Paper short abstract:

This study discusses how local Japanese language teachers and native Japanese speaker (NJS) assistants work together, what roles NJS assistants play, and how they collaborate with the Japanese language teachers to teach their classes at secondary schools in the state of 'A' in Australia.

Paper long abstract:

While many educators teaching Japanese language at secondary schools outside Japan, particularly in Asia are non-native Japanese speaker teachers, native Japanese speakers (NJS) more than often serve as assistants in class, which is regarded as team teaching (TT). Recently TT is gaining popularity as a way of teaching at secondary schools in some Asian countries. However, TT does not always work effectively, and some problems in such arrangement have been reported. In multilingual and multicultural Australia, where learning Japanese has been popular, NJS assistants have participated in Japanese classes since 1980's. NJS assistants used to be dispatched to Australia from Japan by Japanese government or private organizations, but they seem to be shifted to Asian countries such as Thailand and Indonesia. NJS assistants are hardly seen recently in most states in Australia. On the contrary, in the state of 'A' the Ministry of Education and secondary schools have been actively recruiting NJS assistants to teach Japanese there.

　　　This study examines how local Japanese language teachers and NJS assistants work together, what roles NJS assistants play, and how they collaborate with the Japanese language teachers to teach their classes at school. This study is based on the research conducted at 6 secondary schools where both Japanese language teachers and NJS assistants teach together in the state of 'A' in Australia.

　　　It discusses the required roles for assistants and the examples of collaborative teaching in Australia, comparing with the results of same surveys which the author conducted in South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia. In addition, this study discusses the matters associated with assistants in Japanese language education at secondary schools, which is at the same time closely related with the national education and diplomatic policies. The concept of National curriculum at the secondary school level in Australia includes plurilingualism and pluriculturalism. This study shows the current states of Japanese language education at secondary schools outside Japan and can contribute to Japanese language teacher training courses in Japan and will benefit in professional development in relevant countries where Japanese is taught.