An Experienced EFL Teacher’s Perception of High-Stakes English Language Tests and Beliefs About Language Teaching: A Case Study

Abstract

Numerous studies of EFL teaching in Japan have found that high school and university entrance examinations have a washback effect on teachers’ pedagogical practices that can lead to inconsistencies between how they teach in practice and how they would like to teach. This study investigates the washback phenomenon and how teachers’ beliefs about pedagogy can be changed through an in-depth study of an experienced Japanese junior high school teacher of English. In particular, it uses data collected from the teacher’s reflective online blog and an interview conducted by the researcher. The study shows how this teacher’s beliefs and consequently teaching practices and his involvement in entrance examinations changed as he went through a course of professional development, which ultimately led to him rejecting a more established teaching method, namely grammar-translation [yakudoku], in favour of Communicative Language Teaching. In this way, the study provides insights into how teachers’ beliefs can change their pedagogy with positive results in the classroom.