A Novice Japanese Teacher’s Identity Construction in Online Teaching Under COVID-19: Beliefs and Perceptions

The present study is mainly focused on a novice Japanese language teacher’s identity through online language teaching under the pandemic of COVID-19. Due to the high risks of public health in the U.S. society, all her Japanese classes have been migrated from in-person to live-online since March 2020. In an attempt to fill the research gap in terms of types of data and target languages, this qualitative research study presents the experiences of a female native speaker of Japanese as a novice teacher at a public university located in the U.S. Viewing identity as an entity rather than separated notions, the author conducts both interviews and class observations to explore the participant’s teaching beliefs and perceptions of online language teaching, as well as her identity construction and transition through this unusual period of time. The data collected from the interviews and class observations reveal three themes that are 1) the participant’s teaching beliefs on authenticity and communication in terms of language teaching, 2) her perceptions of pros and cons of teaching Japanese live-online, and 3) various strategies that she applies to successfully construct her professional identities and transit her identities between personal and professional. Additionally, a discussion about how the novice Japanese language teacher adjusts herself during the special time of the pandemic concludes the article.