Lesson study as an innovative way of narrowing the gap between pre-service education and research

Abstract

In Japan, lesson study is apparently the most common form of professional development. As such, it is widely used as a form of in-service training in Japan and, more recently, elsewhere (Lewis, 2000; Murata & Takahashi, 2002; Takahashi & Yoshida, 2004). In our presentation, we will show that it can also be an excellent way of renewing pre-service education in Europe. Indeed, according to us, LS represents an innovative way of narrowing the gap between theory and practice in pre-service education in Europe. Many European student-teachers have the feeling of there being too weak a connection between the two sides of their training: the part devoted, at the university, to academic contents including the results of education research and the part, in school, devoted to professional preparation. Following several authors (Runesson, 2015, Martin & Clerc, 2015), we think the cyclic structure, which characterizes LS, is prone to improving the link between theory and practice and to make student-teachers aware of the benefits of articulating the different components of their training. As Cornu states it (2015, p. 294), “theory obtains a meaning when confronted by concrete real situations; theory helps preparing and managing specific situations. And concrete situations help with understanding and applying theoretical knowledge, and give input for further theoretical learning”. This is in that context that we decided to get involved into a collaborative research project initiated by our institutions, the High Pedagogical School (HEP) of the Vaud Canton in Lausanne (Switzerland) and the High School of Education (ESPE) in Rennes, (France). For this project named PEERS (Student and Researcher Social Networks Projects), the LS team was composed of four student teachers and two trainers/researchers from each institution. This PEERS project represents an innovative use of LS as the three research lessons were implemented in different cultural, learning and training contexts (two in France and one in Switzerland). The LS conducted by the team focuses on English as a Second Language (ESL) and, more particularly, on a feedback activity implemented after a pairwork activity. The aim of this feedback activity is to develop students’ metacognitive and metalinguistic abilities as, in the Second Language Acquisition literature (Lam & Wong, 2000; Naughton, 2006; Pintrich, 2002), metacognitive strategies have been reported to play an important role on the success of second language learning. Yet, according to our observations (Gruson, 2006), very little time is devoted to such activities in primary and at the beginning of secondary education. Finally, the originality of this project also lies in the fact the LS was conducted on English as a Second Language (ESL) when, according to Kambaru (2015), it’s a subject matter with limited publication in the LS literature. In our presentation, we will briefly describe the evolution of the feedback activities implemented during of three research lessons, which demonstrates how the student-teachers improved their teaching practices. More particularly, thanks to the analysis of the working sessions – which were all video recorded - conducted to prepare and analyze the lessons, we will show how the student-teachers collaboratively built specific didactic knowledge and enhanced their reflexive and cooperative abilities. Nowadays, the competences teachers have to master are numerous and complex. This calls for more collaborative work as “ in collaborative learning communities (Wenger, 2002), professionals discuss, construct and share ideas, generate and enact new strategies for their work environment and, above all, share insights about what they have learned. Such collaborative enquiry may result in a dynamic co-construction of knowledge (Tillema & van der Westhuizen, 2006).” (Romeu & al., 2015, p. 2). LS offers an interesting opportunity to develop collaborative enquiry.