The 8th International Symposium on the Teacher Training in East Asia
Teacher training faculties and universities in East Asia hold an international
symposium once a year, with the location of the event rotating between
Japan, China and South Korea, through the International Consortium for
Universities of Education in East Asia. This year, the 8th International
Symposium on the Teacher Training in East Asia was held at Northeast Normal
University (Changchun, Jilin Province, China). This event was attended
by more than 150 visitors over the two-day period of September 25-26.
There were a number of attendees at this event from Tokyo Gakugei University. They included Yasuko Muramatsu (President), Takeshi Fujii (Executive Vice President), Professor Kensho Takeshi, Professor Hatsuo Mitsuishi, Professor Yasuyuki Iwata, Associate Professor Makoto Shimoda and Satoshi Akiho (Manager of the International Division), as well as three doctoral students.
There was a message from Akio Nagao (President of Osaka Kyoiku University)
as a representative of Japan in the opening greetings during the morning
on the first day about his hopes for the strengthening of friendly relations
between Japan, China and South Korea. In the keynote speech, Professor
Mitsuishi, representing Japan, gave a report titled “Professionalism of Teachers and the Study of Teaching.” There was a visit in the afternoon to the experimental section (Changchun
No. 151 High School) of the U-G-S Model (cooperation of universities, local
governments and schools) which is being promoted as an initiative for advanced
teaching practice by Northeast Normal University. A better understanding
of this initiative was obtained through this visit. A decision was made
in the general conference in the evening to hold the symposium next year
at Korea National University of Education. On the second day, there were
interim reports on international joint research and subcommittee meetings
(including a session for graduate students).
International joint research is divided into three groups with the theme
of “Quality Assurance in Teacher Education in East Asia” as the second
phase of the International Consortium for Universities of Education in
East Asia project with 50 members from 15 universities conducting research
in collaboration. Professor Iwata represented Group 1 (quality assurance
for training of regular teachers) and Group 3 (quality assurance for university
staff in charge of teacher training) to give a report titled “Issues on Quality Assurances of Pre-service Teacher Education and Development
of Teacher Educators.” Professor Yasuhiro Owaki of Osaka Kyoiku University represented Group 2 (quality assurance for training in education and leadership positions) to give a report titled “Quality Assurances of Education for School Leadership: Cognitive Framework and Issues.”
In a subcommittee, Professor Takeshi gave a presentation titled “Reform of the Course of Study in Japanese Music Education: From the Viewpoint of Traditional Japanese Music.” In the graduate student session, Natsumi Gunji, who is a doctoral student of this university, gave a presentation titled “Designing Learning Environments for Sex Education with Consideration of Students’ Cultural Traits.” Similarly, Midori Sunada gave a presentation titled “The Relationship between Learners’ English Proficiency and their Sentence Repetition Performance.” Both of these presentations were given in English. In the same session, Yuan Xiaoyu gave a report in Chinese titled “Situational Factors that Promote the Helping Behavior of Bystanders in Bullying.” These presentations and reports were then followed by lively debate.
The International Consortium for Universities of Education in East Asia promotes activities under the cooperation of 43 teacher training faculties and universities in East Asia centered on the six universities of this institution, Osaka Kyoiku University, Beijing Normal University, East China Normal University, Seoul National University of Education and Kongju National University with the Executive Office located in Tokyo Gakugei University. This consortium expects to further develop as an opportunity to conduct international joint research, student exchanges and exchanges of teaching staff in the future.
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