilitate online teaching and learning via a performance-driven, standard-based curriculum. Informed by Action Research, the study reveals how both practitioners de/reconstructed their teacher identities and achieved professional empowerment through robust supervision and reciprocal teacher evaluation in a virtual environment. It further demonstrates the extent to which this evidence-driven and research-oriented approach can better address the genuine concerns of a foreign language program in distance education. Specifically, this context-responsive study indicates the improvement of online course delivery, teacher training and program sustainability in its own right.

Restorying a “Newbie” Teacher’s 3D Virtual Teaching Trajectory, Resilience, and Professional Development Through Action Research: A Narrative Case Study

“…Also noteworthy are Sabrina's ongoing critical reflections on her online teaching via blogging, co-constructed with me in mentor-mentee dialoguing (Sato & Chen, 2019). Virtual mentoring was established as I shadowed her SL teaching through watching the recorded video clips (virtual class observation), providing feedback on her lesson delivery (debriefing), and responding to her blog posts and inquiries (supervising).…”

“…In the same vein, the narrative genre resonates more with like-minded teachers who are interested in the stories of how other practitioners tackle practical issues and collaborate with researchers in AR (Burns, 2016). As Sabrina's mentor I was able to observe and shadow her momentto-moment SL teaching via videorecorded sessions and offer guided supervision throughout the two-way dialogue blogging (Sato & Chen, 2019). This ongoing and systematic approach closely reflected the nature of active engagement, critical reflection, context-responsive mentoring, and teacher-researcher collaboration in AR (Creswell, 2012).…”

“…This vibrant approach reflects the essence of AR: practitioners' evidence-based observations and critical reflections of the action plan outcomes before further informed decisions could be made (Burns, 2016). It also enables the mentor to provide ongoing, systematic supervision to address the mentee's inquiries and offer context-specific guidance to improve the lessons (Sato & Chen, 2019). Salient patterns emerging from the dialogue blogging are presented and discussed below.…”

“…(blog post, 17/12/2016) This finding suggests the feasibility of conducting teacher training and supervision (typically done in a face-to-face classroom setting) in a virtual environment. That is, newbie teachers can also benefit from ongoing supervision and context-responsive strategies provided by the mentors/ researchers in every step of the AR process through user-friendly digital platforms, such as blogs or Google Docs (Sato & Chen, 2019).…”

“…Action research, hence, provides a relevant framework for both practitioners and researchers to critically reflect on whether context-responsive action plans can bring changes to pressing issues impacting the involved participants while systematically documenting results to make further evidenced-based actions (Burns, 2015(Burns, , 2016. Specifically, investigating how novice teachers' apprenticeship and supervisors' mentorship play out in an online environment also deserves attention (Sato & Chen, 2019).…”