以定位理論探討一位補習班英語老師的敘事 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學英國語文學系英語教學碩士在職專班碩士學位論文指導教授：招靜琪博士 Adviser: Chin-chi Chao, Ph.D.. 立. 政治大. 以定位理論探討一位補習班英語老師的敘事. ‧ 國. 學. Positioning and Being Positioned－A Narrative Inquiry on a Buxiban. ‧. English Teacher in Taiwan. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. 研究生：廖惠萱撰 Name：Huei-Hsuan Liao 中華民國 109 年 07 月 July, 2020. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(2) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(3) Positioning and Being Positioned－A Narrative Inquiry on a Buxiban English Teacher in Taiwan. 政治大. A Master’s Thesis Presented to Department of English,. 學 National Chengchi University. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. y. ‧. ‧ 國. 立. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. by Huei-Hsuan Liao July, 2020. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.


(5) To My Parents, Mr. Ching-Shun Liao and Mrs. Chin-Fen Wang. 獻給我的父母, 廖慶順先生和王靖芬女士. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. iii. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.


(7) ACKOWLEDGMENTS I am very grateful to the following individuals who have contributed to my thesis directly or indirectly. First, my warmest thanks go to Dr. Chin-chi Chao, chair of department of English of National Chengchi University. Her inspiring guidance and encouragement throughout my research for this work enabled me to develop an understanding of the topic from the initial to the final stages. I could not imagine to. 政治大. have a better adviser for my thesis study.. 立. My sincere thanks also go to the committee members, Dr. Hsueh-ying Yu and Dr.. ‧ 國. 學. Chien-han Chen, for their reading of the manuscript, insightful comments and. ‧. valuable suggestions on my study.. Then, my gratitude is extended to Dr. Yi-Ping Huang, Dr. Li-yuan Hsu, and Dr.. y. Nat. io. sit. Ming-chung Yu for their instruction during my study at National Chengchi University.. n. al. er. I also greatly appreciate Mill (pseudonym), my research participant, who shared his. Ch. i Un. v. life stories with me generously. Without Mill, this thesis would not have been possible.. engchi. Finally, I would like to extend my deepest appreciation to my family. First of all, my parents’ support and encouragement. My sister’s and my boyfriend’s help and meticulous care during the process.. iv. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.


(9) TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................. iv CHINESE ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................... vi ENGLISH ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................vii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................................... 5 Buxiban Phenomenon in Asia ...................................................................................... 5 Language Teacher Identity and the Concept of Positioning ........................................ 7. 政治大 Context and Participant .............................................................................................. 13 立. CHAPTER THREE: METHODS ...................................................................................... 13. ‧ 國. 學. Data Collection .......................................................................................................... 15 Narrative. ........................................................................................................... 15. ‧. Interviews. .......................................................................................................... 15. sit. y. Nat. Dialogues. .......................................................................................................... 16. er. io. Informal conversations....................................................................................... 16. al. iv n C hengchi U Data Analysis ............................................................................................................. 17 n. Class Observations. ............................................................................................ 17. CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS........................................................................................... 21 Mill’s English Learning Journey ............................................................................... 21 Elementary school－The enlightenment............................................................ 21 Junior and senior high school－An English self-learner ................................... 22 Since College－Keep going, and keep trying .................................................... 24 Mill’s English Teaching Experience .......................................................................... 26 Being a teacher－Before working in a buxiban ................................................. 26 A depressive teacher－Teaching in X children’s English learning buxiban...... 28 v DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(10) An enthusiastic teacher－Teaching in Y children’s English learning buxiban .. 29 I am a machine producer－Teaching in Z secondary school students’ buxiban 31 A passing-by teacher traveler－Teaching in an adult English learning buxiban (up to now) ......................................................................................................... 32 Mill’s Classroom Observation ........................................................................... 38 Summary of Mill’s Story ........................................................................................... 40 CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION ...................................................................................... 43 Theme 1: Positioning school teachers reveals how the buxiban teacher constructed his own professional identity ..................................................................................... 43. 政治大. Theme 2: Positively positioning allows the buxiban teacher to identify his unique. 立. self worth and value ................................................................................................... 48. ‧ 國. 學. My Reflection ............................................................................................................ 51. ‧. CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION ...................................................................................... 55 Summary of the Study ............................................................................................... 55. y. Nat. io. sit. Pedagogical Implications ........................................................................................... 56. n. al. er. Limitations of the Study............................................................................................. 56. Ch. i Un. v. Suggestion for Future Research ................................................................................. 57. engchi. Concluding Remarks .................................................................................................. 57 REFERENCES .................................................................................................................. 59 APPENDIX ........................................................................................................................ 65 Interview 1－Mill’s English learning background .................................................... 65 Interview 2－Mill’s working experience ................................................................... 65 Interview 3－Mill’s teaching style ............................................................................ 65 Interview 4－Mill’s grammar class ........................................................................... 65. v DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(11) 國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士在職專班碩士論文提要. 論文名稱：以定位理論探討一位補習班英語老師的敘事. 指導教授：招靜琪教授. 研究生：廖惠萱. 論文提要內容：. 立. 政治大. 在臺灣教育體制下存在著兩種英語老師：一種是學校英語老師而另一種是補習. ‧ 國. 學. 班老師。大部分的學術研究探究學校老師的身分認知與建構，而很少人深入補習班老師。本質性研究以一位臺灣教育體制下的補習班老師如何定位自己和如何看待他. ‧. 人定位為題，探討台灣英語教育體制下，一位補習班老師的身分認知與建構。. Nat. sit. y. 研究參與者是一位台籍的英語補習班老師，在補習班從事英語教學工作有八年. n. al. er. io. 之久，並曾在不同類型的補習班任教過。藉由合作敘事探究，本研究發現老師的身. i Un. v. 分認知與建構緊繫於他自身學習經驗，且老師過去學習的經驗，包括他自己曾經遇. Ch. engchi. 過的老師，可左右其教師信念與教學。. 透過本論文之研究，研究者提出補習班老師能夠藉由定位學校老師而建立自己的專業身分認知，再藉由不承認社會大眾對他的定位而找出自己在教師工作上的特殊價值。. 關鍵詞：英語老師、補習班、身分、定位、敘事、英語教育 vi DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.


