This study aims to clarify the qualities and abilities required of English teachers in Japanese elementary schools, establish evaluation criteria for these qualities, and develop a training program where English teachers can collaboratively learn both online and offline, accumulating and reflecting on their learning through portfolios. The need to improve existing quality and ability standards in light of the current state of foreign language education in Japanese elementary schools can be pointed out due to the increasing number of students with diverse linguistic backgrounds. This situation makes it important for teachers to have the capability to develop foreign language education that includes linguistic minorities and considers the mother tongue of target students, based on plurilingualism and multiculturalism. Furthermore, teachers are required to have the skills to utilize ICT in classes, and the demand for the ability to conduct remote lessons has rapidly expanded due to the COVID-19 pandemic, indicating that the required qualities and abilities and their levels are constantly changing. No study has yet been confirmed that re-examines the quality and ability standards, including the new capabilities required of elementary school foreign language teachers, and this research aims to pursue that.

Moreover, with the national budget allocation, various municipalities are enhancing foreign language education by assigning a certain number of specialized teachers to elementary schools. However, these teachers are often the only ones responsible for English education in their schools, and their numbers are limited (for example, in Nara Prefecture, there are 25 teachers for 39 municipalities), resulting in weak connections among specialized teachers, making it difficult for them to exchange information, conduct lesson studies, and improve their skills. With the introduction of subject-specific teachers for elementary school foreign language classes as indicated by the government, it is expected that enhancing training will become a major issue in the future. Additionally, ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers), who play an important role in lessons as native English speakers, have few opportunities to train collaboratively with Japanese teachers, and improving their understanding of the context of English education in Japan and their instructional skills based on that understanding is a challenge.

The training program examined in this study aims to form a professional learning community of elementary school English teachers, combining online and offline methods to deepen continuous and collaborative learning. This is an attempt to extract effective elements for constructing teacher training programs through program evaluation, observation of participant reactions, and measurement of changes, and propose a new training program.

In this presentation, I would like to focus particularly on online lesson studies within the training program, discussing the current state of the qualities and abilities of Japanese elementary school English teachers and the learning achieved through lesson studies.

Keywords: Elementary school English teachers, in-service teacher training, professional learning community.