VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT PROCESS OF MID-CAREER EFL TEACHERS A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By NGUYEN THI YEN HOA Supervised by DANG TAN TIN, Ph. HO CHI MINH CITY, DECEMBER 2021 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT PROCESS OF MID-CAREER EFL TEACHERS A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By NGUYEN THI YEN HOA Supervised by DANG TAN TIN, Ph. HO CHI MINH CITY, DECEMBER 2021 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest sense of gratitude to my research advisor, Dr. Dang Tan Tin, for his practical guidance, endless patience, and immense knowledge.
It was truly a privilege to have him as my supervisor. Without his invaluable advice along the way, this dissertation would not have been possible. I’m grateful for the unwavering support that I was provided by the management board and the academic affairs office of the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature. My genuine appreciation also goes to lecturers who taught and inspired me in all the subjects of this master’s course.
Finally, I’m indebted to my parents, husband, and little son for their unconditional love and support. Thank you, those named and unlisted, for being a part of my memorable journey. i STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT PROCESS OF MID- CAREER EFL TEACHERS In terms of the statement of Requirements for the Thesis in Master’s Program issued by the Higher Degree Committee. The thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other situation.
Ho Chi Minh City, December 2021 Nguyen Thi Yen Hoa ii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Nguyen Thi Yen Hoa, being the candidate for the degree of Master in TESOL, accept the requirements of University of Social Sciences and Humanities relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the library should be accessible for the purpose of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the library for the care, loan or reproduction of the thesis. Ho Chi Minh City, December 2021 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. i STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY.
ii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. ix LIST OF TABLES.
x LIST OF FIGURES .1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY.2 AIM OF THE STUDY .4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY .6 ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS. 5 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW .2 TEACHER PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY (PI) .3 FACTORS INFLUENCING PI .1 Roles and Values .7 Influencing factors on PI .6 PROCEDURE OF DATA COLLECTION .7 DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE. 27 CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS.1 Pre-entering the profession .2 Entering the profession .3 Pursuing further education (1) .4 Taking managerial responsibilities .5 Making long-term career decisions .6 Pursuing further education (2) .7 Overview of An’s professional identity shift from the early career stage to her mid-career stage .8 Factors contributing to the shifting of her teacher identity .1 Pre-entering the profession .2 Entering the profession .3 Pursuing further education (1) .4 Taking managerial responsibilities .5 Making long-term career decisions .6 Pursuing further education(2) .7 Overview of Bao’s professional identity shift from the early career stage to his mid-career stage .8 Factors contributing to the shifting of his teacher identity.1 Pre-entering the profession .2 Pursuing further education (1) .3 Entering the profession .4 Taking managerial responsibilities .5 Making long-term career decisions .6 Pursuing further education (2) .7 Overview of Chau's professional identity shift from the early career stage to her mid-career stage .8 Factors contributing to the shifting of her teacher identity .1 Pre-entering the profession .2 Entering the profession .3 Pursuing further education (1) .4 Taking managerial responsibilities .5 Making long-term career decisions .6 Pursuing further education (2) .7 Overview of Duy’s professional identity shift from the early career stage to his mid-career stage .8 Factors contributing to the shifting of his teacher identity.5 CROSS-CASE ANALYSIS .1 Pre-entering the profession .2 Entering the profession .3 Pursuing further education (1) .4 Taking managerial responsibilities .5 Making long-term career decisions .6 Pursue further education (2) .7 Summary of cross-case analysis .1 The change of EFL teachers’ professional identity change from the early career stage to their mid-career stage.3 Job satisfaction and Motivation.1 The changes in professional identity in the early to mid career stage .2 Factors contributing to the shifting of teacher identity .3 Summary of the answer .1 SUMMARY OF THE CURRENT STUDY.1 Brief summary of the findings.1 Implications for early-career teachers .2 Implications for FFL mid-career teachers .3 Implications for FFL management board .3 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY .4 RECOMMENDATION FOR FURTHER STUDY. 99 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL English as a Foreign Language PI Professional Identity PhD Doctor of Philosophy IELTS International English Language Testing System TOEFL Test of English as a Foreign Language TESOL Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages HCMC Ho Chi Minh City ix LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Demographic information of the participants .2 Analytical framework for influential stages of EFL teachers’ identity .1 An’s development process of her professional identity .2 Bao’s development process of his professional identity.3 Chau’s development process of her professional identity .4 Duy’s development process of his professional identity .5 Level of change in each construct of the participants’ teacher identity over their career journey.
