The past decade has seen a robust increase in the amount of literature on the interrelationship between discourse and second language teacher education (e.g. Celce-Murcia & Olshtain, 2000; McCarthy, 1991; McCarthy & Carter, 1994; Nunan, 1993; Paltridge, 2000). Integral to this work is the practice of language teachers reflecting on their work (Gebhard & Oprandy, 1999; Wallace, 1991), both written and orally, on their own and in consultation with peers and supervisors. In addition, the importance of teacher educators themselves, or "teachers who teach teachers" (Russell & Korthagen, 1995), engaging in reflective practices such as "collaborative conversations" has recently been revealed (e.g., Bailey, Hawkins, Irujo, Larsen-Freeman, Rintell, & Willett, 1997).
From a discourse perspective, this paper examines a group of teacher educators (the author being one member), consisting of an expert teacher educator and her four teaching assistants, who collaboratively taught a methodology course in a Japanese as a second language teacher preparation program at a Japanese university, and verbally reflected on their work in the process. Through analysis of audio-recorded meetings, the paper will show that narrative played an important role in their meetings. Bruner asserts that "we organize our experience and memory of human happenings mainly in the from of narrative" (Bruner, 1991: 4). In teacher education, this has been referred to as "narrative experience" (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988). This paper will suggest that narrative opened up a field through which expert and novice teacher educators interpreted, analyzed, and negotiated meaning among themselves, resulting in co-construction of teaching plans, and contributing to the buildin! g of their professional knowledge base.
In concluding, some suggestions concerning Japanese teacher educator development will be discussed.