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An Exploratory Study of Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers’ Professional Identity Construction in a Globalizing China

  • Zheng Huang

    Zheng HUANG is a lecturer at Shanghai Normal University. She obtained her PhD from the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, in 2014. Her research interests include World Englishes, teacher identity, and sociolinguistics.

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Published/Copyright: May 16, 2019
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Abstract

Employing one-to-one interviews, this study explores, from a poststructuralist view, how Chinese English Teachers (CETs) struggle to construct their professional identity within the dominant ideology and disempowering discourses of native-speakerism in a globalizing China. Twenty-five CETs were interviewed, and the results have shown that applying human agency and subjectivity, CET participants manage to counteract the disempowering discourses and reach a relatively balanced power relationship with their native speaker (NS) counterparts mainly through four ways: Othering the NSs; exploring their own unique strengths; taking special roles in ELT; and establishing their credibility through hard work. The Chinese culture of learning, specifically, Confucian values, also plays an important role in CETs’ professional identity construction.

About the author

Zheng Huang

Zheng HUANG is a lecturer at Shanghai Normal University. She obtained her PhD from the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, in 2014. Her research interests include World Englishes, teacher identity, and sociolinguistics.

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Appendix Interview guide

  • Do you think you can classify yourself as an NS or an NNS easily? Why?

  • How do you describe yourself as a CET?

  • How do you justify yourself to teach a language of which you are not an NS?

  • Do you think CETs can be English teachers as good as or even better than NESTs?

  • Are you confident in your teaching position?

  • How do you feel seeing NESTs swarming into China?

  • What do you do to improve your limitations as English teachers?

  • Is there anything that makes you feel your job rewarding/frustrating?

Acknowledgements

I would like to deliver my sincere gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback on earlier drafts of this article. Special thanks go to Dr. Jing Huang and other editors of Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics for their diligent work.

Published Online: 2019-05-16
Published in Print: 2019-03-26

© 2019 FLTRP, Walter de Gruyter, Cultural and Education Section British Embassy

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