beliefs about teaching approaches or activities when considered in a general manner, they may have weak confidence about putting them into action. This may be due to teachers assessing the influence of contextual factors (e.g. school setting, social support) and their personal ability (e.g. teaching skill, L2 knowledge) when assessing their confidence for implementation, rather than simply their beliefs about the value of the approach.
1.1.4 Teacher ‘confidence’
As greater attention has been turned to teaching via the L2, researchers within and beyond Japan (e.g. Butler, 2011; Glasgow, 2014; Prapaisit de Segovia & Hardison, 2008; Zein, 2017) have discussed a lack of ‘confidence’ towards teaching in English and the implementation of CLT. Others have discussed how L2 teacher ‘confidence’ can be developed as part of in-service training programmes, suggesting that teacher confidence directly influences teaching behaviour (e.g. Burns, 2017; Freeman, 2017; Freeman et al., 2015).
However, although research has indicated a link between confidence and teaching practice, few studies have considered the relationship within a theoretical framework of beliefs and practices. For example, a number of studies have discussed a lack of ‘confidence’ in teachers (e.g. Prapaisit de Segovia & Hardison, 2008; Slaouti & Barton, 2007; Zein, 2017), or examined factors that appear to influence confidence (e.g. Butler, 2011; Glasgow, 2014; Kurihara & Samimy, 2007; Nagamine, 2007), without discussing or defining what is meant by teacher confidence. Thus, while it seemed that ‘teacher confidence’ is an important construct that may influence teaching behaviour – particularly with respect to the implementation of L2 medium instruction – it also seemed clear that a deeper exploration of these beliefs was necessary. This represented the starting point for the research reported in this book, which began with the purpose to examine Japanese high school English teachers’ ‘confidence’ for teaching English, in response to calls for further examination of Japanese teacher self-beliefs against the backdrop of the 2013 Course of Study curriculum guidelines (Glasgow, 2014; Nishino, 2012).
1.2 Why Study Teacher Efficacy?
Confidence is a general term that refers to the certainty of a belief (Cramer et al., 2009: 322), not what the belief is about (Bandura, 1997). Furthermore, perceptions of self-confidence reflect beliefs about oneself, rather than beliefs towards the achievement of a task or outcome (Schunk, 1991). Thus, a language teacher with strong ‘self-confidence’ may believe that they are a competent teacher, but may have little confidence towards implementing English medium instruction in their classroom. As a result, such a belief may not predict their behaviour, as the specific teaching task and context are not necessarily represented by the self-belief.
1.2.1 Teacher efficacy is a type of task-focused confidence
Teacher efficacy, on the other hand, can be considered as the confidence (i.e. perception of certainty) that teachers have in their ability to carry out tasks in the pursuit of teaching outcomes. Teacher efficacy is type of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977, 1986, 1997), a self-belief construct derived from the field of psychology focused on the cognitive perceptions of individuals to organising and executing the ‘courses of action required to produce given attainments’ (Bandura, 1997: 3). As Wyatt (2018a) has noted, one value of teacher efficacy is its task and context specificity. Language teachers may feel stronger or weaker confidence towards different tasks or areas of professional practice. For example, English medium instruction policies may require teachers to make radical changes to some of their behaviours. By investigating their efficacy towards different tasks (e.g. giving instructions, correcting student work) or dimensions (e.g. towards classroom management, instructional strategies), research can highlight specific areas of practice where efficacy is strong or weak. Such findings not only contribute to knowledge in the field, but may also be vital for driving development efforts; by identifying areas where teacher efficacy is weak, teacher education programmes can target specific tasks or domains of activity.
1.2.2 Teacher efficacy beliefs and teacher behaviour
Furthermore, efficacy beliefs have generally been shown to be a stronger predictor of behaviour in comparison to other self-belief constructs (e.g. see Pajares & Kranzler, 1995; Pajares & Miller, 1994; Thompson et al., 2019). As a result, teacher efficacy research may help bridge the mismatches identified between teacher self-beliefs and practices. There is significant evidence that teacher efficacy beliefs mediate teacher action, effort and also student achievement. As discussed further in Chapters 2 and 3, research from the wider field of education has shown that teacher efficacy beliefs are associated with greater persistence (Enochs et al., 1995; Mulholland & Wallace, 2001; Woolfolk Hoy & Davis, 2006), openness to innovation and change (Ghaith & Yaghi, 1997; Guskey, 1988; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2007) and higher student achievement (Bolshakova et al., 2011; Chang, 2015; Goddard et al., 2000).
Despite such findings, LTE is a relatively underdeveloped area of research (Mercer & Kostoulas, 2018). Although few studies have investigated the link between LTE and teaching practice, two studies have found LTE beliefs to mediate (Nishino, 2012) and moderate (Choi & Lee, 2016) the influence of other self-perceptions and skills on language teaching behaviour. In an important study of teacher beliefs and reported behaviour carried out in Japan, Nishino (2009, 2012) found that positive beliefs about CLT had no direct influence on classroom practices, but that these beliefs did indirectly affect classroom practices via teacher efficacy beliefs towards CLT. Furthermore, the study showed interrelationships between contextual (e.g. perceptions of student ability) and personal (e.g. perceived L2 ability) factors. As a result, the construct of teacher efficacy may be useful for helping to connect teacher beliefs with their teaching behaviour and other variables.
1.2.3 Teacher efficacy beliefs operate within a theoretical framework
As a belief construct, self-efficacy developed from a desire to understand and influence behavioural change (see Bandura, 1977), and is located within a theoretical system that recognises the interactions between behaviour, context and other self-beliefs (Bandura, 1986, 1997, 2012). As a result, the relative impact of different personal and contextual variables can be examined on these beliefs. By investigating the relationship between such factors on efficacy beliefs and teacher behaviour, knowledge can be used to inform teacher development efforts.
As discussed further in Chapter 2, self-efficacy is a key component of Bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory (SCT), a psychological theory of human agency and learning which views individuals’ self-beliefs about their capabilities as crucial for exercising control of their lives. Efficacy beliefs not only influence motivation, effort and action, but can also be strengthened and developed based on attributions from experience, feedback and affective responses (Bandura, 1997; Pajares, 1996; Usher & Pajares, 2009). These attributions inform efficacy assessment, as individuals consider the skills and capability to manage task conditions that they perceive to be available to them (Bandura, 1997; Gist & Mitchell, 1992). Simply put, individuals who perceive themselves to have sufficient skills will be more likely to have stronger confidence towards task success, and vice versa.
As a result, teacher efficacy beliefs are likely to be reliant on individuals perceiving themselves to have appropriate knowledge and skills for successful completion of a task. These may be personal abilities, such as L2 or pedagogic knowledge. Within the small body of LTE research, a common finding has been a positive relationship between L2 proficiency and the strength of teacher efficacy beliefs (Chacon, 2005; Choi & Lee, 2016; Eslami & Fatahi, 2008). For example, in the Nishino study (2009, 2012), teacher ‘L2 self-confidence’ was also found to influence CLT teacher efficacy beliefs, and therefore indirectly influence teacher practice. Such a relationship between perceived personal language ability, CLT teacher efficacy and teaching behaviour is intuitive. However, it may be an important factor, as teacher L2 proficiency difficulties appear to contribute to the challenge of implementing CLT and English medium instruction, within and beyond Japan (e.g. see Baldauf et al., 2011; Butler, 2011; Hamid et al., 2013).
Successful task completion also involves negotiating contextual difficulties. Teachers may need specific strategies for dealing with the materials or equipment available for use. Language teachers, in particular, may work with highly motivated groups, or learners forced