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Chapter 5: THE PLOT CONNECTING THE THREADS — TEACHER IDENTIY AS A SITE OF STRUGGLE FOR RECOGNITION
“To know who I am is a species of knowing where I stand. My identity is defined by the commitments and identifications which provide the frame or horizon within which I can try to determine from case to case what is good, or valuable, or what ought to be done, or what I endorseor oppose. In other words, it is the horizon within which I am capable of taking a stand”
— (Taylor, 1989, p.27)
"… Without a sense of identity, there can be no real struggle…"
— (Freire, 1993, p.186)
This is a story about Marcel, who negotiated the meaning of being a language teacher in the context of Taiwan through taking up and resisting different discourses to enact his teacher identity. Through the lenses of postmodern identity, Bourdieu’s (1990, 1993) field and capital, and Gee’s (1999, 2000) discourse, Marcel’s eight narratives were
conceptualized as a site of struggle for recognition. This process of becoming an English teacher was neither smooth nor developmental. Rather, it was a struggle centering around the concept of “recognition” as Marcel came across multiple encounters that informed his own identity enactment not only as a language teacher, but also as a language learner and a social being throughout his 10 years of teaching. In adopting Polkinghorne’s analysis of narrative and narrative analysis as principle of analysis mentioned earlier to think about my data, I constructed the plot of Marcel’s story, that is, the organizing structure that connects Marcel’s disparate experiences/events, demonstrating that his teacher identity was a contested site of struggle for recognition, a constructed intersubjectivity through which identities are enacted and refashioned. This understanding suggests that the public
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self is always affected and changed by the presence of the other (Taylor, 1994, 1995; Tully, 2000, 2004).
Before moving on to discussion, I would like to clarify what it is meant by recognition (Honneth, 1996, 2001, 2003). Recognition is a term sometimes, according to Ikaheimo and Laitinen (2007), ambiguously used as identification and acknowledgment. They argue that anything can be identified “numerically, qualitatively, and generically” (p. 38) as belonging to certain genus based on certain shared features. For example, in Marcel’s account, he identified himself as a member of TESOL, and identified others as teachers without professional training, as in his words, “I am from TESOL. I am professionally trained (…) Even though we are all language teachers here, for me they are only language knowledge transmitters.” Speaking of acknowledgement, the authors refer to its definitional
understanding as admitting and buying into normative entities such as principles, norms, claim, or values to be valid, genuine, and good. Therefore, to identify a normative entity does not necessarily mean one acknowledges it. To illustrate, Marcel identified others also as teachers but did not acknowledge their teaching as professional. The act of recognition, according to the authors, can only be applied to person by showing “recognitive attitude”
or “attitudes of recognition” (p. 37), through which interpersonal recognition is formed.
This recognition may further impact how the recognized feels about himself/herself. From this perspective, “not only is recognition important in enabling the subject to develop a positive narrative of self, it is also a prerequisite for agency” (Fisher, 2008, p.587).
Conceptualizing recognition as an interpersonal act shows that recognition is
facilitated or negotiated through interaction with others, thereby enabling or constraining one’s identity enactment. This line of reasoning leads Taylor (1995) to argue that
recognition or its absence plays an important role in shaping a person’s understanding of who he is. The following section discusses how Marcel struggled for dialogical recognition
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through which he drew on multiple sources of discourses to take up and resist certain identity options.
Recognition from the Mentor
Marcel, to a larger extent, pointed to his mentor as a source that enabled the enactment of his teacher identity, which was strongly reinforced and empowered through the process of dialogical (Ikaheimo & Laitinen, 2007) recognition. Ever since their first encounter, Marcel expressed his positive feelings and attitudes towards the mentor as he appreciated her straightforward and unpretentious way of interacting with her students. To recall, Marcel talked about how other teachers whom he had met were teaching vocabulary, and Marcel, liked them, wanted to provide the same vocabulary handouts to his students.
