Factors Influencing EFL Writing Instruction in Japan from a Teacher Education Perspective

This chapter presents the social context of English writing instruction in Japan and highlights several challenges faced in L2 writing teacher education in the country. Using contextually situated views of writing as the framework, EFL writing instruction is reviewed from three perspectives. First, because Japanese teachers of English generally have little training in English writing instruction, we review the literature of Japanese students’ English writing backgrounds and discuss how their secondary and tertiary education experiences shape their perceptions and future English writing pedagogy, and assess the impact of their Japanese writing experience on their instructional practices. Second, we focus on the local constraints of English writing instruction. A survey investigating L2 English writing teachers’ beliefs and practices in the Asia-Pacific region revealed the teachers in Japan perceived the biggest gap between the realities and their ideal views of teaching, suggesting the contextual constraints in Japan are possibly more problematic than in other countries. Last, we discuss the key challenges and directions of English writing teacher education. For example, how low student motivation for learning English writing and an emphasis on accuracy-oriented writing practice in Japanese classrooms persists at a time when the purposes of English writing have become more diverse and varied. These issues are connected to the need to foster more autonomous L2 writers in Japan through adopting current writing pedagogies such as peer feedback (process writing) as well as increasing the number of university writing centers, which are still absent in many Japanese universities.