Positively positioning allows the buxiban teacher to identify his unique self worth and value his unique self worth and value

characteristics that he believed in. Although what Mill said and how he acted matched the characteristics of an educator, his positioning towards “an educator” did not match. The participants in Trent’s (2016) study and this study both reflect Norton’s (2013, p.5) assumption that the construction of ones’ identities are based on how they position themselves.

Theme 2: Positively positioning allows the buxiban teacher to identify his unique self worth and value

A person might be positioned by other speakers; however, identity might not be changed by other’s positioning because everyone has their own positioning categories on one thing (Davis and Harré, 1990). As a buxiban teacher, Mill encountered a few negative positioning experiences; and the most significant one was the public positioned him as a teacher who only pursued for students’ scores.

First of all, through his working experience in the secondary students’ buxiban, he showed his unwillingness to be a “machine producer” and described the buxiban as another prison for students. He expressed his dissent in this kind of teaching practice and decided to quit his job after one short year. Then, in another experience of teaching a student in F, he fought against the student’s parents for seeing him as a money-maker and gave up teaching the student. He said, “He still kept trying to ‘memorize’ the vocabulary and learned English by rote.” Mill felt strongly that this method was useless for a person to learn English. He contended with the public’s positioning about his identity of being a buxiban teacher and showed care and concern for students’ feelings toward English learning. He cared about students’ attitudes toward English and did not want to see the students merely learning English for the sake of higher scores, so he chose to quit his jobs.

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This same kind of positioning toward buxiban teachers is also noted in both Kwok’s (2004) and Trent’s (2016). In Kwok’s (2004) study, buxiban was a place for enhancing students’ academic performance. Teachers in buxiban were like idol teachers who taught the students some modes of learning that were different from those taught by school teachers and aimed to highly raise students’ grades. Trent (2016) investigated buxiban teachers in Hong Kong and found that his participants tended to take up their identities as

“tutors” because they provided students with quick hints about exam techniques and past exam papers, and checked answers during class. In the public’s thought, buxiban teachers merely teachers who are teaching for tests.

Despite the fact that a buxiban teacher’s was positioned as a teacher who taught for tests, Mill was unwilling to take up this positioning. As Davis and Harré (1990)

mentioned, by extracting a person’s own autobiography one can know how a person conceives of himself and how he takes up his position. In this study, Mill’s description of his teaching method and what he did during his class strongly struck back the public positioning towards the identity of “a buxiban teacher” in two ways.

First, in Trent’s (2016) study, one of the participant thought that it was a “distance education” (meaning, psychologically remote) in buxiban because buxiban teachers had no bond with their students. Compare to buxiban teachers, school teachers cared about students and would “care” or “guide” students when they had some difficulties. However, in this study, Mill mentioned how he cared about students’ feelings and he would try his best to “stand in students’ shoes.” In children’s English learning buxiban, he was like a

“care-giver” who would do whatever he could just to encourage those shy children to talk in class. Besides, he would spend extra time teaching low-achievement students without payment. And in adult English learning buxiban, he cared about the students’ voices and invited the students to share their feelings after class. He even went directly to the

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students after class just to get the reflections from his adult students. When he got a negative comment on his teaching, he would adjust his teaching to meet the students’

need.

The reason that Mill did not take up the positioning that buxiban English teachers’

teaching as a “distance education” as Trent (2016) mentioned could trace back to his only one-time buxiban English learning experience. The buxiban teacher that he met cared about students’ need and tried his best to communicate with the students with exaggerated body language and tone. Although Mill and his peers were just children and might not be able to understand, the teacher tried hard to offer them instruction. Based on this

experience, Mill positively positioned buxiban teachers would take care of their students and help their students when they encountered any problems.

Secondly, in Trent’s (2016) study, buxiban teachers were positioned as teachers who only taught for exam. In this study, Mill’s had different belief in different working place.

In children’s English learning buxiban, Mill wanted to “bring happiness” to the children.

Mill’s belief of buxiban English teachers as “bringing happiness” to students still dated back to his earlier buxiban English learning experience. As he described it, it was an interesting and fun class. Mill did not remember what he had learned, but he remembered the teacher’s actions and hard work. In that atmosphere, English was just a tool for communication and Mill was willing to learn in that class; thus, as being an English teacher in the children’s English learning buxiban, he tried to imitate that buxbian teacher he met in his childhood and brought happiness to students in class.

And in adult English learning buxiban, Mill regarded himself as “a sushi-dish” or “a merchandise”, and the students were like customers. In adult English learning buxiban, students had right to choose their teacher and the students chose his class because they loved what he taught and they had resonance with him. He described himself as “a

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passing-by teacher traveler” because the students would come and go. Under this kind of working environment, he regarded himself as a role model for the students to learn from and was willing to share his life experiences on English learning while teaching. Through sharing his experiences with the students, he believed that he taught “something useful.”