Viewing the mentor as an expert in TESOL, however, Marcel agreed and adopted the mentor’s suggestion and modified the original handouts so that they would not look like those used by other teachers. The mutual recognition between Marcel and his mentor did not involve only Marcel’s view of the mentor as a “competent recognizer or judge
regarding the relevant matters” (Ikaheimo and Laitinen, 2007, p. 38) in TESOL, but also a
“significant other(s)” (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011; Alsup, 2006; Rots, 2010; Sugrue, 1997) with whom this student-teacher relation transcended. For this recognition to be mutual, or dialogical, the mentor expressed her recognitive attitude, or attitudes of recognition, that allowed the reciprocal appreciation to emerge and later sustain. For this mutual
recognition to work, beliefs and values held by Marcel and his mentor had to converge genuinely. When asked about whether or not he felt differently about what the mentor said,
“I can’t think of one instance,” replied Marcel. The mentor, in return, complimented on Marcel’s innovations and experimenting with different ways of teaching and the use of materials. This recognition from the mentor clearly affected how Marcel viewed himself as
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a result. In narrative 2, Marcel struggled between employing popular movies as reading texts to challenge his students’ beliefs about learning on the one hand, and falling back to what the learners had used to on the other. The mentor’s encouragement assured that Marcel was doing the right thing, enabling Marcel to forge his identity as a language teacher. According to Marcel, the mentor was not only a researcher who knew lots of theories and an expert who knew about what she was doing, but also a caring teacher who always provided practical advice and workable techniques to her students. It should be noted that Marcel not only accepted the fact that mentor’s view had a point or was a reasonable one, or was a view to be taken seriously, or was one from which he could learn something; more importantly, it was also Marcel’s private engagement with the mentor that together gave rise to the affirmation of Marcel’s identity enactment.The same can be said when Marcel was told that there was room for improvement on his pronunciation, pushing Marcel to make significant investment in fine-tuning his accent so that he could, as in Marcel’s words, to “get recognized and affirmed by her [the mentor].” Marcel’s sense of self was largely determined by how he saw his relationships with the mentor and vice versa.
Recognized as a Near-Native English Speaker
Another source that Marcel drew on to fashion his teacher identity involves his struggle for recognition as a near-nativelike speaker of English. To Marcel, speaking nativelike English was a way for him to prove that he was able to communicate with native speakers of English, “since” said he, “English is not our language; it is the language of the native speaker.” Marcels’ struggle to get recognition by native speakers and as near-nativelikeness came from at least three major interwoven sources: his personal encounter with what he called his “foreign” friends (Narrative 5), the mentor’s comment on his pronunciation (Narrative 3), and finally, his students’ beliefs (Narrative 5).
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In Marcel’s personal encounters with his foreign friends, Marcel experienced both positive and negative feelings, despite that the negative feeling did not actually happen to him but to his friend (Narrative 5). Therefore, Marcel attempted to pronounce like native speakers and select phrases and vocabulary that were frequently used by native speakers for the concern that “If we don’t, how do we get to recognized by the native speaker.”
Marcel’s belief of achieving the state of nativelikeness was strongly influenced by his personal encounters with his foreign friends, through which he tested and experimented with the language he had consciously chose to use, and the social recognition was paid back in his friends’ words such as “How do you know this phrase? Nonnative speakers almost never use this,” and “You have no weird Taiwanese accent.” Marcel’s attempt to speak native-like English was also reinforced by his mentor’s comment on his
pronunciation, and the encounters he had with this foreign friends was a chance for Marcel to test whether his investment in sharping and improving his pronunciation was worthy. The feeling that “It’s fulfilling, really! Deep in my mind I feel happy”
strengthened Marcel’s appreciation of the mentor’s beliefs about pronunciation, thereby influencing his investment in pronunciation. The last source that impacted Marcel’s struggle for recognition on nativelike pronunciation came from his students. According to Marcel, one of the reasons that he invited his native friend, an Australian, to assess his students’ oral presentation (Narrative 5) was because “students may doubt your ability to judge their oral performance, especially on pronunciation, and certain frequently-used phrases and vocabulary (…) Even though you know about them, they won’t believe or trust you.”
Marcel’s encounter with his foreign friends, his mentor, and students demonstrates that he was surrounded by the discourse, to which he later partly contributed, that native speakers are the real linguistic model of input and therefore they are capable of judging a
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person’s use of language. Marcel’s concern on his pronunciation and his inability to confirm whether or not certain vocabulary and phrases are frequently used echoes, for example, Arva and Medgye’s (2000) study in which they reported that nonnative teachers had problems in providing colloquial slangs/idioms and certain types of frequently used vocabulary. It seems that being recognized as a native-like speaker enabled Marcel to forge his teacher identity, but on the other hand, it was a struggle that Marcel was consciously aware of. Marcel wanted to prove that
Students in Taiwan can learn English as well (…) even though English is not our native language (…) I want them [native speakers] to know that we can speak good English and they don’t have to modify their English by making it easy when talking to us.
