Collaborative leadership in English language classrooms: engaging learners in leaderful classroom practices and strategies

The perception of the teacher as the authority in the classroom is deep-rooted in education yet this notion seems to contradict the fundamental values of democratic education. Schools grant teachers an abundance of authority and decision-making power. The pedagogical implications of how teachers use this power in the classroom are not well-understood. Especially in the Japanese context, a majority of English language classes in pre-tertiary institutions are taught through teacher-centered instruction with an emphasis on the grammar-translation method despite its impeditive effects on learners' communicative language development. Then, the question becomes why language teachers insist on teacher-centered instruction knowing that it is not conducive to developing students' communicative language competence. This study argues that teachers' leadership identity is influential in their pedagogical and class management decisions and thus, leadership practices in the classroom warrant further investigation to address students' struggle with active participation and communicative language competence in the Japanese educational settings. A series of semi-structured interviews were held with teachers from various Japanese universities. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used for the data analysis to reflect the participants' lived experiences and how they made sense of those experiences. The findings indicated that the pedagogical and class management strategies fostered through the participants' collaborative leadership identity proved to be effective in creating an open, democratic, and participatory classroom environment. This new learning environment helped nurture learning habits in students which appeared to be effective in developing their communicative language competence.