Reflections from a Blended Professional Learning Network for Japanese Teachers of English

Over the years, the problematic issue of teacher isolationism has been well documented by researchers. In the Japanese public school system, many English as an international language (EIL) educators find teaching to be a lonely and frustrating endeavour as they have limited interactions with colleagues and face increasing job demands. This paper highlights a research project that aims to provide Japanese junior and senior high school EIL teachers with emotional and practical support. The pedagogical strategies and lesson ideas that are dis-cussed in this paper emerged during a series of interactive teacher-directed professional development (TDPD) workshops and informal online conversations that took place over an 18-month period during the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers utilized Chen and McCray’s (2012) Whole Teacher (WT) conceptual framework for in-service professional development to establish the online and face-to-face training sessions that were part of a blended community of practice. In our current post-COVID-19 world, the growing popularity of video conferencing platforms (e.g., Zoom) coupled with concerns about cost, time, and environmental issues means that virtual workshops will become increasingly commonplace (Zimmermann et al., 2021). Unfortunately, many virtual training sessions are beset with a host of technological and logistical problems. This paper also highlights five strategies that workshop leaders can utilize to facilitate successful interactive digital learning experiences for pre-service and in-service teachers.