A Narrative Inquiry of a Chinese Novice Teacher’s Professional Identity Development
Keywords:
professional identity development, novice teacher, narrative inquiryAbstract
This case study investigates the processes of the professional identity development of a Chinese novice teacher who is responsible for teaching Basic Chinese in a university in Thailand. The data was collected during her first teaching year. This is because the construction of her teacher identity and the perception of her roles as a teacher overseas may still be relatively
new. Self-perception of the main roles or identities (Simmons et al, 1999 & Harmer, 2007, 2015) in different periods was used to spot this development. A wide range of internal and external factors (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009) was considered to identify the factors that affected her identity development. The data in a form of texts from interviews and the participant’s teaching diaries were analyzed based on her narratives. The results show that the changes of her identities have taken place in the first teaching year since she mentioned that she adopted more roles in her second teaching semester. Besides, her beliefs and students’ characteristics were highlighted as the most important internal and external factors. This study hopes to provide suggestions to teacher trainers and help novice teachers understand the complexity of the teacher’s identity development. Moreover, novice teachers need to raise their awareness and be flexible to adjust their roles to accommodate the teaching environment around them.
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