VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ********************** NGUYỄN PHƯỚC ÁI PHƯƠNG EFL TEACHER PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION: THE CASE OF A NON-NATIVE NOVICE TEACHER (Sự hình thành bản ngã nghề nghiệp của giáo viên Tiếng Anh: trường hợp của giáo viên mới vào nghề) M. Minor Programme Thesis Major: English Language Teaching Code: 60140111 HANOI - 2015 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ********************** NGUYỄN PHƯỚC ÁI PHƯƠNG EFL TEACHER PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION: THE CASE OF A NON-NATIVE NOVICE TEACHER (Sự hình thành bản ngã nghề nghiệp của giáo viên Tiếng Anh: trường hợp của giáo viên mới vào nghề) M. Minor Programme Thesis Major: English Language Teaching Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr. Vũ Thị Thanh Nhã HANOI - 2015 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled EFL TEACHER PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION: THE CASE OF A NON-NATIVE NOVICE TEACHER submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Teaching.
Except where the reference is indicated, no other person‟s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis. Hanoi, 2015 Nguyen Phuoc Ai Phuong Approved by SUPERVISOR (Signature and full name) Date: i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been completed if I did not have the support of many individuals. Therefore I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to all of them. First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr.
Vu Thi Thanh Nha, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher. A special word of thanks goes to the teacher pseudo named Mai without whose participation it would never have been possible for me to have this thesis accomplished. Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family and friends for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work. Their love will always be my sunshine in my road to success.
ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT This present study seeks to explore the construction of professional identity of a novice EFL teacher in Vietnam, identify the factors that have influence on this process and how these factors interact with each other in constructing and complicating the teacher‟s professional identity. The instruments for data collection to serve the aim of the research are narrative inquiry and semi – structured interview. After a careful long time of collecting and analyzing data, it is revealed in the study that the teachers‟ professional identity construction is highly complex and affected by a number of factors, including personal, contextual and socio- cultural factors. These factors have interaction and close connection to each other that it is completely hard to isolate them.
The findings of the research are expected to be significant in providing valuable insights into EFL teachers‟ process of identity formation and reconstruction with reference to a particular working environment. iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.teacher LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL English as a Foreign Language E Entry I Interview LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Categories of Professional Interests Table 2 Data Analyzing Examples iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.teacher TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY .iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS. The context of the research.
5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. The concept of identity. The contents and processes of identity. Identity as a socio-cultural construct.
Identity and communities of practice. Teacher professional identity and the benefits of researching teacher identity. Professional identity construction of novice teachers. Social-professional interests.
The research genre: Case Study. Method of inquiry. The role of the researcher. Data collection methods and procedure.
Semi-structured interviews. Data analysis procedure. Mai‟s task perception. 21 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Attempts to establish desirable work conditions congruent with task perception. Coping with vulnerability. Coping with visibility. Access to school facilities.
Searching for instructional materials. Social-professional relationships. Social professional relationships with mentors. Social professional relationships with colleagues.
Social relationships with leaders. 45 PART C: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION. Summary of the research. Discussion of the key findings.
Summary of key findings. Factors that contribute to identity construction and the interaction between these factors. Personal and contextual factors: Striving for self-affirmation and dealing with vulnerability and visibility. Social-cultural factors: Power relationships and communities of practice.
Summary for Discussion. For teacher training institution. For the school. For novice teachers.
Limitations and recommendation for further research .IV vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.teacher PART A: INTRODUCTION This part starts with the description of the research context, including the identification of the problem and the landscape of English language education and English teacher training in Vietnam. Next, I present the research‟s aims, methods, and significance of the study. The context of the research Since the EFL context of the proposed study is Vietnam and given the contextualized nature of teacher professional identity, it is necessary that a brief description of the current situation of English language education and English teacher training in Vietnam be given. Like other Asian countries, Vietnam has followed the social trend of learning English in recent years as both the government and the people see the need for Vietnamese to have a good command of English in order to integrate better into the globalized world.
Thus, English is introduced early in the curriculum by the Ministry of Education and Training. Even though this increasing popularity of English learning leads to a higher demand and a better social status for English teachers in the country, several socioeconomic constraints have been seen to have impacts on the teaching practice of English teachers in Vietnam. Many public school teachers have to take part time jobs to teach English at privately owned language centers in order to get higher incomes. Also, it is still a common belief among parents and students that native English teachers are better than nonnative teachers; therefore, Vietnamese teachers of English are under constant pressure from the society to perform well.
