Japanese Primary Teachers' Awareness of Interactive Teaching in the English Classroom: An Initial Survey

Abstract

This paper is one part of a KAKENHI (grand-in-aid research) study of English language classroom discourse at the primary and secondary levels of education in Japan. Following a survey of junior and senior high school teachers’awareness of interactive teaching (Hosokawa, 2016), this article reports the findings of a survey of Japanese primary teachers’ awareness of interactive teaching in English. The total sample involved 44 teachers. The data obtained provides insight into teachers’ backgrounds, teaching methodology, classroom activities, and actions adopted to implement interactive teaching in English language learning at the primary level. The study reveals a number of problems and challenges confronting primary English as schools seek to introduce interactive teaching. Additionally, the study also indicates the need and a direction for future research into the discourse of the primary English classroom.