Transcending Language Education in Japan - Critical Approaches and Innovations in Language Teacher Education Hardcover

About the Book

Explores how language educators in Japan wrestle with notions of identity, culture and community to promote fair teaching practices.

Book Synopsis

This edited volume explores how language educators and other stakeholders wrestle with notions of being, becoming and belonging in and beyond educational spaces in Japan. The volume contends for critical, transformational approaches to "language education" to be contextualized, sociohistorically sensitive and community-based. As such, the volume challenges critically-oriented stakeholders in language teacher education to revisit how they conceptualize and approach identity, experience and injustice manifesting in communities and language education (including theory, research, teacher education, policy, curriculum, materials development, teaching, assessment and hiring practices). The volume serves as a catalyst for readers to revisit what frames their own "seeing," and as a foundation to engage with their own contexts and communities.

Review Quotes

"Japanese society is likely to be changing and the publication of this book is timely. These chapters reveal that Japan is not a homogeneous and monolingual country rather, it is a heterogeneous and multilingual one. Readers will listen to the voices of invisible minorities who have struggled to secure their personal and/or professional identities in Japan and beyond." --Masahide Ishihara, University of the Rhyukyus, Japan

About the Author

Madoka Hammine is Associate Professor in the Faculty of International Studies at Meio University, Japan.

Nathanael Rudolph is Associate Professor of Sociolinguistics and Language Education at Kindai University, Japan.