Exploring Japanese high school English teachers’ foreign language teacher efficacy beliefs

ABSTRACT

This study explored the foreign language teaching efficacy beliefs of Japanese high school English teachers. The study provides a teacher efficacy scale designed for the Japanese context, which could also be used or adapted for similar contexts in the wider East Asian area. Data were drawn from an online survey of 141 participants. Exploratory factor analysis identified five dimensions of latent teacher efficacy beliefs, including individual and collaborative dimensions, and some specific to the Japanese context, such as efficacy for helping students achieve entrance success. Findings also indicate that some dimensions of foreign language teaching efficacy, such as efficacy for using the L2, are generalizable to wider field.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher efficacy
• teacher beliefs
• teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL)
• factor analysis

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Associate Professor Karen Dooley and Dr Rebecca Spooner-Lane of the Faculty of Education at Queensland University of Technology for their supervisory contributions to the dissertation research reported in this article. We also express our thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gene Thompson

Gene Thompson is an Associate Professor of Language and Communication at the College of Business, Rikkyo University, Japan. He researches teacher and learner cognitions about language learning with a specific interest in self-efficacy for language learning and teaching.

Karen Woodman

Karen Woodman is the Director and Educational Consultant with the Second Language Learning Group. She has over 25 years of experience as a researcher, program coordinator and lecturer in universities in Canada, the USA and Australia the fields of TESOL, applied linguistics and teacher education.