The Potential of CLIL for Team Teaching: A Case Study of a Japanese High School Nate Olson Sophia University nate@ttclil.com Abstract English language team teaching in Japanese schools has been the subject of considerable debate and criticism, much of it centered around the roles played by Assistant Language Teachers (ALTs) and Japanese teachers of English (JTEs) inside and outside the classroom. Without careful planning, they have tended to fall into the arbitrary roles of "human tape recorders" and "translators," respectively, resulting in a passive inertia not conducive to complementary relationships. As Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has been gaining popularity in Japan, this case study explored how CLIL may be used to revitalize the team-teaching situation. The research question focused on the teachers’ perceptions of their roles and the opportunities and constraints found therein over the course of their collaboration. Data were collected over eight lessons team- taught to a class of 35 third-year senior high school students. Reflective journals and email exchanges between teachers were used to qualitatively capture the collaborative process. The findings revealed that, although CLIL entailed a heavier workload, the mutual support and combined collaborative efforts of team teachers helped implement CLIL practices and redefine traditional team-teaching roles. These findings suggest new potentials for both team teaching and CLIL in Japan. Keywords: CLIL, team teaching, teacher collaboration, JTE, ALT 1. Introduction Team teaching between Japanese teachers of English (JTEs) and Assistant Language Teachers (ALTs) has long been a part of English education in Japan. More recently, Japan has seen growing interest in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). Some scholars and educators within Japan are now promoting CLIL as a means to reform conventional approaches to language teaching at all levels of the Japanese EFL context (Kavanagh, 2018). However, there have been relatively few reports on CLIL implementation outside of Japanese universities. This paper investigates team teaching as a vehicle to implement CLIL lessons at a Japanese senior high school. 2. Literature review 2.1 Obstacles in team teaching Despite its wide-spread adoption, team teaching in Japan is not without problems. The approach has been criticized by researchers and team teachers alike for its insufficient teacher training. Reed (2016) posits that, although collaboration in team teaching should be a top priority for ALTs and JTEs, there is little time for them to discuss lesson plans and evaluate lessons due to JTEs’ work duties outside of team- taught lessons. These responsibilities include the solo teaching of other lessons, managing club activities, talking to parents, and attending administrative meetings. Furthermore, despite the Course of Study’s policy line that ALTs are “supposed to work along with schoolteachers for team- teaching” (cited in Reed 2016, p. 84), how ALTs are to be integrated into classrooms and their responsibilities have never been satisfactorily described. This has led to confusion and conflict over teacher roles. In some cases, JTE may use ALTs as so-called“human tape recorders”(e.g., Yoshida et al., 2017). In other cases, JTEs may take a more passive role, acting as “interpreters” while ALTs become “entertainers” or “game-machines” in the classroom (e.g., Miyazato, 2009). 2.2 CLIL in Japan CLIL is an umbrella term used to describe the learning of a nonlanguage subject in which both language and subject have a joint role. What distinguishes it from other approaches is its dual focus on both content and language and the way it spreads across a learning continuum (Kavanagh, 2018). At the one end, “hard” CLIL follows its original European model where academic subjects such as geography or science are taught in the target language by non-native content teachers and give very little or no language support. At the other end, “soft” CLIL is taught by native or non-native language teachers with more focus on language learning (Ikeda, 2013). In the EFL environment of Japan, hard CLIL where subject lessons are taught by Japanese content teachers may be unrealistic for primary and secondary school levels due to insufficient English abilities, “at least until sufficient linguistic training, appropriate teaching materials and language assistants are available to compensate for limited teacher language skills” (Ikeda, 2013, p. 33). As CLIL continues to expand beyond its European roots and into Japan, soft CLIL where trained language teachers teach content in English is more realistic as it can be implemented relatively easily (Ikeda, 2013). 3. Research questions Examining the collaboration between a JTE and ALT to plan and deliver soft CLIL lessons at a senior high school, the research questions were: 1) What are the teachers’ roles in the collaboration? and 2) What opportunities and constraints exist in attempting to fulfill these roles? 4. Methodology An ethnographic case study approach was used wherein the researcher also fulfilled the role of the ALT. At the time of the study, the JTE was a 56-year-old male and an experienced CLIL teacher. The ALT was a 31-year- The JACET International Convention Proceedings: The JACET 60th Commemorative International Convention (Online, 2021) 67