FIRST JAPANESE LANGUAGE TEACHING EXPERIENCES IN A LANGUAGE CENTER FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF GRADUATES

Abstract

This article portrays the development of teachers of Japanese as a foreign language in an Extension Program at UNESP, designated as the Center for Languages and Teacher Development (CLDP). Within the scope of activities on the UNESP-Assis campus, we seek to understand how the graduates of the Portuguese/Japanese Language course who worked at CLDP during their graduation describe and reflect on their first teaching experiences in this Extension Program. We start from our belief that the CLDP is configured as a third space in the processes of initial teacher education. The investigation was methodologically based on the assumptions of qualitative research, more specifically, a case study. The data collected and analyzed (history of Japanese language classes instituted in the program from its opening in 2010 to 2018 and interviews with graduates) showed that for the graduates participating in the research, the CLDP is considered an essential initial teacher training space for the current configuration of the Literature course on the campus of Assis, as it allows these future teachers to work in an environment that materializes the real classroom.