Aims, scope, and significance of the study
Aims and objectives
This research is aimed at exploring the construction of professional identity by novice EFL teachers This descriptive and explanatory case study also aims to unpack factors that influence the formation of professional identity The insights into how teachers construct and reconstruct their professional identity would help to explain the mental processes underlying teachers’ teaching practices As Edge (1996) stated, knowledge of how teachers construct and develop their professional identities enables researchers to arrive at understanding of how “the theoretical, the professional, and the personal intermingle” in the process of teachers learning to teach (p 25)
The above goals are specified into the following objectives:
- To explore the process of professional identity development by a novice teacher
- To gain the understandings of the internal and external influences on the process of teacher professional identity
To achieve the above-stated aims and objectives, the study was designed to seek answers to the following research questions:
(1) How is the EFL teacher’s professional identity constructed?
(2) What factors influence the (re)construction of her professional identity?
(3) How do these factors influence the (re)construction of her professional identity?
Scope of the study
of her professional identity and factors that affect the process of her professional identity formation As a single case study, the research does not intend to generalize its findings.
Research methods
A qualitative research approach was selected to be employed in the form of a longitudinal small-scaled yet in-depth single-case study The research instruments were narrative inquiry and semi-structured interviews
The rationale for such choices will be explained in Chapter Two (Methodology) of Part B (Development).
Significance of the study
professional identity in the context of Vietnam -in which little research of the same type has been carried out It is important to assert that this particular study is not for the purpose of generalizing its outcomes; rather, the results are open to discussion and adoption by those who are concerned with the same matter and find their situation with common features as that of the study’s participant This research also acts as a source of reference for teacher educators in their cause of preparing future teachers Insights into the development of teachers professional identity will inform educators to equip prospective teachers with knowledge and courage hat will help them see themselves through the first-years’ reality.
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
Identity
of person and being recognized as such in a given context (Gee, 2001)
These views were in accordance with Erikson (1968) who contended that identity is not something one has, rather than that identity is something that develops during one’s whole life Thus, identity formation is understood as an ongoing process involving the interpretation and reinterpretation of experiences as one lives through them (Kerby, 1991) Identity formation is constantly informed, formed, and reformed through self-evaluation and interaction with other people (Cooper & Olson, 1996)
Mead (1934) related the concept of identity to the concept of self and described in detail how the self is affected through interactions with the environment He postulated that the self can only develop in a social setting in which social communication takes place (Mead, 1934) He added that only in such interaction, we learn to understand other people’s roles and adjust our actions accordingly Beijaard et al (2004) paralleled with Mead (1934) by stating that research within the area of teachers’ professional identity should pay more attention to the relationship between “self” and “identity” as well as the role of context, or environment, in the formation of professional identity
One’s self can be referred to as an organized representation of our theories, attitudes, and beliefs about ourselves (McCormick & Pressley, 1997)
Generally, identity can be defined as who or what someone is, the different meanings one can attach to oneself, or the meanings attributed by others (Beijaard, 1995) In this respect, then, identity can also be regarded as an answer to the recurrent question: ‘‘who am I at this moment?’’ (Beijaard et al., 2004, p 108) In order to answer this question, one needs to identify oneself in the relationships with other individuals as well as one’s standpoints in a number of issues of the community of practice.
Teachers’ professional identity
2009) As Beijaard et al (2004) pointed out:
While it is clear that teachers’ professional identity has emerged as a separate research area, it is, in our view, an area in which researchers conceptualize professional identity differently, investigate varying topics within the framework of teachers’ professional identity, and pursue a diversity of goals (p 108)
In their previous exploratory study on teachers’ perceptions of professional identity, Beijaard, Verloop and Vermunt (2000) provided a definition incorporating three different ways in which teachers see themselves: (i) as subject matter experts; (ii) as pedagogical experts; and (iii) as didactical experts
According to Sachs (2005), teacher professional teacher identity: stands at the core of the teaching profession It provides a framework for teachers to construct their own ideas of “how to be”, “how to act” and “how to understand” their work and their place in society
Importantly, teacher identity is not something fixed nor is it imposed; rather it is negotiated through experience and the sense that is made of that experience (p 15)
Canh (2013) reviewed the literature on teachers’ professional identity and highlighted three major definitions of the concept Firstly, professional identity is viewed as teachers’ concepts of images of self (e.g., Knowles,
1992) Secondly, professional identity is related to teachers’ perceptions of their roles as educators (e.g.,Volkmann & Anderson, 1998) Finally, professional identity refers to what teachers themselves find important in their professional work or lives based on both their in-practice experiences and their personal backgrounds (e.g.,Tickle, 2000) Canh (2013) accepted the risk of oversimplification in defining teachers’ professional identity as teachers’ perception of themselves as teachers and the way that perception is connected to their pedagogy This view is similar to Lasky’s (2005), according to which teacher professional identity is considered as “how teachers define themselves to themselves and to others” (p 901)
In this study, the Vermunt’s (2000) definition is employed as a framework to base on when data are analyzed.
Characteristics of teachers’ professional identity
Therefore, identity is a shifting concept, rather than stable, continuous or individual (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011) In general, teacher professional identity is characterized as being influenced by multiple factors (Ruohotie- Lyhty, 2013) Rodgers and Scott (2008) claimed that professional identity is influenced by context, formed in relationships, changing and involves meaning making Akkerman and Meijer (2011) attached teachers’ identity with multiplicity, discontinuity, and social nature Beijaard et al (2004) added to these characteristics the aspect of agency by claiming that identity is formed through the activity of the individual
However, Akkerman and Meijer’s (2011) also debated that these basic assumptions do not offer enough to sketch out a full picture of the phenomenon, and that identity also encompasses a striving towards stability, continuity and individuality These authors argued that in order to understand the development of professional identity and the way individuals maintain a sense of self through time, it is not feasible to hold a completely decentralized idea of identity Therefore, a good definition of professional identity should serve to understand how individuals construct continuity in the flow of discontinuous events and how individuals, as agents, strive to maintain a stable understanding of themselves in shifting contexts (Heikkinen, 2002;
For a more comprehensive understanding of the concept of professional identity, some characteristics emphasized in this research should be identified
First, principally, professional identity is understood as a means by which individuals make sense of themselves in connection with contexts and other people (MacLure, 1993; Coldron & Smith, 1999) It includes the understanding teachers have of themselves as professionals (Etelọpelto &
Vọhọsantanen, 2006, cited in Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013), by which the integration of both personal and professional sides of being a teacher is necessitated (Beijaard et al., 2004) These authors recommended that research on teachers’ professional identity should focus on the way “teachers relate to other people, and the responsibilities, attitudes, and behaviors they adopt as well as the knowledge they use” (Beijaard et al., 2004, p 125) Goodson and Cole (1994) considered teachers “as persons and professionals whose lives and work are influenced and made meaningful by factors and conditions inside and outside the classroom and school” (p 88) Given that, professional identity is the outcome of the interaction between the personal experiences of teachers and the social, cultural, and institutional contexts in which they function on a daily basis (van den Berg, 2002) Therefore, a teacher’s professional identity is both personal and contextual, which brings about the notion of sub-identities
Implied in teachers’ different contexts and relationships, sub-identities constitute teachers’ professional identity These sub-identities are in certain harmony, with some seen as “the core” of teachers’ professional identity and some others more peripheral (Beijaard et al., 2004) It is critical for the development of professional identity that the sub-identities are in conformity, or in best harmony (Volkmann & Anderson, 1998) According to Tsui (2007), interactions between the individual’s multiple identities contribute to the change in identity of EFL teachers Conflicts between these sub-identities may lead to fake identities, or dual ones
In addition, professional identity should not be understood as a stable entity but rather as a continuum that is constructed and reconstructed through social interactions (Burns & Bell, 2011) Teachers’ professional identity develops “through interpretation and reinterpretations of their experiences”
(Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013, p 121-122) It is a non-stop process that is neither stable nor fixed, but rather dynamic (Beijaard et al., 2004) As a consequence, the answer to the question “Who am I at this moment” alone does not provide enough to track down a teacher’s professional identity To this point, we also need to find out an answer to the question “Who do I want to become?” This is in tune with Wenger’s (1998) theoretical framework of identity formation that proposed imagination as one of the sources for identity construction The quantitative research by Hamman, Gosselin, Romano, and Bunuan (2010) using Markus and Nurius’ (1986) possible-selves theory to understand the identity development of new teachers also suggested that projections of the selves in the future help to make sense of the current identity
Finally, agency is a critical element to professional identity, i.e teachers have to play an active role in the development of professional identity (Coldron & Smith, 1999) This is analogous to the process of learning which takes place through the activity of the learner (Beijaard et al., 2004)
This makes teacher professional identity dynamic as the teachers’ perceptions of who they are and what they aim for In order to exercise their agency, teachers tend to exploit the resources available to achieve their goals
As a capitulation, professional identity is understandings of a professional in the community of practice, in which the professional operates within relations with other professionals, strives for the continuity of his or her identity through the discontinuity of different events and activities.