The belief of teaching “something useful” to students could connect with his English teaching experience in Cambodia where he worked as a “helper” who tried to make students learn English successfully. With these beliefs, Mill obviously refused to take up the negative identity that the public positioned him; instead of this, his positive

positioning toward himself allowed him to identify his unique worth and value. Similar refusal to other’s positioning was also presented in Duff’s (2002) study－a group of students refused to take up their teacher’s positioning as non-local students, so they remained silent while teacher asked them to share their experiences in the class.

As Maclure (1993) noted, identity is a continuous struggle for teachers, and it is an argument connected to the teacher’s belief and how he implement in his teaching. In this study, the buxiban teacher fought against the public’s positioning and decided to become a considerate teacher who care about the students. Based on his earlier English learning and teaching experiences, the buxbian teacher refused to take up public’s positioning, and finally identify his unique worth and value as being a teacher who brings happiness to his students and “a role model” as a successful English learner for his students.

My Reflection

At the beginning of this study, the reason for me to embark on the journey of Mill’s was initiated by a question of how exactly of Mill as a buxiban English teacher and a school English teacher as myself are different in our development of our practice. At this point, I would like to address my own question by following topics: Mill’s thorny road to be a buxiban teacher, my response to the professionalism of a teacher and my visit to

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First, from Mill’s story, it is easy to find that it was a thorny road to be a buxiban teacher. I, as a school English teacher, described my journey of being a teacher as

“climbing the ladder.” In order to be a qualified school English teacher, I spent time taking educational courses, being a study teacher for half a year and then finally passed teacher’s certification exam to attest that I became a qualified English teacher. During my journey, there was always a teacher educator who offered guidance to me. However, in buxiban system, the working environment was competitive rather than supportive. Mill did not receive any teaching skills from other teachers, so how he taught could only base on his own learning or teaching experiences. Without a conventional teacher’s certificate, Mill needed to strive hard for different kinds of English certification examinations to prove his own professionalism all the time. The road to a buxiban teacher was paved with adversities.

Second, when facing on Mill’s argument－buxiban teachers are more professional than school teachers, my response is “it depends.” In Mill’s thought, the working environment for school teachers is not as competitive as buxiban teachers’, so school teachers did not need to polish their English abilities. I could not deny that the working environment is more supportive at school; however, there are still many school teachers who take English certification exams every year in order to certify their own English proficiency. As for school teachers teach “boringly”, I will say that school teachers nowadays requires to make creative lesson plans to meet students’ needs. Not all the teachers teach “boringly.” It would be unfair to tar all the school teachers with the same brush.

Third, after visiting Mill’s classroom, I found students had zero interaction with the teacher. In my imagination, the adult students would have intensive interaction with Mill;

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however, I was disappointed to find that no students tried to answer Mill’s questions in class. As Mill mentioned, children learned English in a happy environment and they had a lot of interaction with the teachers; however, since when do the children not regard

English as a language but a subject and need to “memorize English?” My visit to Mill’s classroom made me frustrated.

To conclude my journey of Mill, I would say there are a lot of misunderstandings that Mill have towards school teachers, which might due to his earlier learning

experiences. Through dialogues between Mill and me, I found that his negative

impression of school teachers has deeply rooted in his mind and it is hard to change his prejudice against school teachers. Although Mill came to visit my classroom, my teaching did not change Mill’s negative positioning towards school English teachers. He expressed his appreciation to my teaching which had some kind of differences from what he

experienced before; however, he still thought that my teaching was boring because the students could have anticipated what I was going to do next. Mill’s story depicts the potential hostility between school and buxiban teachers as if there is a watershed between them. However, both school and buxiban teachers nourish the same soil and play

important roles in the Taiwanese educational system. Is it necessary for us to have this kind of hatred? If not, how could we resolve such hatred? My wish is that one day the two groups of English teachers would work closely together to educate Taiwan’s English learners.

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The present study started from a buxiban English teacher, Mill, who I encountered while pursuing my Master’s degree. I was stroke by his confidence in his English teaching and began to inquire how a buxiban teacher became an English teacher as he is now. The conventional educational research focused on investigating how school teachers constructs their identities (see Masoumpanah & Zarei, 2014; Xu, 2013). However, in Taiwanese educational system, there is another group of teachers who work outside of school－that is buxiban teachers. Based on this, I began to explore how Mill as a buxiban teacher positions himself and how he perceives others’ positioning in the overall

Taiwanese educational context.

Summary of the Study

Starting from poststructuralist theory－positioning theory by Davies & Harré (1990), this study aimed to explore the positioning of a buxiban teacher in the Taiwanese English educational context. In order to understand how a buxiban teacher constructed his identity through positioning and being positioned. I conducted a narrative inquiry research by collecting narratives, interviews, dialogues about Mill’s English learning and teaching experiences in addition to a field trip to Mill’s current work place. The results was presented as two topics: Mill’s English learning journey and Mill’s English teaching experience.

Comparing and contracting Mill’s experiences with Davis and Harré’s (1990) positioning theory, it is clear that Mill’s identity construction is highly related to his own learning experiences. Mill faced a lot of difficulties while learning at school and his school teacher gave him a negative positioning which made him decide to be a buxbian