ABSTRACT
The links between policy discourse and educational practice are generally defined in academic literature as problematic. This chapter explores the complex relationship between policy and practice by focusing on recent MEXT policies promoting monolingualism – that is, teaching English only in English – in Japanese junior high schools (JHS). Two assumptions grounding the work in this chapter include the need for 1) greater theorization of teacher agency, and 2) greater understanding on the part of policy makers, school administrators and educators of issues related to curriculum (i.e., the underlying philosophy of language education) and syllabus (i.e., the range of pedagogical approaches available) (Cook, 2010). More specifically, this chapter explores teacher agency by looking at JHS English teachers’ choices of language in situ and what these choices reveal about the complex interaction between policy discourse and teacher agency.
