Key words: teacher development in EFL in the Asian context, the classroom is like a microcosm,

Abstract

This paper investigates teacher development in EFL in the Asian context, specifically referring to the Thai and Japanese contexts at the tertiary level. It argues that teacher development for native speaker teachers of English would benefit from gaining local knowledge of the norms of classroom behavior and a background to the history of EFL in that country. This goes beyond finding appropriate methodologies for the local context, taking the learning process into the spheres of sociology, economics, politics and religion. As examples of such teacher development, it proposes a teacher development (TD) model for the Thai setting which explores the relationships between the classroom, society and religion. It also puts forward a similar, tabulated model for TD in Japan in which the history of EFL is traced to various social and political events. The paper concludes that there is a need for foreign lecturers to raise their awareness of influences upon the learner and the educational system in which the classroom is framed, and that this process needs to consider local, non-Anglo-centric concepts to enhance teacher development.

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1. Introduction
This paper considers teacher development in tertiary EFL settings in Thailand and Japan. Whilst Thailand is often stereotypically considered to be less developed educationally and economically than the west, it is argued that teacher development (TD) into learner behaviour and attitudes towards English language study are essential for the expatriate teaching community to be effective teachers in the Thai context. A model for such TD linking classroom behaviour and attitudes is proposed to bridge the gap between western-learned educational knowledge and the local Thai classroom. This is an example, in essence, of the less 'developed' Thai cultural context being used as an important means to develop teachers from so-called more 'developed' countries.

The paper then turns to another Asian setting, that of Japan, clearly viewed as an advanced, more developed country both economically and educationally. Without taking a comparative stance between Thailand and Japan, another TD model is put forward, one which is intended as providing the means to discuss the historical links between the history of EFL and social, economic and political events potentially influencing the trends in English language education in Japan. Finally, the conclusions attempt to synthesize the rationale for taking such a stance towards TD of native speaker teachers of English in these two diverse settings.

2. Teacher development in the Thai context
Looking firstly at the Thai context, I approach the TD of native speaker teachers of English working in the country by proposing an interactive model of tables which embrace educational, social and religious characteristics. The main religion of Thailand, Theravada Buddhism, can be seen as a belief system playing an important role in influencing everyday Thai social behavior and values. It is then natural to presuppose that the wider social and religious context around an educational establishment somehow permeates the fabric of its schools, colleges and universities. From this perspective, the classroom is like a microcosm or "sub-system of the country to which it belongs", reflecting its values, religious beliefs and economic realities (Buripakdi and Mahakhan, 1980, p. 259). This porous nature to classroom walls may or may not be conscious to every Thai in terms of what particular aspects of Theravada Buddhism influence their social and learning behavior, however, it is essential for expatriate teaching staff to themselves become aware that the learning environment cannot be isolated from all those potential influences. This awareness-raising among teachers is essential in enabling them to overcome cultural misunderstandings and gain a deeper understanding of Thai attitudes to the learning process (Brown, 2004; Adamson, 2003). Unfortunately, TD in the Thai context rarely entails such indirect study, concentrating rather on methodological and linguistic advancement. This is not to downplay the importance of such forms of TD. Indeed finding appropriate methodologies to suit local needs (Holliday, 1994) is an emerging and valuable conceptual force in the region.

So what typifies the Thai learner to inform a TD program what needs to be learned? Literature on the nature of Thai students in classroom situations often refers to the previously explained concept of "krengjai" (Holmes and Tangtongtavy, 1995) whereby Thais are reluctant to express direct feedback to their seniors. Consequently, a Thai student may not be willing to ask questions directly to the teacher in the classroom for fear of challenging face and causing offence. Ballard (1996) too states that a mirroring of traditional Buddhist values of deference to authority figures can occur in classroom settings. Another concept acting as a potential explanation for confusion is that of "sam ru am" (Holmes and Tangtongtavy, 1995, p. 56) which in Thai Buddhism emphasises the ability to show restraint and composure in stressful situations. This may create the impression of passiveness in classroom discussions. As Buripakdi and Mahakhan (1980, p.269) remind us, there is seemingly a lack of "critical questioning" in the Thai educational system leading foreigners to conclude that the Thai student is unable to think critically, can only be "reproductive" (Ballard 1996) in learning and is, therefore, unprepared for the western lecturers' demands for critical thinking. Biggs (1994) summarises this mismatch of teaching and learning strategies and styles by warning of the wholesale import of western methodologies and assumptions about learner beliefs and attitudes into Asian settings.