Construction of Professional Identity in the first year of teaching 11 1.5 The framework of professional identity construction
professional identity is essential, which assists teacher educators in helping new teachers to develop professional identities more consciously and less painfully (Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013)
Moreover, professional identity is both relational and experiential in the sense that one develops professional identity in interaction with other members of the community of practice as well as in participation in activities in the workplace (Wenger, 1998) It is the first year of the profession when teachers establish their relations with co-workers These newly formed relationships, however, are relatively unstable and malleable For example, the participant in Tsui’s (2007) investigation changed his close connection with his students into a more distant status to maintain his authority as a teacher This decision was a turning point in his identity development
Similarly, it is also the first year of teaching when teachers decide on which activities they wish to pursue Again, the teachers’ perception of these activities might change according to the changes in the working community (e.g., materials) and personal need or interest
In addition, student teachers under training have their own images of being a teacher called “imagined identities” (Norton, 2001; Kanno, 2003)
Broadly understood, one’s imaginations about the relationships between oneself and other people and things in the time and space that transcend the current context and which one does not have direct contacts with is called
‘imagined identities’ (Anderson, 1991; Norton, 2001) When student teachers begin their profession as certified teachers, they “start the first teaching years with imagined identities previously constructed rather than practiced identities” (Xu, 2013, p 80)
However, the imagined identity and the practiced identity, which is
“fundamentally practice-based” (Xu, 2013, p 80), are inherently different
The former is a product of imagination while the latter is constructed through real life interactions in communities of practice (Wenger, 1998) Therefore, when novice teachers confront the classroom reality many of them have a taste of the so-called “reality shock” because of the uncertain and unforeseeable nature of authentic educational settings (Veenman, 1984, p
143) The imagined identities are challenged and new teachers have to fight for the ownership of the meanings that are recognized at the community of practice, for being accepted and recognized as competent to secure their position While striving for this, teachers’ former beliefs about teaching and themselves are seriously challenged (Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013)
Numerous difficulties that teachers confront in the first years at work have been pointed out in several studies Mostly, novice teachers are faced with difficulties that are bound up with their work situation or context
Teachers, at the beginning of their careers, only have a developing understanding of teachers’ work (Jones & Stammers, 1997; Schempp, Sparkes, & Templin, 1998) and are widely understood as inexperienced
However, they are expected from day one to fulfill the same duties as more experienced teachers (Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013) Another fact is that at the same time as new teachers are learning to teach they also go through a socialization process (Jones & Stammers,1997) The new job is an insecure situation where the teachers have to put in positively evaluated performances in order to secure their future employment at the school Studies have also been carried out to explore the effects of the difficult beginning on teachers’ professional development Evidence has shown that when teachers are confronted with challenges in their first years at work, there is a decline in innovative teaching approaches and teachers’ goal orientation (Schempp et al., 1998; Flores,
2006) The combination of a painful outset and a lack of encouragement also contribute to teacher attrition (Hong, 2010; Torres, 2012) The large body of international research on new teachers implies that the first years of the profession, especially the very first year, present several challenges for teachers’ identity development, challenges that should be addressed in systematic research (Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013)
1.5 The Framework of Professional Identity Construction This study, as several others that take professional identity as the research matter (e.g., Tsui, 2007; Xu, 2013), employed Wenger’s (1998) theory of identity construction because it illuminates the characteristics that have been sketched out in the previous sections According to Wenger (1998), identity formation is a dual process of identification and negotiation of meanings with three modes of belongings that act as the sources of identification: engagement, imagination, and alignment
Engagement means investing oneself in what one does and also in one’s relationships with other people in the community of practice For one thing, through involving in practice, or living one’s experience, one gets to know how one can take part in activities Through connecting with other individuals, one gets a sense of oneself in the relationships with other members Therefore, identification is both experiential and relational
(Wenger, 1998) The experiential aspect of identification was referred to in Mead & Morris’ (1934) explanation of the concept of “self” as “something which has a development; it is not initially there at birth, but arises in the social process of experience and activity” (p 135) The relational aspect, on the other hand, was confirmed by Beijaard, Verloop, & Vermunt (2000) when they explained that professional identity is developed and maintained through the interaction within social settings and the negotiation of roles in those settings
Imagination, on the other hand, is the ability of relating oneself to the context that is beyond one’s community of practice Imagination is the process of using one’s restricted experiences to sketch out unlimited pictures of the world and of oneself in that world Wenger (1998) reifies the concept of imagination as “a process of expanding our self by transcending our time and space and creating new images of the world and ourselves Imagination in this sense is looking at an apple seed and seeing a tree It is playing scales on a piano, and envisioning a concert hall” (p 176) Therefore, imagined identities derive directly from individuals’ imagination: “who they are will then depend on not only who they really are in reality but also who they imagine themselves to be” (Xu, 2013, p 80)
Another source of identification is alignment It is the effort of an individual to bring his/her actions into conformity with the community of practice so that the individual will become aligned with the community In this sense, alignment could be a result of engagement with which one invests oneself in activities that are in line with the broader enterprise By means of alignment, the identity of a group becomes the identity of its members, which in turn, is gained through an entangled coaction of compliance and allegiance
Coercion and oppression can also produce alignment; however, alignment that is created solely in this way can result in dissociation and alienation (Wenger,
1998) This might lead to a fake identity, or a dual one
Corresponding to the process of identification in identity construction is the negotiation of meanings It is the process of shaping and contributing to the meanings at the community of practice These meanings are created through participation of individuals and then shared, used, modified, and appropriated by these participants In this continuous process, if one fails to negotiate and claim ownership of meanings that matter in the community, one might get alienated, or marginalized In other words, one might “create an identity of nonparticipation and marginality” (Tsui, 2007, p 661)
Furthermore, if one fails to prove one’s significance, or meanings, in the community of practice, one might as well establish an identity of marginality
To unpack the research, the dual process of identity construction proposed by Wenger (1998), which consists of two parallel processes: identification and negotiation of meanings, provides great assistance in the examination of the identity (re)construction of the novice teacher in this study The abstract terms and theoretical concepts aforementioned will be concretized through the analysis of the participant’s case in the coming sections of the thesis
Relevant Vietnamese Studies
As earlier mentioned, Canh (2013) is one of the rare pieces of academic works that pursued teacher professional identity development in the context of Vietnam A global intellectual, Bright (2012), also made efforts to study identity construction of teachers in Vietnam These two studies, however, were both concerned with the native-English speaker teachers’ professional identity instead of the home-based ones’
Fortunately, there have also been some of the domestic scholars that considered Vietnamese teachers’ identity as the core matter of their research
Phan (2008), Nguyen (2008), Le and Phan (2013) and Chau (2014) were in conformity with their international counterparts in contending that identity is culture-driven or locality-driven as well as multiple, shifting, and in conflict
The case study conducted by Le and Phan (2013) especially deeply investigated the cultural dimension in the conceptualization of Vietnamese teachers’ professional identity
If a comparison is drawn, it can fairly easily be seen that the domestic body of research related to the under-discussion topic is evidently far smaller than the universal one It can somehow also be said that the lack of home-based literature has been counter-balanced by a rich body of related international research, especially by those based in China whose culture is arguably most comparable to Vietnam’s In my opinion, comparable, however, does not necessarily mean the same Several richer and thicker domestic academic works would have provided an invaluable practical guidance for the study Moreover, in an age where everyone rushes to learn English as well as to become English instructors like the one we are living in, there are so many new teachers that need to be guided
When English training centers and enterprises are spring up like mushrooms, there is an urgency that these young neophytes have a guiding direction according to which they form their identities instead of letting financial benefits lull them into wrong deeds and behaviors Therefore, it is necessary that Vietnamese scholars and researchers find the need to work on EFL teacher professional identity related fields This would not only enrich the home-based literature but also very likely create theoretical groundwork for domestic teacher educators to follow In doing so, it may even unpack very Vietnam-specific data that may open more doors of research Because of Vietnam’s infancy stage in this arena, consistent research in the future in this subject matter may even reveal trends, correlations, and other unforeseen factors.
