The Participant’s English Teaching History
Years Teaching Context School
2013
Tutor
Teaching a remedial class
School A:
a Taiwanese junior high school
2014 Practicum
School B:
a Taiwanese junior high school 2015-2018 Teaching in China
School C: a Taiwanese boarding school in China
2018-2019 Teaching in Taiwan
School D:
a Taiwanese junior high school
I became acquainted with her in a graduate class at a national university in Taiwan.
Among one of the courses, we teamed up with each other, focusing on an assignment that explored teachers’ identity. During several in-class discussions and after-class chatting, I found her struggles in the two EFL contexts interesting and insightful and decided to expand the course project into my M.A. thesis.
Data Collection
Six qualitative data sources, including oral narratives, interviews , informal conversations, class observations, a focus group discussion, and follow-up interviews were adopted. The justification for the usage of these five data resources is presented in the following sections.
Narratives
Life-history documents, which Bruner (1987) regards as “optimum resources” for people to give meanings to experiences in their lives, are recorded while participants tell their stories at will. For the purpose of documenting Kay’s self-perceived positioning and
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
18
the impact of cross-contextual English teaching experiences in constructing her professional identity, oral narratives were the first
focus (see Appendix 1&2). Before conducting this study, two oral narratives had been collected through a course assignment for the graduate class. One is for a holistic understanding of her English learning history. The second centers on Kay’s English teaching experience in cross-contextual contexts.
Interviews
Interviews have served as an eliciting device for many qualitative studies through which researchers have a clear picture of the nature of participants’ behaviors,
experiences, and understanding in their lives (Kvale, 1996; Yin, 2003). On account of its flexibility for the researcher to “probe and expand the interviewee’s response ” (Rubin and Rubin, 2005, p.88), this study adopted the semi-structured interview. There were three semi-structured interviews in this study. Two of them (see Appendix 3&4) were conducted as part of an assignment of a graduate school course. The other (see Appendix 7) was a follow-up interview conducted after class-observation. Each interview lasted for about one hour. The
location for the interviews was a coffee shop, an environment with less interference. The location for the follow-up interview was at the participant’s office at her workplace.
Language for all interviews was primarily Chinese with occasional usage of English.
Informal Conversations
Informal conversations were collected between Kay and I on LINE, one of the much welcomed social networking apps in Taiwan, and also between classes while both of us attending the graduate school. We usually shared our perspectives as language teachers and our experiences in various English teaching contexts. During these conversations, Kay shares how she feels as an English teacher both in China and in Taiwan. Given that these conversations usually serve as a starter for further interview
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
19
arrangement, the data gathered benefited the study in terms of gaining detailed and deeper information by further conducting data collection approaches.
Also, the exact date for class observations and the focus group discussion was also expected to be confirmed between the institution, group members, the participant and the researcher of the current study by maintaning contact through informal conversations. It’s also perhaps noteworthy to mention that the rapport established between the participant and the researcher can not be developed without these conversations.
Class Observations
For the purpose of understanding the interaction that Kay has with her current students, the researcher observed two of her classes: one was a co-teaching class, while the other was at the eighth period (the eighth period students can voluntarily enroll in) in her school in Taipei, Taiwan. While observing the co-teaching class, the researcher focused on her verbal exchanges with the native co-teacher and students among teaching practices (see Appendix 5 & 6). As for the eighth period, her unique teacher-student interaction underlying her teaching practice was also observed. In
these two classes, the researcher also attempted to triangulate Kay’s comments during informal conversations.
Small Group Discussion
To induce multiple and interactive perspectives from class observation, I happened to join a small group discussion. It was conducted with the 6 members, including two EFL teacher trainers, the native co-teacher, a retired Taiwanese English teacher, the participant of the present study and the researcher of this study. In this small group discussion, all members observed the co-teahching class and agreed to join the discussion for sharing their opinions to the class. One of the two teacher trainers volunteered to be the moderator, leading the discussion by inviting each member to share comments and also help translate and summarize them into English for the other trainer, a native speaker.
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
20
Data were recorded with a recording device and transcribed afterward. After the discussion, all members stayed briefly
for lunch, exchanging teaching experience gained from each specific context. By including the data from the small group discussion, it is believed that the data collected richer, the topics discussed deeper, and the interactive feedback more
beneficial for data triangulation.
Follow-Up Interviews
After observation, I invited Kay, the participant of the present study, to engage in follow-up interviews. During the follow-up interviews, she was expected to share her reasons for adopting her teaching practices, her interactions with students, and for her way of justifying her English teaching identity. By so doing, her observed
teaching performance can be compared with her reported practices and self-perceived professional identity.