Takeshi Kajigaya will be defending his PhD dissertation proposal at 2:00PM Pacific Time on Friday, July 22nd. The presentation will take place via Zoom:
All are welcome to attend.
Join Zoom Meeting (please arrive 5 minutes early)
Meeting ID: 652 7197 2381
Passcode: 642507
Supervisor: Dr. Ryuko Kubota
Committee Members: Steven Talmy (LLED), Deirdre Kelly (EDST)
Title: The “Teaching English in English” policy for junior high schools in Japan: Exploring its genesis, evolution and enactment
Abstract:
In Japan, a new version of the Course of Study, the national curriculum and instructional guideline for primary and secondary education, was enacted in 2021, in which the “Teaching English in English” (TEE) policy was introduced in the subject of “Foreign Language” for junior high schools (JHSs) to increase the opportunity for English communication. However, critics have questioned this policy, arguing that discouraging students’ L1 use is counterproductive and ideologically problematic. The policy has also been criticized for being allegedly developed by non-education experts without robust discussions. However, no studies have scrutinized the TEE policy’s development process and what discourses were deployed, endorsed or erased during policymaking. Additionally, JHS teachers’ enactment of the policy and whether the discourses in the policymaking stage were shared, resisted or absent at the school level have never been studied. As such, this dissertation will explore these neglected areas under two broad questions: 1) How was the TEE policy created? and 2) How is the TEE policy enacted?
Employing the “policy as text/discourse” approach and “policy enactment theory” as theoretical frameworks, this study will combine critical discourse analysis of relevant policy documents and interviews with policymakers, and an ethnographic case study at a public JHS in Japan. During the case study, I will foreground and complexify the notion of “context” in which the policy is enacted, which is often dismissed in language policy implementation studies in Japan.
This study is significant because it will 1) help hold the Japanese government accountable to the public by uncovering the dynamics behind the TEE policy for JHSs, 2) expose the behind-the-scenes processes of national-level policymaking—an area underexplored in the field of language policy and planning, and 3) provide a nuanced understanding of how/why the TEE policy is (not) enacted, contributing to narrowing a policy–practice gap.