Limitations of Previous Research on Teacher Professional Identity ….22 1.9 Chapter Summary
This section aims to present a number of problems or challenges that have been identified from the previous bodies of research and need to be addressed in future research
For one thing, much of the work studying the characteristics or content of teacher professional identity (i.e., what roles and values constitute a professional identity) was not based on theory (Beijaard et al 2004) Such research was atheoretical although “using theory to frame examinations of the mechanisms and outcomes of teacher identity may represent one strategy for moving the field of teacher identity closer to building up a more systematic, empirical body of evidence about its importance to issues such as pressures presented by school reform, alternative versus traditional certification, and the pressing issues of teacher attrition and retention” (Hamman et al., 2010, p
1350) Therefore, an established theoretical framework needs to be brought into employment when investigating teachers’ professional identity In this research, I made efforts to use Wenger’s (1998) social theory of identity formation, which will be presented clearly in the following sections
Another issue to consider is that most of the research on teachers’ professional identity underestimated situational and contextual factors within the broader framework of teachers’ professional identity development (Beijaard et al., 2004) Emphasis has been placed more on the personal side and far less on the context which provides the landscape for the development of teachers’ professional identity (Beijaard et al., 2004) As Hamman et al
(2010) wrote, contextual considerations are particularly helpful in the way that they can provide a landscape for understanding a wide range of teachers’ professional identity development Cardelle-Elawar, Irwin, and Lizarraga
(2007) claimed that teacher identity is situational and changes in relation with the contexts within which the teachers are operating Taking these ideas into account, contextual considerations should be included in theoretical frameworks examining teacher identity development (Hamman et al., 2010)
Goodson and Cole (1994), Coldron and Smith (1999), and Connelly and Clandinin (1999) emphasized the need to pay clear attention to contextual factors However, not until 2007 did educational theories, as part of context (Beijaard et al., 2004), become absolutely explicit (see Tsui, 2007) These educational theories, without a doubt, have had a profound influence on the development of teachers’ professional identity
Further, researchers are considered to have paid too little attention to the connection between present identity and future actions (Conway, 2001;
Urzua & Vasquez, 2008 as taken from Hamman et al., 2010) Too often in teachers’ stories they were asked about past and present events that might be linked to their professional identity formation However, it is suggested that teachers’ imagination about their future scenarios is of crucial significance in figuring out their current identity (Wenger, 1998) Concepts like “possible selves” (see Hamman et al., 2010) and “imagined identity” (see Xu, 2013) are those that are used to refer to future potential Hopefully the appearance and the use of these terms are a sign that more researchers are seriously considering this perspective in their works
Finally, according to Beijaard et al (2004), a cognitive perspective underlies a vast majority of studies on teachers’ professional identity
Specifically, research results are based on teachers’ personal experiences, through interviews or journals In order for these data to make sense, though, the teachers’ contexts need to be seen from a rather sociological perspective, e.g., through observation or evaluation of school documents and materials
Moreover, a biographical perspective is also important following which teachers’ life histories, i.e., “stories that are embedded in socio-historical context” (Beijarrd et al., 2004, p 125), are emphasized The cognitive perspective and the biographical perspective are both adopted in a narrative research approach that does not necessarily highlight the sociological perspective It is recommended for an approach to combine these three perspectives in research on teachers’ professional identity
As an attempt to address these problems, this study utilized the framework of identity formation championed by Wenger (1998) This provides a theoretical ground for the research to base on and is intended to amend the second and the third raised issues as well The framework considers both contexts and future-oriented elements: engagement, alignment, and imagination (Wenger, 1998), which might inform identity construction
As for the fourth problem, narratives and interviews were adopted as methods of collecting data, which satisfied the cognitive and biographical perspectives
The last and most difficult to pertain perspective, sociological perspective, was briefly covered because the researcher previously taught at the researched site; therefore had close and systematic observation of the institution
1.9 Chapter Summary This chapter has reviewed the literature on teachers’ professional identity As disclosed by the literature, the construction and reconstruction of teachers’ professional identity is a dynamic process which involves numerous factors The individual, with biographical information and personal beliefs and assumptions, has a major role in the establishment and development of professional identity Furthermore, contextual elements play an equally important part in professional identity construction and reconstruction.
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
Current situation of English teaching in Vietnam
From 1982 to 2008, English was officially a compulsory subject at high school level and an elective subject at secondary school level In this period, two syllabi were used: the 3-year and the 7-year syllabus The former was used for students who started studying English from grade 10, and the later for those who started it from grade 6 For the sake of fairness, the high school graduation examination was designed based on the knowledge and skills required in the 3- year program It is important to note, though, that both syllabi employed textbooks that were heavily grammar-based and that grammar sections tended to dominate every single unit of the books (Van, 2010)
In 2008, with the new philosophy of foreign language teaching that put learners at a focal point and teachers at a facilitator position, new textbooks were introduced for all school subjects, including English There has been since then one set of textbooks for secondary school There are two for high school: a standard set which is directed at approximately 96 per cent of the students and an advanced set for the remaining four per cent Since 2009, English has been compulsory at both secondary and high school levels, and optional at primary school level (Van, 2010)
Van (2010) pointed out that English language teaching in Vietnam has a number of problems Firstly, the teaching of English has not met the demand for competent English-speaking instructors since (i) most of the English teachers, especially those teaching at primary and secondary school levels are under qualified, except for those who are teaching English at post- graduate level, (ii) most teachers have not had an opportunity to study in an English speaking country, and (iii) a majority of them do not communicate in English on a regular basis, hence their lack of first-hand experience to sustain English teaching that takes communicative interactions as a means as well as a goal of the teaching and learning process Secondly, typical Vietnamese schools are poor in teaching and learning conditions, with classes of around
50 students, classrooms and libraries inadequately equipped and teachers lowly paid Furthermore, class hours are few (2-3 hours a week) Thirdly, although the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has stated that it emphasizes the development of practical communication skills, this is usually not de facto in classrooms In fact, as Tien (2013) pointed out, the widely accepted method of English teaching in Vietnam is traditional with focuses on reading comprehension, vocabulary and grammatical structures
This is seen as essential so as to prepare students for the high school graduation and university entrance grammar-based examinations
From a different perspective, universities’ language teacher training programs have focused on the communicative theory of teaching as a response to the stated focus on communication skills by MOET However, newly trained teachers are too few to fight neither the abovementioned long- standing tradition of teaching English nor the pressure of preparing students for their turning-point examinations As a consequence, new communicative teaching techniques learned at teacher training courses tend to be abandoned while traditional language teaching, which is burdened with grammar and vocabulary, continues to thrive
Since 1986, Vietnam has opened its door to numerous countries regardless of political disparities, and a free, market-oriented economy has been adopted (Thinh, 2006) English has become the dominating language which serves as a means of exchange between Vietnamese and international citizens As a massive reaction to the call of potential economic and educational benefits brought by English, an overwhelming majority of employers are offering employment with a prerequisite of high English competency As a matter of fact, many job interviews are conducted in English In line with this, universities are applying new policies that only allow students to graduate with minimum-qualifying scores in IELTS, TOEFL, or TOEIC exams The situation has become really stressful for English-crippled undergraduates due to the inadequacies in English education in earlier stages, as discussed above As new graduates find themselves highly unlikely to find a good job without an acceptable level of English competence, the demand for English teaching and learning in Vietnam has become more urgent than ever The English-teaching market has also boomed because English has offered Vietnamese people golden opportunities in terms of economics and education In order to meet the needs of a particularly large number of people who want to master English, both legitimate and non- legitimate education institutions have invested its resources in offering English courses English centers have mushroomed in the last decade to cater to this demand
Unlike legitimate schools, English centers have been practicing communicative approach in English teaching since their inception Students who attend courses at centers are usually strongly motivated They attend class for a variety of reasons: to pass an exam like IELTS or TOEFL, to prepare to study abroad, or to win a job interview However, they all want to develop their language macro-skills, namely listening, speaking, reading, and writing To satisfy these customers, English centers have been employing the communicative approach as their main teaching method These non-legitimate educational institutions also have a relatively larger number of native teachers in comparison with typical high schools or even universities They tend to employ native English speaking countries’ teaching materials as well These factors add to the inherently active pursuit of communicative teaching In essence, non-government sanctioned, for-profit English centers offer a more modern approach to English teaching while advertising that they have the advantage of providing native English speaking instructors Whether or not these native speaking instructors have trained as teachers cannot be concretely verified More reputable centers request certain qualifications be met while the demands are lower for less reputable centers – sometimes having white skin would suffice.
