The foreign language teaching profession in Finnish and Japanese society: a sociocultural comparison

Abstract

The social basis of a teaching profession is created through behavioural and cultural patterns, specific artefacts, and their connection to certain institutional practices. The purpose of this study is to discover the conditions that structure the teaching profession in a cultural context and to find out what it is to be a foreign language (FL) teacher in Finland and Japan. Both countries have high educational equality but with contrasting patterns of management policies that are manifested in their teacher education curricula. Educational policy documents as well as teacher interviews and classroom observations were conducted in both countries and the findings compared by one Japanese and three Finnish researchers. The research themes are as follows: the FL teaching profession, teacher education paradigms, teachers’ professional development, and pedagogical orientation in teaching. The results show that the cultural context and its strong implications for the teaching profession are prominent in both cultures.

Keywords:

• Cultural context
• curriculum
• English teacher education
• professional development
• teaching

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their sincere appreciation for the foreign language teachers and professionals who took part in the research. We are also very grateful to the reviewers for their valuable comments and constructive criticism that helped us to revise this paper into its current form.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In western countries intercultural language learning and teaching are included in language education. The core task of a teacher is to awaken pupils’ curiosity and choose working methods that sensitise them to otherness and to one’s own culture. It follows that the point of departure is no more the discrete form or communicative function but FL teaching is shifting toward helping pupils develop their capacity to interpret and generate meaning that are appropriate within particular contexts (Nyman and Kaikkonen 2013).

2. Many private schools do not follow the national curriculum as rigorously as the MEXT expects.

3. In Japan, most students participate in one of a range of school clubs that occupy them until around 6 pm most weekdays (and also at weekends and often before school as well) as part of an effort to address juvenile delinquency.

4. In Japan, universities are divided into three categories by founder: national universities established by the Japanese government, public universities established by local public entities or public university corporations, and private universities established by educational corporations.

5. To convert the Japanese credits to ECTS you have to multiply the credits by two.