The education landscape is in a constant state of flux, with technology endlessly evolving. As the popularity of social media has grown immensely in the past decade, it is not entirely surprising that more and more teachers have been relying on social media and participating in online teacher communities for professional learning purposes. Although an increasing number of studies investigating online teacher communities on various social media platforms have been conducted, to date, there is a dearth of studies specifically set in the context of Japan. The present study, which is part of a larger research project, aimed to understand how foreign language teachers in Japan are capitalising on technology-focused online teacher communities. Employing a mixed-methods research design, data were mainly collected through surveys and interviews: Firstly, the initial questionnaire was distributed to language teachers who were members of online teacher communities (n=181). To obtain a better understanding of the initial questionnaire responses, semi-structured interviews with 18 questionnaire respondents were then conducted. Several months after the interviews, a post-interview questionnaire was distributed to all the interviewees to ask additional questions which arose after all the interview data were analysed. The content analysis of the self-reported data suggest that language teachers were utilising online teacher communities for a multitude of different reasons—to obtain new ideas, ask questions related to technology and/or teaching, find emotional support, obtain a sense of belonging, and ameliorate their feeling of professional isolation. Overall, the findings seem to suggest that online teacher communities, which are free and available to anyone as long as they have access to the Internet, play an important role in supporting foreign language teachers in Japan, particularly those who have limited professional learning resources and collegial support at their workplace. 

The results were presented at several international conferences and internal seminars and published in an international peer-reviewed academic journal.