The research participant and the context of the study
Vi, 22 years old, graduated from Hue University - College of Foreign Languages (Vietnam) in August 2013 She started teaching at BLS English center in Ho Chi Minh City one month after graduation BLS had established a nation-wide reputation for its professional and effective English training programs Having been to the same university and worked at the same institution (though at different times), the researcher stands a good chance of empathizing with Vi’s working situation Vi was introduced to the researcher by a mutual friend who currently works at BLS Vi was chosen for this study because shortly prior to the commencement of it, she started her career as a teacher, which satisfied the purpose of this study - to examine the (re)construction of teacher professional identity in the first year at work
BLS began its operation in October 1996 In terms of human resources, BLS employs approximately 80 teachers, with one third of them being native English speakers It offers two main types of curriculum: English for children and English for adults The former classes take place on weekends, and the latter during weekday evenings One of the training priorities that have publicly been stated on BLS’s official website is learner-centered approach
At BLS, communicative teaching is approved and supported with available facilities such as computers and Internet access in each classroom, board games and toys at the kiddy corner, and story and picture books at the library
Teachers are unfailingly encouraged to make full use of such plenty resources to stimulate students to think critically on their own and solve problems in a creative way.
Rationale for sampling: Details into Vi’s background
Socio-economically but Gifted Academically
Vi is from Lang Co, a small seaside village in Hue Province, central Vietnam She was born in 1991, the youngest in a poor family of four children, three girls and one boy The family depended on the sea for a living
Her father was a fisherman and her mother a fish retailer In order to feed a six-mouth family, Vi’s parents also had to do a number of peripheral jobs such as producing and selling rice wine and charcoal They also raised pigs
Vi and her sisters, in addition to doing housework, also participated in the family businesses by fermenting rice to distill into rice wine and feeding the pigs Despite the hard work and unfavorable living conditions, the children excelled in academics
Her parents, surprisingly, never pushed their children to study
Sometimes the two elder sisters helped the younger siblings with their studies
Most of the time, however, they just helped themselves Their parents worked all day and did not have much time to tend to their children’ studies Once in a while they would offer a candy bar for every good mark she and her siblings received Although her parents never pressured or gave strong incentives for Vi’s schoolwork, she was always among the top students of the class and school At primary school, she showed special aptitude for the Vietnamese language Her 5 th grade homeroom teacher once told the whole class that she had a natural intuition for the language; that somehow Vi could feel what a word meant though she had probably never really seen or heard the word The very same teacher usually took Vi’s essays written in Vietnamese to the teachers’ office and proudly read them for the teachers, surprised by what a 10-year-old could do with language When Vi was in 6 th grade, her family was chosen as one of two family candidates to represent the commune academically at the town’s meeting The two families’ children excelled at school Vi was very proud to represent her family at this meeting
Vi started to learn English when she was 11, in the sixth grade Before she set off for her very first English lesson, Vi’s eldest sister shared with her something that Vi always believed as the most timely and significant advice, not only for school but also for real life learning Her sister said, “The secret of learning English well is putting aside your shyness” Vi absorbed the advice and had since then always been the best English student in her class
The secondary school English syllabus then was a grammar-based program The textbooks presented short conversations from which sample sentences were extracted and analyzed to illuminate sentence structures
Vocabulary was another focused area Speaking, listening, and writing skills were, however, ignored The typical English lesson that Vi was taught, according to her description, was characterized with a five-stage procedure
Firstly, the teacher demonstrated a model sample by reading the dialogue given in the book Secondly, the entire class repeated the dialogue after the teacher
Thirdly, a few individual students read it aloud Next, the teacher gave explicit explanations on a grammatical point that is illustrated in the dialogue The lesson finished with students silently individually working on grammar drills in the textbook After two years, the school had to abandon teaching English for
8 th and 9 th grades due to an insufficient provision of English teachers
Consequently, Vi’s English learning was interrupted for those two years
Vi resumed learning English when she started high school However, she did not continue where she left but started anew This was because the English language syllabus used in her high school was the three-year syllabus starting from grade ten instead of the previous seven-year syllabus commencing from grade six Specifically, she was re-taught what she had already acquired during 6 th and 7 th grades The teaching and learning methods were the same, too The only difference was the workload, which in Vi’s own words, were “heaps of papers containing grammar drills” Communication skills like listening, speaking, and writing were still noticeably absent from classroom lessons
In high school, again, she was considered to be one of the best students of English, probably because she was previously exposed to English She and two other students were selected to represent the school to take part in the annual provincial examinations of English at which she claimed two third prizes and a second prize As part of the preparation for the contests, she went to private lessons at her English teacher’s house
These lessons continued to focus on reading comprehension while ignoring other skills During the whole time she studied English she was not afforded a chance to listen, speak, or write an essay in English All she was asked of was to comprehend what she read This was an overarching situation for almost all secondary and high schools in rural areas in Vietnam Rural elementary schools, with no doubt, had no access to the learning and teaching of English Conversely, the picture was brighter for wealthy urban (either state or private) schools and gifted high schools that required students to pass quality exams to enter National English competitions where listening, reading, and writing skills were tested (speaking skill has since been included) normally had candidates from these schools
As a consequence, despite her excellent knowledge of English grammar, Vi went to university lacking listening, speaking, and writing skills
She confessed that the freshman year was a nightmare because she rarely understood what her teacher said and depended on her classmates for help
She was ashamed because she begged for help too often; especially when she was used to being a mentor rather than a mentee She felt frustrated and developed a sense of inferiority After four years of training, however, Vi left the university with a high distinction degree and fully competent of communicating in English, oral and written When asked what made such a marvelous transformation from a “no body” to being recognized as a successful student, she said it was all the environment She felt grateful for an academic environment surrounded by excellent classmates In her words, she
“felt very lucky … [she] got into this class full of excellent students” She attributed her success greatly to her friends’ help: “a great deal of what I gained after graduation was what I learned from my friends”
Her active learning outside of the school when she worked at a bar catering to and frequented by English speaking foreigners and organized and co-managed an English speaking club also played an enormous role in her transformation Her unconscious learning, furthermore, added to the success as she loved watching English-language movies, which improved her listening skill as well as bettered her pronunciation and accent
After graduation Vi moved to Ho Chi Minh City to start her teaching career Here she was accepted to BLS At BLS normally a fresh graduate is given charge of only classes for children that convened on the weekends Vi, however, was allowed to teach adult classes during the week as well Initially, she was responsible for elementary and intermediate classes Approximately a year later she was appointed as an IELTS instructor which she did not accept because she had to move back to her province to attend to family and personal matters
Although this study’s results are not meant to be generalized, I found Vi’s situation comparable to numerous novice English teachers in Vietnam who come from rural areas and commence their teaching careers in cities where English learning and teaching thrive This is a rationale for Vi’s adoption as the subject of this research Besides, my interest in the institution I used to work at also played a part.
The research genre: case study
A qualitative research approach was employed in the form of a longitudinal small-scaled yet in-depth single-case study
The rationale that backed up the choice of this research approach was threefold To begin with, since it takes time to construct one’s identity, in order to examine a teacher’s professional identity, a longitudinal approach would be ideal In the second place, one of the main purposes of qualitative research is to understand the behaviors of the subject in the real context, which, in turn, provides information for the construction and reconstruction of professional identity (Beijaard et al., 2004; Cardelle-Elawar et al., 2007; and Hamman et al., 2010) Indeed, for a research issue that is to be greatly affected by contextual elements such as identity, a research approach that studies subjects in real-life contexts (Yin, 2003b) and with a strong focus on reality (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2007) like case study would work most effectively Case studies have been proposed to sketch out a picture of “what it is like” in a particular circumstance and to maintain a “thick description”
(Geertz, 1973b) of subjects’ past stories, thoughts, and sentiments (Cohen et al., 2007) Last but not least, it has been postulated by Gall, Gall, and Borg
(2003) that case study is among one of the most widely used methods to conduct qualitative research in education (p 433) Such a qualitative case study might as well be defined “in terms of the process of actually carrying out the investigation, the unit of analysis (the bounded system, the case), or the end product” (Merriam, 1998, p.34) A case study explores a case or multiple cases “over time through detailed, in-depth data collection involving multiple sources of information rich in context” (Creswell, 1998, p.61)
In order to illuminate the nature of the concept of identity that entails “a considerable amount of complexity” (Vignoles, Schwartz & Luyck, 2011, p
2), interpretivism was adopted in this study The interpretive approach has been arguably one of the most common approaches to qualitative case studies in social sciences, especially inductive ones (Duff, 2008) As opposed to the hypothetico-deductive way of doing research in natural sciences, which has also been employed by social science post-positivists, interpretivism might be, if properly, used to explore the relative and multiple realities of identity
Furthermore, case study research has also been claimed to be suited to the interpretive approach (Elliott & Lukes, 2008) Briefly, case study method was utilized in this thesis with interpretative induction approach because, as Merriam (1988) pointed out, “the qualitative case study can be defined as an intensive, holistic description and analysis of a single entity, phenomenon, or social unit Case studies are particularistic, descriptive, and heuristic and rely heavily on inductive reasoning in handling multiple data sources” (p 16).
