The current study examines the cognition of reading instruction held by teachers of Japanese as a second or foreign language (L2 Japanese) working mainly in Japan, New Zealand, and the US. The study reports findings obtained from two data collection methods: interviews and metaphor elicitation contained in a questionnaire. The researcher interviewed twenty-two teachers and 52 metaphors were obtained from 60 questionnaire respondents. The findings illustrate the complex nature of teachers' cognition in regard to reading instruction. Overall, teachers were apprehensive about reading instruction because of contextual limitations such as a lack of formal teacher education and time shortages caused by grammar-dominant curricula. In addition, many of the interviewees acknowledged that aspects of the unique, complicated orthography of written Japanese both facilitated and inhibited learning at times. With such acknowledgement, they also maintained student-centered views and a belief in the importance of reading for learners' mastery of the target language.