In light of these difficulties, TD is necessary to, at least, inform the foreign lecturer of forthcoming silences and possible discontent among students. To counter this, research into Thai learner strategies and attitudes (Adamson, 2004; 2003) proposes workshops among the expatriate teachers and Thai administrative staff with a series of tables utilising three foci: common classroom behaviour and attitudes, social behaviour, and aspects of Theravada Buddhism. Of some importance in this collection of themes is the use of some key Thai expressions, perhaps difficult at first for non-Thai speakers. The rationale for this is that interpretations of Thai behaviour should, if possible, be made with reference to Thai cultural terms themselves (Mulder, 1996). This concurs with Wierzbicka's (1991) rejection of "monolingual universals or static global comparisons". Generic terms such as "shyness" or "reticence" are a vague means to use in assessments and are defined by the assessor according to their own socio-cultural norms. Table 1 illustrates these foci in no particular order or ranking. The criteria are taken from readings in the three fields (Mulder, 1996; Morris, 1994; Marek, 1994; Davidson, 1992; Cush, 1993; Holmes and Tangtongtavy, 1995). The choice is admittedly subjective and there may be more potential influences upon classroom behaviour. The renegotiation of such items, though, would form the basis of healthy discussion among teachers and administrative staff and could easily be added.

Table 1: Three aspects of religion, social behaviour and learner behaviour

Theravada Buddhist aspects

Thai social behavioural aspects

Thai learners' behavioural aspects

Karma	Success/failure,	Goal-oriented
	ambition & motivation	Novelty
The Self	sanuk	Face
Compassion	sabaaj	Large group classes
Detachment	Individualism	Plagiarism
Wisdom	The Group	Book-oriented
Self-reliance	Pragmatism/utilitarianism	Rote-learning
Respect for	Thinking	Lack of critical analysis
monkhood	Authority	Teacher-dependent
	Responsibility	Teachers' pastoral care

The objective is to discuss how inter-connected these three foci are, how they inter-play with each other. There is no set answer as the outcome is the process of discussion itself. Firstly, it is proposed that the TD participants focus on the aspects of Theravada Buddhism and then attempt to trace, connect, and relate to their influences on social behaviour and then, in turn, learner behaviour. An example of this is shown in Table 2 from workshops conducted in a Thai college:

Table 2: Potential influences from Theravada Buddhism to learner behaviour

Theravada Buddhism aspects	Thai social behavioural aspects	Thai learners' behavioural aspects
Karma	Success/failure, ambition & motivation	Goal-oriented
	sanuk	novelty
	sabaaj	large group classes, lack of critical analysis
	Pragmatism/utilitarianism	Goal-oriented, lack of critical analysis
	Authority	Book-oriented, rote-learning, teacher-dependent & teachers' pastoral care

As can be seen, karma was thought to be related to various social factors from people's attitudes towards success and failure, ambition and motivation. These were then inter-linked with goal-orientation in the classroom. By simply asking participants to conceive of a relationship between Buddhist traits and classroom behaviour, the exercise becomes too difficult. This is where the intermediary stage of social aspects of behaviour plays an important role for participants since it appears to provide a bridge between the classroom and Buddhism, acting perhaps as a conduit.

The next stage in the TD process is to reverse the analysis by taking learner behaviour as the focus and then trying to retrace it back through social to Buddhist aspects. This is done to remind the participants of the primary objective of the exercise, that is, to explain and explore the reasons for classroom-based misunderstandings, not just to say with discrimination 'it's because they are lazy', or 'they just don't know how to study' which were common complaints among expatriate staff in my experience. Table 3 illustrates this process with the focus on a lack of critical analysis.

Table 3: Potential influences for learner behaviour from Theravada Buddhism

Thai learners' behavioural aspects	Thai social behavioural aspects	Theravada Buddhism aspects
Lack of critical analysis	sabaaj, pragmatism/utilitarianism and thinking	Karma, detachment, compassion and wisdom

The exercise itself, though, perhaps has the weakness of not being able to define the relative degree in which Buddhism or a social characteristic is related to learner behaviour, since, as can be seen in Tables 2 and 3, there may be connections with a variety of aspects. Again, this may form the basis of extra discussion, which is in itself a form of TD. As Buddhist teachings themselves call for verification among religious students (Marek, 1994, and Gurugé, 1977), in the same way, these tables need to be probed, doubted and perhaps even agreed with. They are fundamentally formed by the workshop participants themselves and the resultant discussion in that process is a cathartic one which challenges teachers to explain, in some cases, their prejudice towards Thai students.

What has been described in this section is a proposal for TD in the Thai context. It is a negotiated transfer of local knowledge and serves as an example of what is missing in teacher preparation programmes for EFL teachers coming to Thailand, or even those who have already been present in the country for years working with frustration and even discrimination towards their students. It is not expected that every Certificate, Diploma or Master training programme in EFL include this, yet it does show clearly the need for the concept of "front-loading" (Freeman, 2002) to be recognised as a common cultural limitation on teacher preparation programmes. It is a proposal for deeper reflection about local context (Brown, 2004) which TD in the Thai context needs to integrate in some manner in the development of expatriate staff.

3. Teacher development in the Japanese context
I turn now to a different Asian context, that of Japan, in a similar educational setting, that of college-level EFL. Instead of comparing the Thai and Japanese situation regarding TD for native speakers teachers of English, I would like to focus on another possible TD model which can be used for EFL teachers. Much can still be said about the necessity for expatriate teaching staff to adapt their methodologies to local student needs and, like the Thai TD model proposed, for them to understand the wider social context which influences classroom behaviour. The Thai example of teachers from the 'developed' west learning from their 'less developed' Thai counterparts is an appealing concept, a re-examination of what constitutes appropriate educational knowledge.