Data collection methods
Firstly, narrative inquiry was adopted, which involved at the heart of it
“eliciting and documenting stories”, and then “interpreting them in view of the literature of a field” (Murray, 2009, p 46)
Connelly and Clandinin (2006) made an apt remark that, Arguments for the development and use of narrative inquiry come out of a view of human experience in which humans, individually and socially, lead storied lives People shape their daily lives by stories of who they and others are and as they interpret their past in terms of these stories
Story, in the current idiom, is a portal through which a person enters the world and by which their experience of the world is interpreted and made personally meaningful Viewed this way, narrative is the phenomenon studied in inquiry Narrative inquiry, the study of experience as story, then, is first and foremost a way of thinking about experience Narrative inquiry as a methodology entails a view of the phenomenon To use narrative inquiry methodology is to adopt a particular narrative view of experience as phenomena under study (p
In an educational research, narrative has emerged as both a method and an object of inquiry in teacher education (e.g., Clandinin & Connelly, 1991), and to trace the beginning teachers’ voice and identity within the social, cultural, and historical milieu of teacher education (Britzman, 1991) As was reviewed by Pavlenko (2002), in the fields of linguistics and applied linguistics, “narratives have gained increasing stature outside the field of literature and folklore, becoming both a focus of research and a rich source of data in several areas of linguistics, in particular L1 acquisition, linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, and language education”(p 213)
There were several positive reasons for using narrative to investigate teachers’ professional identity in this study
Firstly, the story-based characteristic of narrative inquiry was convinced to perfectly match the nature of teacher identity exploration
Connelly and Clandinin (1999) equated professional identity with “stories to live by” (p 4) They added to this association that stories lend a narrative thread or story-line that educators rely on to make sense of themselves and their practice According to Beijaard et al (2004), “[t]hrough storytelling, teachers engage in narrative ‘theorizing’ and, based on that, teachers may further discover and shape their professional identity resulting in new or different stories” (p 121) Drawing on the work of Connelly and Clandinin
(1999), Beijaard et al (2004) also concluded that, “understanding practice in narrative terms cannot be separated from the development of self and identity” (p 121) As “teachers’ working lives are shaped by stories, and these stories to live by compose teacher identity” (Connelly & Clandinin,
1999, p 150), a focus on eliciting their stories is likely to prove beneficial in helping narrative inquirers uncover aspects of teacher self that otherwise would remain hidden In the same way, Reis (2011) confirmed that telling their own stories could provide teachers with a tool to make sense of their experience and themselves, as well as “externalize their beliefs, understanding of themselves, and emotions” (p 121) Vasquez (2011) shared this standpoint by explaining that since identity is context-specific and constantly changes across time and space, story research could possibly “illuminate how identities are constructed in situ and the various ways in which identities are performed in local, situated contexts” (p 535) Xu and Connelly (2009, p
223) summarized this discussion in a few words that, “teacher identity expresses personal practical knowledge gained in experience, learned contextually, and expressed on landscapes of practice” Narrative inquiry should be therefore a perfect match as a method of data collection for this research since the principal focus of narrative inquiry, as argued by Xu and Connelly (2009), is experience and practical knowledge in teachers’ professional development
Secondly, as an insightful method of investigation which provides in- depth knowledge of the participant’s thinking and beliefs, in the field of applied linguistics, narrative inquiry has in recent years gained popularity, especially with research on identity (for a review, see Norton, 2000; Johnson
& Golombek, 2002; Kanno, 2003; Tsui, 2007; Reis, 2011; and Park, 2012)
Despite this fact, narrative research in TESOL “still remains very much in its infancy” (Vasquez, 2011, p 536) There is spacious room for TESOL researchers to make significant contributions
With reference to data collection procedures, Vi was asked to write journals that faithfully reflected her thoughts and feelings while experiencing her teacher life No regular time intervals were applied for the journal entries; instead, Vi reflected her thoughts when she felt the need to share feelings about events that happened at the community of practice As Cohen et al
(2007) justified, “it may be that infrequent, unrepresentative but critical incidents or events occur that are crucial to the understanding of the case” (p
257) Vi began journaling her reflections shortly after accepting the teaching job at BLS in September 2013 Each journal entry was sent to the researcher via e-mail
As was introduced by Oruỗ (2013), “[r]eflective journal writing […] has been an effective tool in data collection in teacher identity studies” (p
209) It has been claimed by numerous other researchers that the study of teachers’ narratives is more and more seen as highly significant to the study of teachers’ thinking, culture, and behavior (Connelly & Clandinin, 1987, 1999; Carter, 1993; and Clandinin & Connelly, 1995, 1998) This was the major reason why reflective journal was chosen to be the main data sources for the present research
As a junior who was familiar with both of my former university and work place, Vi was entrusted to be able to complete these journal entries
Before the commencement of the study, we exchanged several phone calls where we shared stories about the university and BLS, and she confided in me on how her life was faring in the big and chaotic Ho Chi Minh City A relaxed and comfortable chemistry developed, which, along with the confidentiality code, was believed to help assure the fidelity of Vi’s reports The participant understood everything that was asked of her; academically, ethically, and professionally It is important to note, my sharing with Vi was pre-stated to be only my perceptivity and should not affect her way of receiving the phenomena
To tackle the controversial problem of unreliable data of case study when it relies on an individual’s (participant) memory (Cohen et al., 2007), Vi was encouraged to write reflections right after the incidents Vi was completely on the same page about this since she had, in her own words,
“all time in the world” to do the writing due to her daytime-free timetable
In total, Vi wrote 13 journal entries with approximately 12,000 words, which were distributed unequally between the entries These journals included her responses to initial general questions as well as to more specific questions that followed certain entries These follow-up questions were used to illuminate ambiguous or vague details in her stories All the reflections were written in English
2.5.2 Interviews Another instrument to collect data for this study was semi-structured interviews As had been suggested by Golombek (1998) as well as Johnson and Golombek (2002), foreign language teachers’ verbalizations of their experiences could provide a window onto their professional identities
Accordingly, face-to-face semi-structured interviews were employed as a secondary source of data A semi-structured interview allows the flexibility to examine how teachers’ professional identities has been “shaped at the nexus of local practices and larger ideological influences” (Simon-Maeda,
The significant difference between narrative inquiry and thematic analysis is that the former requires a “restorying” process (Liu & Xu, 2011, p
Data analysis procedures
The data were handled following the 3-step procedure of grounded theory: open, axial, and selective coding (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1998; & Charmaz, 2006)
In the open coding stage, journal entries were read in a chronological order The stories were pulled into a chronological line to display a continuous story line Memos were also made along with the process of reading and evaluating the journals At the end of this open coding process, the outline of Vi’s development of teachers’ professional identity through time was visualized, notwithstanding some blurred interior features
In the axial coding stage, the journals were read numerous times to highlight the similarities in separate stories I looked more closely at the lexical items written in Vi’s journals which revealed certain sub-identities that
Vi was taking on These stories were then categorized into different theme- based groups and sent to the participant to confirm the accuracy of the narratives In this very same stage, the properties of each theme-based group were also identified
Finally, in the selective coding stage, the previously determined categories and their properties were reflected in the mirror of theoretical analysis This process of theorization put the individual stories into the conceptual framework that “had the analytical power to pull together all codes” (Canh, 2013, p 8) Thanks to this power, the process of professional identity (re)construction of the participant was gradually illuminated
The findings were presented in the form of a story Vi’s journals mostly followed a chronological order However, some of the stories fell out of sequence since at times her memories flashed back to her undergraduate period Therefore, there was a need to rearrange the individual stories so as to paint a complete picture of Vi’s identity development This so-called ‘picture’ was then sent back to Vi to check for accuracy A story told chronologically was necessary in order to observe as well as demonstrate a more vivid growth in Vi’s identity over time After this activity was done, the themes that stood salient in the narratives, or those that ran through several stories, were explored and established These themes, or categories, were not randomly selected Instead, the selection and establishment of categories were informed by the reviewed literature, especially by that on elements that might influence the identity construction Personal background and contextual factors including educational context, cultural setting, and institutional context were referenced when generating the categories
As a principal rule, the findings were discussed and analyzed following the framework of Wenger’s (1998) social theory of identity formation, according to which identity formation has three modes of belongings: engagement, imagination, and alignment Engagement is described as a process in which one engages oneself in practice and in such interaction one develops a sense of self Imagination refers to “the production of images of the self and images of the world that transcend engagement” (Wenger, 1998, p 177) Alignment, finally, could be delineated as the agreement between one’s practices with the community of practice in which one has participated
Wenger’s (1998) theory is able to explain the complexity of the teacher identity formation, thus its adoption in this research, which investigated the (re)construction of teachers’ professional identity in a particular EFL context, proves to be a sound decision In her longitudinal study on an EFL teacher’s identity, Tsui (2007) also relied on this theoretical framework for such “a powerful framework for making sense of the processes involved” (p 678).