73 x LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Canrinus’ (2011) findings on how the four components affect each other 17 Figure 2.2 Maslow’s 6 level hierarchy of needs, as cited in Koltko-Rivera (2006) .1 Process of data interpretation .2 Influential stages of teacher’s identity development over ten-year journey .1 Changes in perceived roles. 75 xi ABSTRACT Professional identity development is a slow and complex process of self- negotiation and re-negotiation. While the latter parts of this process tend to be stable, the initial parts seem to be more fluctuating and less predictable. This understanding urges a qualitative study to explore how EFL teachers shifts their profession identity from the early-career stage to mid-career stage.
Factors contributing to their identification changes are also scrutinized. The study draws on an adapted theoretical framework which includes five sub-components of professional identity, namely roles and values, job motivation, satisfaction, commitment, and self-efficacy to examine the changes. An analytical framework with six influential stages of identification development is also provided to capture such adjustments. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews conducted with four EFL mid-career tertiary teachers in Vietnam, who have different academic backgrounds and career shifts.
The researcher employs life-history method to analyze the four cases The findings reveal that teacher identity development is an on-going process, occurring in both negative and positive manner, and resulted from their lived experiences and intentional contemplation. In addition, changes in identity sub-construct may lead to modifications of overall professional identity of a teacher. Finally, the study provides a useful conceptual framework for research on identity. Keywords: professional identity, teacher identity, mid-career teachers 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY Research on professional identity has been under scrutiny over the last few decades.
Professional identity plays a pivotal role not only in teaching practice, but also in continuous professional development (Beijaard et al. The profound significance that professional identity development has brought to education is undeniable. Teachers, in every education system, hold a relatively weighty responsibility in educating and training students. It is the effective performance of teachers that affects students’ outcomes and eventually the organization’s success (Bakotic, 2016).
Studies concerning the evolution of teacher professional identity has risen in numbers at all levels, including primary and secondary education (Beauchap & Thomas, 2009; Beijaard et al., 2004), and higher education (Van Lankveld et al. The importance attached to identity of tertiary education teachers was highlighted as they take on multiple roles such as teachers, researchers and practitioner (Van Lankveld et al. In this topic, many scholars have focused on the transition of teacher students into real professionals to investigate into the identificational transformation (Carrilo & Flores, 2018; Flores & Day, 2006). This stage is assumed to represent some of the most significant changes in identity actualization.
However, as clearly pointed out in a recent synthesis, Van Lankveld et al. (2016) suggests that professional identity should be fully constructed after a number of years in service, when teachers have to some extent understood their multi-faceted identities, namely professional, academic, researcher and intellectual. The constructional stage, reportedly, witnessed a number of negative emotions such as self-doubt, insecurity, and inadequacy (Van Lankveld et al. This can last around three years and even longer.
The tensions resulting from these emotions significantly contribute to teachers’ identity formation. However, it is deemed to be a hasty conclusion of identity study if researchers only pay attention to this stage 2 without further consideration into experience teachers may have gained over the years. Beijaard et al. (2009) points out that the more experience that teachers obtain, the better the continuing interaction between them and the working environment, which will eventually result in stabilizing their professional identity.
Therefore, teacher identity should not be explored merely in the early stage of their teaching career, but also examined in later stages when they have accumulated sufficient working experience, and when their identification has to some extent taken shape. This study targets those teachers who are expected to have adequate experience in teaching job. Gaining insight into mid-career teachers’ identity might help university authorities and researchers to foster teaching teachers’ motivation, satisfaction, commitment, and efficacy, which can eventually increase retention rate. This is of great importance because a high rate of teacher resignation may be costly for many parties, including students who may miss an opportunity to study with experienced teachers and institutions which have invested such an amount of time and resources in recruiting and training new teachers (Brill & McCartney, 2008).
The term "mid-career phase" refers to a period of stabilization and settling down (Huberman, 1993), with a minimum of seven years and a maximum of 20 years in the teaching profession (Cawte, 2020). The term "professional identity" has numerous definitions in social sciences. Despite being defined simply as who one thinks he/she is, and who she/he wants to become (Beijaard et al., 2004), identity is considered to be a complex concept and should not be given a clear-cut definition (Canrinus et al. Therefore, numerous theoretical approaches have been adopted to investigate into this abstract concept.
While many scholars adopt a socio-cultural approach, others pay attention to its discursive, psychological and narrative nature (Van Lankveld et al. However, identity is consistently agreed to emerge from a specific social context with its continuously changing and dynamic nature. This research aims at analyzing the professional identity from a psycho-social perspective, which means various psychological and social aspects of the issue will be taken into consideration. 3 In an effort to gain an insight into how teacher identity changes over time, the current study aims at investigating into the development of professional identity among mid-career teachers.
This research focuses on four university lecturers, who have around ten years of experience in the teaching of English as a foreign language (TEFL), and who come from various education and teaching backgrounds. In-depth semi- structured interviews are conducted with five dimensions, including roles and values, motivation, self-efficacy, job satisfaction and commitment.