The Japanese case is perhaps more complex, however, since religion appears to play a less overt influence on daily behavioral norms. Sensitizing foreign teachers to local educational norms in the more 'developed' Japanese case requires a slightly different perspective of what criteria to use in tabulated form. For this purpose, Fujimoto-Adamson (2005), in an adaptation of work by Imura (2003), proposes models which require teachers, both foreign and perhaps even together with local staff (as in the Thai models), to examine and discuss the influence of social, political and economic events upon EFL history in Japan. These events are both national and international in nature and, again as in the Thai TD proposal, some concepts are in Japanese. An example of an adapted model can be seen in Table 4 below:

Table 4. The First Stage of English Education in the Showa Era (Imura, 2003: 289, translated and adapted by Fujimoto-Adamson)

Year	Events related to English Education	Social, political and economic events
1926	Starting of 'Primary English Program' by Kataoka on radio	Rise of the military right wing and nihonjinron theory
1927	Fujimura, 'Urgent, abolition of English Education'	The Manchurian
1931		Incident and assassination of the Japanese P.M.
1933	First reduction of English lessons at schools
1936		Withdrawal from
1937	Palmer went back to U.K.	the League of
1938		Nations
1940	Fujimura, 'Abolition of English Lessons in Junior High Schools'	Alignment with the Axis
1941	English words start to disappear from baseball (yakyu).	Japanese dress only encouraged
1942	Dismissal of U.K. and U.S. lecturers in all Japanese universities	The Pacific War

Other tables have been formulated for eras from the opening up of Japan in the nineteenth century to the present day. It is proposed that each era, based on the rule of an Emperor, is used as a separate TD session since discussions can become quite extensive. Viewing Table 4, this important period in time shows the decline in popularity of English from the late 1920s to the start of the Pacific War in 1942 and aligns it with the growth of military-led fascism. In many cases, the educational event may be directly correlated with political movements on the right. There are also social trends, for example, the encouragement of Japanese dress only for men and women which mirrored the increasing anti-western stance propagated by the right-wing governments of the late 1930s. Interestingly, in terms of EFL educational trends taking place, English words were increasingly removed from schools, textbooks, and even baseball terminology.

Historical perspectives appear to have some degree of influence over the various trends of English popularity and changes in government policies towards EFL. Again, as in the Thai models, this lack of degree of influence is not defined. Despite this shortcoming in the models, the basic fact remains that awareness of the interplay between educational events and the wider social, economic and political fields is limited among foreign EFL teachers in Japan. This often leads to misconceptions about why trends are taking place or government policies made. Such misconceptions need a historical perspective to enlighten the teacher, to make them see how English has experienced a number of booms and subsequent political and philosophically-fuelled backlashes. For the EFL teacher at the tertiary level, awareness of such issues translates into an understanding of why recruitment is becoming more difficult, why the curriculum is gradually changed methodologically and, in turn, why students in classrooms themselves have varying degrees of motivation towards English over time.

As an example of this inter-play which is not fully understood by teachers recently arrived to my own teaching context, the 1998 Winter Olympics which took place in the same prefecture ignited an English boom in both the private and public sectors, yet was followed by financial difficulties resulting from overspending on that event. Such economic factors then induced a tightening of local government funding into education, and consequently a reduction in college budgets previously used to finance the recruitment of English staff and resources. Similar to the Thai case, the classroom needs to be viewed as a microcosm of the society around it, whether the teacher is conducive to such indirect perspectives on EFL or not. TD focusing on issues as far away from English teaching as politics, sports and philosophical trends, as in the pre-war nihonjinron movement stipulating the uniqueness of the Japanese (Buruma, 2003), can fill the awareness gap.

4. Conclusions
This paper has taken the stance that transfer of knowledge from the local context to foreign EFL teachers is an essential part of their long-term TD. The Thai context necessitates the supplementation to TD programs at the tertiary level of religious and social influences upon learner behaviour, whilst TD in the Japanese context requires economic, social and political (perhaps even philosophical) perspectives to be related to EFL educational trends and policies. Both, I believe, are, in the first instance, examples of how TD in the Asian context should go beyond methodological awareness-raising. In the second instance, they serve as valuable reminders of how foreign English language teachers can learn from both less developed and relatively more developed educational contexts. Perhaps the point here is that TD is an issue not directly related to whether the local context is an economically less or more developed one, but that the teacher is conducive to taking part in development sessions which are a step beyond those intended as appropriating their array of methodologies to the local setting. There must exist a willingness to think and debate issues which are perhaps beyond their original training in linguistics. As Ferguson and Donno (2003) indicate, western-based ELT training programs require the strengthening of the post-qualification foreign appointment by a bridge between their recently acquired methodological knowledge and awareness of the local context in which they are to apply this knowledge. It is exactly for that purpose that these exploratory models of TD have been devised.

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