Chapter Summary
This is a qualitative small-scaled yet in-depth single case study that employed narratives and interviews as main instruments of data collection The data was analyzed based on grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) and interpreted using Wenger’s (1998) social theory of identity formation The findings of the study are presented in Chapter Three that follows.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Findings
In high school, Vi was taught solely how to solve reading comprehension tasks Other language skills including listening, speaking, and writing were overlooked
At high school I had never had a chance to learn to speak English or at least listen to native speakers talking on cassette tapes All I had had in an English classroom was a teacher with heaps of papers containing grammar drills And she seldom spoke a full sentence in English The only times when she spoke (read?) English was when she said out loud a word and then had the whole class repeat, or when she read a few sentences in an exercise
In high school, Vi followed the same syllabus used in secondary school and which was abandoned after grades six and seven due to a lack of teachers As an excellent English learner, throughout three years of high school, she was always chosen to represent her school at the annual provincial English competition As part of the preparation for the contests, she went for private lessons at her English teacher’s house where, again, no more than grammatical drills and reading comprehension passages were at hand
Finishing high school as a third-prize claimer of the province, Vi was, ironically, a complete ‘deaf-and-dumb’ (see Tsui, 2007, p 662) English practitioner As a consequence, she painfully experienced her freshman year in university
3.1.2 In University: The Suffering Newcomer
As a newcomer at a university of foreign languages, Vi found it hard to integrate into the new community of practice where interactions were, and encouraged to be, carried out in English This was due to the fact that she could not communicate orally in the target language
Year one was tough for me though As I just mentioned, I started university at nothing regarding speaking and listening skills And yet the Speaking teacher was from the US Therefore, most of what she said, her instructions and explanations, I couldn’t understand The most
I could do was to catch some of her words, isolated, which didn’t help me much I always had to turn to my friends to ask what she just said
She felt overwhelmed and suffered for months before she was able “to make use of the advantage of having so many friends to learn from” Having lived the experiences of an incompetent communicator due to a handicapped education, Vi started being a certified teacher with a steely determination to offer her students with communicative language teaching approach
3.1.3 A Result of Long-Preserved Beliefs: The Custodian of the Communicative Approach
As a teacher, Vi’s underpinning was for her students to learn how to communicate in English, “whatever level” the “students are at, I would teach them to interact in English”
I’ve been very fond of teaching English in a communicative way That means I’ve focused on the skills more than on grammar, especially listening and speaking Almost everything I say in the classroom, I say it in English, including explaining grammatical knowledge I want my students to interact in English, with me and with their classmates, for real life situation like borrowing a pen or asking what the teacher said
“Sometimes communication fails, but after a while it will improve”, I usually tell myself when I see confusion on my students’ faces Of course I also explain things in Vietnamese, but it’s always been a mixture of the two languages I code switch regularly
The faith in communicative approach survived in her for a while with some positive outcomes; however, the reality refused her a chance to reinforce her former belief by throwing at her the real outcomes of her teaching method: “To my surprise, very few of them [the students] passed the average mark though most of them communicate very smoothly in English”
She realized applying what had perfectly worked for her did not exactly help her students
None of the students knew how to start and finish a paragraph in a proper way None of them expressed a clear and logical way of thinking on their papers They didn’t go straight to the point by saying what job they would like, but went around the bush the way Vietnamese people usually do with conversations and talks And they made a lot of grammatical mistakes
Vi blamed herself for the students’ failure and her belief in communicative teaching was “violently shaken” She questioned the power of communicative language teaching and considered adopting the traditional method of teaching English “for the sake of [her] students” After a while, despite her students’ understanding of grammar points, they continued to fail to use them properly In Vi’s opinion, the students needed more time to practice
Grouping Strategy: Successful Learned Practices - Failed Outcomes
As regards teaching strategy, Vi put her students in multi-level groups because the same approach had had a great effect on herself as a student
Remember I said somewhere that I felt very lucky that back in university I got into this class full of excellent students? I keep the same notion now Actually I think they were a big part in my graduation with a high distinction degree I learned a lot from them
That’s why I’ve been putting my students in groups every lesson I’ve given The way that I grouped them was good students and poorer students in one group Just like that each group is teamed up with students of different levels I did this because it worked for me when I didn’t understand the lessons back in university and my friends helped me with it
However, following the shaking of the plausibly unshakeable belief in communicative approach, Vi’s grouping strategy continued to fail her
I had hoped it [multi-level groups] would work out the same way for my students as it did for me once only to find out it was different this time The poorer students wouldn’t ask questions and the better students wouldn’t share what they knew They didn’t cooperate and so they were both frustrated I think this was due to the fact that they were just a bunch of students who gathered at an English center for a short time (4, 5 months) and whose attachment with each other was pretty loose That’s why on the one side, the poorer students were too shy to ask questions and on the other side, the better students did not feel the responsibility or need to help
Similarly to the case of communicative teaching method, as soon as
Vi realized her grouping strategy did not help her students, she abandoned it and opted for a new way, which put students of equivalent levelsin each learning group
3.1.4 A Result of Long-Preserved Beliefs: The Quiet Co-worker
As part of the job, Vi was assigned to co-work with expatriate teachers in kiddy classes Each kiddy class met on the weekends On one day Vi worked alone with the children; on the other day she worked as the expat teacher’s assistant As an assistant teacher, she was responsible for the classroom management and the evaluation of students’ homework and on-site exercises Her first shared class was with an Australian colleague named Sheldon who, according to Vi, was “a very active and effective teacher”
Discussion
of a variety of Vi’s sub-identities As a result of multiple sub-identities, professional identity is influenced by elements that come from personal, educational, and professional contexts This background information is drawn not only from the present but also from the past and future contexts These factors, in turn, do not solely and separately inform teachers’ professional identity development; instead, throughout the process, they either support, conflict with, or even eliminate one another These influential factors are negotiated during the process
Vi’s narratives indicate that identification and negotiation of meanings shape teachers’ professional identity, as Wenger (1998) proposes Wenger
(1998) contends that engagement is the investment of oneself in what one is doing in relationships with other people From this investment, one develops a sense of where one stands in relationships with other people and what activities matter most in one’s eye In this study, the activities and human relationships Vi invested in demonstrated a strong agency of the subject
Through participation, Vi’s professional identity was gradually constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed
In early stages of her profession, shortly after she realized that her colleagues often located themselves according to nativeness or non- nativeness, Vi opted for the former because she wanted to emerge herself in authentic communication so as to improve her English By making this decision, Vi found answers to the identity questions raised by Sachs (2005),
“how to be?” and “how to act?” This decision-making was in line with Vi’s conception that being a good teacher primarily meant being a language expert
To her, only by being an expert at the subject matter could a teacher gain respect from her students The desire to identify herself with the native speakers group shaped her commitment to pursue her preconceived image of an ideal teacher: a language expert Vi’s competence was recognized by the group’s members who “admitted that […Vi] was the best Vietnamese English speaker of the school” The community’s recognition of one’s competence is a critical source of identity construction (Wenger’s 1998).This community’s recognition increased Vi’s confidence in her oral performance in English This very first decision that Vi made at the school proved that unlike most novice teachers, she took the initiative and illustrated a strong agency, which is emphasized as a critical source of identity formation (Coldron & Smith, 1999).Vi played a highly active role, not only in the abovementioned decision- making but also in other situations throughout her first year as a professional teacher Within this particular situation, she used the available native speaking environment to achieve her goal of the language expert This made Vi’s professional identity development a dynamic process, as she gained a clearer notion of who she was and what she aimed for (Beijaard et al., 2004)
Later, when she noticed unsupportive behavior from some of her Vietnamese colleagues, Vi changed her seat in the teachers’ office in order to befriend them while maintaining the relationships she had established with expatriate co-workers The initial reason for this change was because she did not want to be ostracized and marginalized from the Vietnamese teachers’ community, which counted for two thirds of the faculty Moreover, expat teachers came and went whereas native teachers were usually in for the long haul Hence, being in good standing with native teachers may benefit her in the future
As a new teacher Vi needed to appropriate a membership of the community On the surface, it looked like Vi had claimed a full membership as she had relationships with both of the two constituting groups of the school In the relational aspect of identification (Wenger, 1998), Vi was quite attached, or engaged, with the community However, in terms of activities Vi participated within the group, she really just scratched the surface when she refused to involve herself in real discussions of the modus operandi of the school Therefore, the experiential aspect of identity formation was not fully experienced Though in good standing with both native and non-native colleagues, her refusal to negotiate and appropriate the uses of the Top Notch book series and the Smart Board created a rift with her colleagues What informed Vi’s action of concealing her true thoughts about those matters was the fear of being marginalized from the community She confessed that she would not stand against the majority of senior teachers to protect her opinions As was suggested by Tsui (2007), an asymmetrical power relationship would lead to marginalization of membership On the surface Vi was in harmony with colleagues and the school In reality, she was bitterly marginalized from the society due to her inability to negotiate and appropriate the remarkable meanings of the community This, traced to its root, was caused by the unequal power relationship between Vi, the youngest and newest teacher, and the large majority of the long-standing teacher community