At the same time, most English teacher training programs in public universities across the country focus on providing student teachers with practice in English language skills and knowledge of teaching methodology, but do not prepare them for coping with the hardship of the process of becoming an English teacher (Phan, 2008). First year mentoring, though provided, is considered by both senior and trainee teachers as a bureaucratic rather than learning and supporting procedure. In most cases, it is all left to new teachers to try and survive by themselves and to establish their own professional 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. With the increasing popularity of the socio-cultural approach toward language teaching and learning in the past decade, more transformative and comprehensive views of EFL teachers in practice have also been recorded (Varghese, Morgan, Johnson, & Johnston, 2005).
Indeed, nowadays, EFL teachers are seen as not only teaching practitioners operating in their own world, but also social entities that constantly interact with and are under the influence of various socio-cultural and sociopolitical elements that characterize their communities of practice (Miller, 2009). Despite its role of adding diversity and uniqueness to teaching and teachers‟ lives, the interplay and negotiation between these socio-cultural influences and teachers‟ own learning experience, teaching beliefs, and personal practical knowledge, as Farrell (2009) stated, is one of challenging factors to second language teachers in the process of establishing themselves professionally. To novice teachers, this process of forming a professional teacher identity has been shown to be even more dramatic. Indeed, it has been revealed that during the first year of teaching, beginning teachers constantly ask themselves many questions of identity such as “Who am I in my story of teaching? Who am I in my place in school? Who am I in my children‟s stories? Who am I in my administrator‟s stories?” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1999, p.
However, given the conflicts, reality shocks and anxieties that are highlighted in many studies into new teachers‟ teaching experience as common characteristics of the transition from being a student to a teacher (Huberman, 1989; Vonk, 1993; Thomas & Beauchamp, 2011), novice teachers often find it hard to find proper answers to these questions, which leads to their feeling overwhelmed and challenged (Thomas & Beauchamp, 2011). In examining the constructed identity of novice EFL teachers, these research projects emphasized the influence of classroom practices on teachers‟ developing perception of self, and yet little is revealed about personal and contextual factors that might as well impact the identity construction process of novice EFL teachers. There is, therefore, a gap to examine the identity formation of beginning EFL 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.teacher teachers in a more comprehensive approach that takes into consideration various constructing factors that build up the teacher self of novice EFL teachers in a particular context. Research aims Motivated by the abovementioned complexities of the identity development of EFL teachers in general and novice EFL teachers in particular, and originating from my own bittersweet experience in establishing my professional self during my first year working as an EFL teacher, this study aims at exploring various factors that construct the professional identity of a novice EFL teacher in Vietnam and how these factors interact with each other in constructing and complicating the teacher‟s professional identity.
Also, given the identified gap in the literature about identity research with novice EFL teachers and the current situation of English teacher training and professional development in Vietnam, this study sets out to address the following questions: - How is the novice EFL teacher‟s professional identity constructed? - What factors contribute to the construction of novice EFL teachers' identities? - How do these factors interact with each other in their identity construction process? Given the research aims, the scope, methods and significance of the study are clarified in the following section. Scope of the study The research is confined to the study of one EFL teacher‟s construction 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. Methods and significance of the study Given the research problem and based on existing theories and previous research, this study follows a qualitative approach.
Specifically, it adopts case study as the 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.teacher main research method. The data were collected by collecting teaching journals and interviewing the participant who is spending her first year of teaching at a high school. The aims are to explore the identity construction of this particular teacher, and identify factors that exert influences on her self-perceptions in a particular context. The findings of the research are expected to be significant in providing valuable insights into EFL teachers‟ process of identity formation and reconstruction with reference to her working environment.
Summary This part gives a brief introduction to the study by providing the research context and research focus. I will explain more about the theories and frameworks related to this study in the next section. 4 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.teacher PART B: DEVELOPMENT This part is designed for the development of the whole thesis. Specifically, it includes three chapters named 1 (Literature Review), 2 (Methodology), 3 (Findings).
Each chapter serves different purposes which importantly contribute to the success of the present thesis. CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter starts with detailed explanations of concepts and theories that are foundational to the present research, including the notion of identity and the contents and processes of identity politics.