Becoming an intercultural teacher of Japanese in Australia

This project explores what it means to be a native teacher of Japanese in an Australian classroom and how best to balance the need to adjust to Australian student expectations with the goal of helping these students become familiar with Japanese culture. Apart from improving my own performance as a teacher, this project will shed light on the cultural adjustments that overseas educated teachers experience in Australia, as well as on the related problem of familiarising Australian students with other cultures. To do this I am undertaking an analysis of my own personal background (an introspective personal history), recording some of my classes and to enable me to reflect on my teaching practices and to study my students' views on culture, interviewing students, and also interviewing other Japanese language teachers in order to compare their views with mine.