Therefore, while participation is a critical source of identity formation, nonparticipation seems to play an equally important role (Wenger, 1998) In the first class Vi co-taught with Sheldon, she found it impossible to cooperate with him because she believed interrupting him would be rude What drove Vi’s behavior was her long-standing belief, which could be traced back to Vietnamese cultural norms, whereas “adults talk, children listen” Vi was no longer a child when she started the teaching profession; however, the 47-year- old Sheldon was still very much older than her In Vietnamese culture adults are addressed with honorifics; where young people address people of their parents’ age “uncle” or “aunt” and their peers as “big brother/sister” or “little brother/sister” There can never be a sense of perfect equality even between colleagues As a result, Vi never dared interrupt Sheldon’s conversations with students even to do her job Therefore, she felt left out like an outsider Her non-participation in the class’ activities established a marginalized identity
3.2.2 Power Relationships Unequal power relationships lead to the marginality in membership (Tsui, 2007) In the relationship with Sheldon, Vi was in an inferior position
Vi was a neophyte, inexperienced and non-native, while Sheldon was a respected long-time native teacher at BLS In reference of native-nonnative English speaker teacher dichotomy, it is believed that native English speaker teachers are superior to non-native English speaker teachers regarding fluency, knowledge of the language and of the target cultures, which is referred to as native speaker fallacy (Phillipson, 1992) In the community of the class, the students loved him Vi felt alienated from and helpless in this community This happened due to the conflict between her belief and her job requirement, between the two, she chose to hold on to the former Noticeably, sociocultural factors had a powerful impact on the participant’s behavior
They had a crucial role in her decision to participate in or withdraw from activities at the community of practice
In Vi’s journals, it was fairly easy to collect lexical items indicating her speculations, or imagination Words, phrases, and clauses such as “I thought, I thought I would, I will, that I would, they would have, it will, through his facial expression I read something like, they must have thought, I think, I predicted, I imagined, I guessed”, to name just a few samples, were recorded numerous times
Vi “guessed” that Sheldon did not like her, and “thought” he considered her incompetent All this speculation had a lasting influence on her that made her “never dare talk with him, not inside nor outside of the classroom” Unlike previous studies examining teachers’ professional identity where too little consideration was taken on teachers’ projections (Conway, 2001; Urzua & Vasquez, 2008 as taken from Hamman et al., 2010), in this particular investigation, imagination proved to be a greatly contributing feature to identity construction Vi imagined that she was not loved and was misjudged by her co-worker resulted in a non-cooperative working relationship, hence and more importantly a low-quality service as she could not manage to do her job
As Tsui (2007) pointed out, the concept of competence as a source of identity formation is married to the concept of legitimate access to practice
When one’s competence is recognized, one is given the full access to practice
Vi’s competence, as she thought, was questioned and underestimated That was why she refused to take part in the class’ practice The negative effect that non-participation and imagination had, in this case, was Vi’s uncertainty of her own value She did not find herself fit in the class community where she should have been valued as one of the authorities Her sense of self-worth and identity was damaged, which prompted the way she worked with other co-teachers afterwards In the following co-taught classes, Vi held a substantially more active role She also became well aware of her partners’ teaching styles and adjusted accordingly
In other situations where imagination had a role in Vi’s teacher professional identity development, it was seen as a more positive source
First, her imagined identities (Kanno, 2003; Norton, 2001; Xu, 2013) from the time she was a teacher trainee paved a direction to follow Two strongest pre- determined identities that Vi felt most decisive to pursue were the language communicative teacher and the language expert, which were both formed and nurtured by contextual factors As a high school student who never had, and therefore longed for, a chance to learn to orally communicate in English, Vi was determined to use the communicative approach to help her students achieve what she never gained when she was younger This was also supported by BLS’s policies where communicative teaching was embraced and speaking tests always held at the end of each course The language expert identity, on the other hand, was the result of Vi’s great respect for her teachers who were experts at the subject matters they taught Furthermore, BLS’s demanding students made this a must for Vi to attain Not only challenging questions but also potential negative feedbacks from them would put Vi in a disadvantaged place; therefore, to survive such an exhausting environment, the language expert identity was indispensable
Another instance that proved imagination a constructive element in Vi’s teacher professional identity development were her plans and projections prior to teaching a course By means of surveying, she assessed what students needed and planned to cater to their needs By doing this, Vi “imagined” the activities she and the learners would do and developed her identity according to the imagination Before each lesson she anticipated questions her students might ask and prepared answers beforehand Seeing imagination as a source of identification, Wenger (1998) pointed out that this is “the production of images of the self and images of the world that transcend engagement”
(p.177) He also specified that imagination can result in stereotyping as practice is overgeneralized and inaccurately understood However, in her reports, thanks to the pre-course surveys Vi understood well her students’ goals as well as their characteristics As a result, Vi’s forecasts had satisfactory outcomes when the students enjoyed her lessons and more actively participated in classroom activities
Imagination also had an inspiring role in the process of Vi’s professional identity development when she was appointed as an IELTS instructor and was awaiting her first IELTS class In the two weeks of anticipation she visualized herself in such class and took that as a motivation (Stahan & Wilson, 2006) for her hard and continuous work Once more, she embraced the language expert image she developed and shaped her identity
Summary of findings
of the teacher’s professional identity This framework proposes that identity formation is a dual process with identification and negotiation of meanings
The former obtains three modes of belonging: engagement, alignment, and imagination
To begin with, Vi’s engagement had a significant influence on her identity formation, with participation and nonparticipation holding equally important roles Her choice of involvement in certain activities and withdrawal from others demonstrated her understandings of identity questions raised by Sachs (2005), “how to be?” and “how to act?” (p 15) in the practiced community Through participation and nonparticipation, she gained a more illuminate sense of herself
Simultaneously, the alignment between the individual and the practiced community is established via participation and nonparticipation A true alignment is brought about by compliance and allegiance when the collective and the individual obtain shared practices and common objectives As a result, the institution’s identity becomes the identity of the teacher, as BLS’s communicative teaching identity became Vi’s own identity Otherwise, with merely coercion and oppression, the individual could develop an identity of disassociation and alienation This could lead to dual identities, with one true but secret and the other public but false, as Vi’s identity when it came to the Smart Board matter
The final source of identification, imagination, proved to be a salient source of identity construction This is the most strikingly contrastive feature compared with previous relevant studies Firstly, Vi’s imagination drew a blueprint to direct her behaviors Following this blueprint, she made efforts so as to reach what she hoped for, such as the language expert identity
Secondly, imagination acted as a source of motivation for her in the process of goal pursuing, for example, of the IELTS instructor identity
It is worth reiterating that the other process of identity construction, the negotiation of meanings, was found to be a parallel process with the process of identification In other words, meaning negotiation takes place in engagement, alignment and imagination processes and impact one another
Because Vi failed to negotiate and appropriate the Smart Board’s meanings, for instance, she developed an identity of marginality in that matter
Power relationships also play a key role in the negotiation of meanings
As inferiors in such relationships, new teachers tend to conceal their true identities if they are in conflict with the superiors’ In Vi’s case, she opted to hide her true thoughts about the Smart Board and the Top Notch book series
Other factors that have critical roles in the development of teacher professional identity are personal background and contextual factors While Vi’s personal background shaped her early identities (e.g., a rural area- originated teacher, a communicative teaching pursuer), contextual elements such as educational condition, institutional context, and sociocultural setting adjusted the identities to suit the new environment
Lastly, agency emerges as a mediating feature to the development of professional identity Depending on the context, the individual’s decision to involve in certain activities and disengage from others contributes substantially to identity formation Vi’s active agency generated positive contributions to her professional development
Holistically, as indicated by the study’s findings, teachers’ professional identity construction is a convoluted process with the influence of numerous factors, inclusive of the individual’s personal background and agency as well as contextual aspects such as institutional and sociocultural settings, and power relationships As of the three modes of belongings of identification, imagination turns out to play a substantially more prominent role in the construction of teachers’ professional identity than the literature has suggested This could probably be attributed to the fact that the participant of this study was a first-year teacher, who began her teaching career with imagined rather than practiced identities (Xu, 2012).