Besides, Marcel’s assigning to one student to compare how English is used by different speakers (Narrative 5) demonstrated that he was aware that English was not exclusively used by native speakers, and paradoxically, being recognized as a native-like speaker by subscribing to the model of native speakers seemed to be the only way for Marcel to challenge the native speakers’ misconception about Asian students. “Sometimes my students would say to me they can understand what foreigners are saying but
sometimes it is because they lower the language complexity… are they doing this out of respect or…? I don’t know,” Marcel Said. Marcel’s teacher identity was enabled and affirmed by his encounters with his foreign friends and his mentor, and this affirmation was facilitated through the process of dialogical recognition and later these identity resources were translated into Marcel’s teaching.
Marcel’s desire and attempt to receive recognition as native-like parallels Jenkins’s (2005) study, which illustrates that teacher identity is connected to teachers’ perceived benefits of and beliefs about native accent and therefore influences how they teach pronunciation. These benefits and beliefs can be explained by Miller’s (2004) audibility.
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Drawing on Bourdieu (1977) and Lippi-Green (1997), Miller, taking a political stance, defines audibility as “the degree to which speakers sound like, and are legitimated by, users of the dominant discourse” (p. 291). Accounting for how speakers are positioned and how they position themselves through the use of a second language, audibility is closely connected to the notion of a “politics of speaking which implicates speaker and hearer in ways that are ideologically loaded, and which may be the basis of empowerment or discrimination” (p. 291). By conforming to the native-speaker standards, Marcel viewed speaking native-like accent and using native-like vocabulary and phrases as important resources for him to be positioned as a competent English speaker, allowing him to gain personal and social rewards (Lippi-Green, 1997). To Marcel, native-like accents and use of language are akin to what Bourdieu (1992) called linguistic capital, which affords its holders symbolic power. The possession of such linguistic capital may eventually empower people in the struggle for social status and recognition (Bourdieu, 1986, 1991). Viewing language usage as a field, Bourdieu (1989, in Grenfell et. al., 2011) coined the term “linguistic market” to show how social processes contribute to “a system of relations of force which determine the price of linguistic products and thus helps fashion linguistic production” (p. 47), later leading to a particular set of linguistic practice as a normative model of correct usage. In the field, according to Bourdieu, there is always a socially dominant linguistic form, legitimate language, which brings with it certain anticipated profits. The presumption about this reasoning is that, according to Bourdieu, those who are not speakers of the language are subject to symbolic domination, if they believe in that legitimacy of that language. English seems to be such normative model emerging from historically social practices17 that gave rise to its symbolic power.
17 The influence of English as the current world language can be seen, for example, in Ammon (2000), Pennycook (1994), Phillipson (1992, 2003), and Maurais and Morris (2003).
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Moreover, speaking, in terms of genuine oral communication, involves that “A person speaks not only to be understood but also to be believed, obeyed, respected, distinguished”
(Bourdieu, 1977, p. 648), which means the speaker is given the right and power to speak in a sense that “those who speak regard those listen as worthy to listen and those who listen regard those who speak worthy to speak” (p. 648). Marcel’s attempt to be recognized as a native-like English speaker was reinforced by the bond he had developed with his foreign friends and the mentor. In other words, Marcel, his friends, and the mentor shared the belief of and attitude about speaking with a native-like accent, thereby enabling Marcel’s “power to impose reception” (p. 648), which later allowed him to be acknowledged and
recognized as a competent English speaker because of the linguistic capital he owned, or strived to own. In so doing, Marcel actively accepted the power to speak, at the same time recognizing his accountability to his friends, contributing to the dialogical recognition he struggled for. The next section, however, will discuss how Marcel’s struggle for
recognition was undermined, thereby shackling his efforts to enact his teacher identity.
Misrecognition and Misacknowledgement
In narrative 6, Marcel experienced a sense of mistreatment and misacknowledgement from LLC. This misrecognition emanated from the fundamental differences between Marcel and LLC’s view on language teaching. These differences foreground the kinds of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986) that are respectively desired by TESOL and the
commercial enterprise. While Marcel aspires to improving language teaching and learning, LLC aims at maximizing commercial gains through providing educational services. Marcel gradually found his teaching context and expectations at odds with the theories, practices, and identities he gained in TESOL.
The first struggle that Marcel experienced concerns LLC’s valuing of teachers’
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entertaining persona to the detriment of their professional knowledge and competence.
The finding is echoed elsewhere in the literature. For example, Aurini’s (2004) report on the transformation of teaching in response to market needs demonstrates that teachers engaging in context like LLC do not necessarily possess professional credentials, and that a professional degree in a related field is not a prerequisite. Walker’s (2001) study, approaching English language teaching from a business perspective characterized by client-service relationship, reveals that private commercial language centers view particular teacher attributes such as humor and pleasing appearance as a criterion when recruiting teachers. More recently, in studying language teachers in commercial language schools in Japan, Appleby (2012) reported a male teacher’s confession and his
understanding of working in this social space, where a teacher “who is outgoing, someone who’s genki [lively], enthusiastic, someone who is young, someone who looks good, and someone who is popular with the students” (p. 14) was desired. However, it should be noted that this orientation towards entertaining persona should not be mistaken for the use of humor in the classroom that has the potential to facilitate language learning (Bell, 2005, 2009; Berwald, 1992; Medgyes, 2001a; Schmitz, 2002; Sullivan, 2000; Swanson, 2013;
van Dam, 2002). Rather than treating humor for its pedagogically facilitative role to achieve the purpose of language teaching and learning, LLC conceptualizes humor as a required teacher attribute that strategically helps bring more customers. Besides, since LLC believes that, as in Jean’s words, “they [teachers without professional and theoretical training] know how to carry out instruction based on their years of experiences,”
professional knowledge and theoretical training are unwanted, and even disruptive to the functioning of LCC.
Second, Marcel’s reflective efforts were significantly determined, or constrained, by LLC. Marcel experienced the empowering force of reflective teaching, moving from
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intuitional, robotic, routine practice to where teaching and a new form of knowing emerged (Richards, 1990). But if reflective practice occurred beyond the boundary of classroom setting that aims for making transformation, LLC’s jurisdiction would intervene and rules were enacted to ensure that the profits and interests of the company were guarded, as in the event of making copies for reading materials. Moving from viewing reflective practice as advancing cognitive development, Marcel consciously connected teaching to a larger sociopolitical context by reflecting on how he was positioned by the context in which he found himself because of the misrecognition he experienced, as he put, “I have been teaching here for almost nine years, and this is what I got in return.”
Because of the different cultural capital held and desired between Marcel and LLC, LLC did not acknowledge the importance of professional training and therefore did not recognize Marcel as contributing to the good of LLC. Marcel’s undermined teacher identity is largely a result of the disjunctions between the academic disciplines and such commercial enterprise as LLC, each of which manifests distinctive structures, mechanisms, and purposes, and therefore requires different cultural capital to sustain their functioning.
Drawing on Bourdieu, Grenfell and James (2004) argue that the academic field, education in particular, is closely related to government monitoring in terms of financial grant, the group whose interests it claims to serve, and to the larger sociopolitical context in which the education is conceptualized. In addition, the criticality of the academic field lies also in the pedagogical implication served by the knowledge generated to form policy and introduce practice to school contexts, and the centrality of knowledge produced, therefore, lingers, circulates and is legitimized within the academic field only. LLC, on the other hand, does not respond to the same logic of practice and do not serve the same purposes. Nor is it regulated by governmental data collection for academic and formal educational purposes (Bray, 1999). The knowledge generated in LLC rests on market needs— “providing
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standardized services, ensuring stable profits, and seeking new market prospects” (Aurini
& Davies, 2004, p. 419). To do so, LLC needs to hire teachers who can guard the interests, thereby filtering out those who cannot, which later circumscribes how and what kinds of knowledge is produced and maintained. Each profession, therefore, is ideological, and is, to
& Davies, 2004, p. 419). To do so, LLC needs to hire teachers who can guard the interests, thereby filtering out those who cannot, which later circumscribes how and what kinds of knowledge is produced and maintained. Each profession, therefore, is ideological, and is, to