Pedagogical implications
Firstly, in the process of training student teachers, educators should consider future teachers’ practiced community It is suggested that educators provide would-be teachers a more vivid picture of the future workplace This so-called “picture” should as well include information of the potential students’ culture In so doing, teacher trainers give a direction for the trainees’ imagined identities Since imagination was found to be a particularly salient source of identity formation, it is important that student teachers’ imagined identities are tended more consciously Opportunities should be created for prospective teachers to approach the real community of practice For instance, the teaching practicum should not only focus on the development of teaching skills It should, furthermore, aim to offer pre-service teachers a chance to observe and comprehend the institution’s context as well as in-service teachers’ experiences As a result, imagined identities could be more reality- based rather than unfoundedly presumed Therefore, the transformation from imagined to practiced identities would not be too dramatic; thus, novice teachers could avoid “reality shock[s]” (Veenman, 1984, p 143)
Secondly, mutual engagement and understanding between beginner teachers and institution management should be promoted (Liu & Xu, 2011)
School administrators could encourage newcomers’ participation in activities as well as the negotiation of meanings in the practiced community In so doing, true alignment in which the enterprise’ and its members’ identities remain identical could be established Rifts in power status are inevitable; however, an open discussable atmosphere could minimize negative feelings such as intimidation or shame With such given, an opportunity may also be created for novices to learn from experienced teachers
This encouragement could be even further enhanced with neophytes playing an active role in the process of professional identity development
With the stated responsibilities allocated to teacher educators and school administrators, it is still the teachers’ professional identity that is the focal point of the discussion Consequently, teachers themselves should play an equally, if not more, important part in the development of their own professional identity As was suggested in the previous chapter, teachers’ agency is critical in identity construction New teachers are recommended to establish goals and strive for them As put forward by Sfard and Prusak
(2005, p 15), “human beings are active agents who play decisive roles in determining the dynamics of social life and in shaping individual activities”
Besides, understanding that practiced communities are ever-changing environments might help them better prepared for reality.
Limitations of the study and suggestions for future research
An unavoidable fact is that this study has limitations These limitations, by all means, point to opportunities for future research
For one thing, since there has been particularly little relevant research done in the context of Vietnam, with Canh (2013) as a rare exception, it was challenging to find a Vietnamese-based literature foundation to reference
This is due in part to the Vietnam’s very recent paradigm shift in English training underpinnings; from a grammar based to communicative curriculum
De guerre, Vietnam’s education system teaches a communicative approach to English De facto, only the most established and highly funded institutions fit this description It must be noted that an ‘open door’ policy in terms of economics, cultural, or education takes time to accept, adopt, and implement
In essence, Vietnam simply has not had sufficient time and resources invested in the field of teacher training and in particular, Teaching English as a Foreign Language Other Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea have for decades had programs (JET, EPIK) where native speakers teach in their public schools There are simply not enough well trained native English teachers in Vietnam Vietnam’s participation in this field is still in its infancy
Hence, there is a lack of literature and peer-reviewed references
This has been counter-balanced by a rich body of related international research, especially those based in China whose culture is arguably most comparable to Vietnam’s Comparable, however, does not necessarily mean the same Domestic academic works would have provided an invaluable practical guidance for the study Therefore, it is recommended that Vietnamese scholars and researchers find the need to work on EFL teacher professional identity related fields This would not only enrich the home-based literature but also very likely create theoretical groundwork for domestic teacher educators to follow In doing so, it may even unpack very Vietnam-specific data that may open more doors of research Because of Vietnam’s infancy stage in this arena, consistent research in the future in this subject matter may even reveal trends, correlations, and other unforeseen factors
Moreover, due to the great distance between the two cities where the participant and the researcher were based, observations of the teacher in her practiced community could not be conducted It may be different if there were chances to interview Vi’s colleagues as well How Vi describes Sheldon, for example, may be different from how Sheldon actually views himself This limitation, however, elicits a more thorough approach for future research It is suggested that future teacher professional identity researchers find opportunities to observe the participant in the real work environment, and consider the colleagues’ perspectives as well
Finally, while identity is a shifting concept that changes over time, eight months of conducting the study could be insufficient The participant of the present study is currently unemployed, and so the development of her teacher professional identity could be halted at the moment However, in different situations, professional identity of novice teachers does not stop developing and transforming after the first year For this reason, more longitudinal approach should be emboldened to investigate how identity changes over time More time should be allowed in such research, especially throughout the first years of the teaching career, which is referred to as the induction phase (Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013)
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I was born to a poor family in Lang Co, Hue Province My parents have four children, three girls and one boy I am the youngest of the family Now my parents are both retired but when I was a kid, they had to do a lot of jobs to feed the family My father caught fish and my mother sold them They also kept pigs and made and sold charcoal and rice wine My brother did not have to do a lot of housework However, my sister and I helped my parents with a lot of chores We also helped them ferment rice to cook wine and feed the pigs
Because my parents were very busy, they did not have time to take care of us in terms of our studies Sometimes they offered us a candy bar if we got a good mark
And of course they seemed happy when we had good marks, but they did not help us with our studies Sometimes my sisters helped me and my brother with our homework, but most of the time we just studied by ourselves However, all of us were very good at school We were always among the top students in class and school When I was in grade five, my homeroom teacher said that I was a natural for the Vietnamese language She complimented me in front of the whole class and said that sometimes I could understand a word without having seen or heard it before Sometimes she even took my essays written in Vietnamese to the teachers’ office and read there for other teachers I sometimes followed her to the teachers’ office and overheard their conversations They seemed surprised I guess that I have “a thing” for the language
I started learning English at grade 6 Before I set off for my very first English lesson, my eldest sister told me “The secret of learning English well is putting aside your shyness” I took her advice and I must say it was the best advice I’d ever had
Although my sister never was the best student at English, what she said made me one
In an English class, then, we were taught English vocabulary and grammar A typical
English lesson was something like this: first, the teacher read a dialogue in the textbook to show how it should be read; second, she read it a second time and this time the whole class repeated after her for every short sentence (long ones were divided into smaller units); next, a few individual students read the conversation; after that a few sentences were extracted from the conversation by the teacher as illustrations to explain a grammar point; finally, the whole class silently did exercises in the textbook, which were all to review vocabulary and grammar knowledge We were never taught to speak English, we also never listened to English on a tape or real English native speakers We simply learned words and grammatical rules of the language
We studied English in that way for two years In grade 8 and 9, because the school lacked English teachers, we had to stop learning English at school I did not attend any English classes outside school either In grade 10, I resumed English learning in high school However, I did not continue where I left in grade 7, but started again I was taught what I had already learned in secondary school In class we were taught the way secondary school teachers taught us That means no speaking, or listening, or writing All was grammar and vocabulary Texts for reading comprehension was longer, which was the only difference Back then I never thought of consequences of learning English solely in terms of vocabulary and grammar I liked English very much, and I was good at it I was chosen to represent the school at the annual high school English students’ provincial competition, together with two other students I won two second prizes and one third prize in three years For these competitions I had to attend private lessons at my English teacher’s home In these lessons, we learned more vocabulary and more complex grammatical structures The reading comprehension texts were longer than those in the regular class and with more questions In these lessons, we were still not taught the skills of listening, speaking, or writing in English
When I was in university, there’s one time my teacher asked me what I thought about the role of an English teacher in the classroom It was in the Methodology 2 class (because I did a course in English education, I had to take 7 Methodology classes, namely Methodology 1 to 7, of which the purposes were to train the students how to evaluate textbooks, how to arrange activities in the classroom, or how to use technology, mostly Microsoft power point presentation, etc.) I remember what I told the teacher and the whole class was that first of all, a good teacher should be one that is good at the subject he teaches That teacher should be able to answer most of, if not all, the questions that students can possibly come up with Only by this a teacher can gain respect from students An effective teacher should also be attractive The way that he talks or expresses himself must attract students’ attention; otherwise they would lose their attention in the teacher and the lesson as well That means he must communicates well Furthermore, a devoted teacher should be a friend to his or her students and share with them the difficulties they meet that hinder their studying, and other aspects of their lives
Back then, I was so grateful about the communicative approach that the university was applying This is because at high school I had never had a chance to learn to speak English or at least listen to native speakers talking on cassette tapes All