(13) ABSTRACT In Taiwanese educational contexts, there are two groups of English teachers. One is school English teachers and the other one is buxiban English teachers. Most of the studies investigated identity construction of school teachers, overlooking how buxiban teachers construct their own teacher identity. This study addresses the research gap by conducting a qualitative study to explore how a buxiban teacher constructs his own teacher identity in the Taiwanese educational context. By answering the research question, how a buxiban teacher positions himself and how he positions others’ positioning in the overall Taiwanese educational context, the study attempts to understand how identity. 政治大. construction of the participant manifests itself in context.. 立. The participant in this study is a Taiwanese buxiban English teacher who has eight-. ‧ 國. 學. year working experiences and has worked in different buxiban contexts. By using. ‧. collaborative inquiry, the research findings expose a teacher’s identity construction is highly related to his own learning experience because the learning experience may impact. y. Nat. er. io. sit. on his teaching belief.. Through the findings, this study argues that the buxiban teacher is able to construct. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. his own professional identity by positioning school teachers and find out his unique worth. engchi. and value by denial of public positioning.. Keywords: identity, positioning, English teacher, buxiban, cram school, English education vii. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.


(15) CHAPTER ONE Introduction It is widely known that being a good language learner does not mean that he or she can be a good language teacher. In addition to a teacher’s ability of English, it is considered crucial for the teacher to have adequate teacher training in order to enhance his or her teaching strategies, techniques, and even classroom activities in language teaching (Garton, Copland & Burns, 2011). For this reason, many countries in the world have developed their own teacher education training programs; Taiwan is no exception. The common route to becoming an English teacher in Taiwan is to enter a teacher. 政治大. education program, finish all the training courses, work as a student teacher, pass the. 立. teacher’s certification exam and finally get a teaching certificate (Lin & Byram, 2016).. ‧ 國. 學. Thus, it is deeply rooted in the mind of the public that a qualified English teacher is one. ‧. with a valid teaching certificate and who teaches in the public or private school system. But actually, there is another group of English teacher playing an important role and. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. teachers.. sit. contributing tremendously to our students’ English education; they are buxiban English. i Un. v. I began to teach as an English tutor when I was a sophomore. Being an English tutor. Ch. engchi. made me realize I was quite interested in teaching; therefore, I decided in my senior year to take the teacher education program in order to become a qualified public school English teacher. It took me two years to finish the teacher education program, during which time I continued teaching as a public school English teacher for the remedial program. After graduation, I went on to engage in an internship at a prominent junior high school in Taipei famous for its students’ high academic performance. After the intership, I stayed on and worked in the same school for one more year. Then, I passed a teacher's certification exam, so I went to teach at a private school in China for three years. 1. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(16) During the second year of teaching in China, I felt a great sense of loss because of being far away from Taiwan’s English teaching envirnment, so I decided to come back to Taiwan to pursue a Master’s degree. I thought there would only be school English teachers attending this program; however, to my surprise, three of my classmates are buxiban English teachers, and one of them is Mill (pseudonym), a very confident English teacher who has never received any kinds of formal teacher education before this program. Compared to my own long journey of “climbing the ladder,” Mill seems to have taken a totally different path in his development. He had the experience of teaching in. 政治大. children’s English learning buxiban, secondary school students’ buxiban and adult. 立. English learning buxiban. This incredibly wide range of teaching experience made me. ‧ 國. 學. curious about his job and his development as a teacher. I wonder what exactly stand as the key difference between the development and practice of a buxiban English teacher like. ‧. Mill and a school English teacher like myself. With curiosity, I decided to embark on this. y. sit. n. al. er. io. construction.. Nat. journey of inquiring into Mill’s, a buxiban English teacher, practice and identity. v. The “buxiban” in this study also known as “cram school,” is an informal educational. Ch. engchi. i Un. context which offers classess for raising academic achievement or for adults to improve their English skills in order to pass such exams as TOEIC and TOEFL. This follows Bray's (1999) definition that a buxiban is a private and commercialized tutoring service that serves as a supplementary school “which is only concerned with tutoring which covered subjects that are already covered in school,” such as English, mathematics and science. According to Bray, there is a wide range of supplementary tutoring service all over the world. This kind of supplementary school can also be considered as a shadow education because it provides supplementary or test-preparation programs (Chou, 2008b). 2. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(17) According to a survey, high-school students spend half of their days in attending school, and the other half, cram school (Chou, 2008b). The biggest function of buxiban, as known by the general public, is that it is a place for raising students’ academic performance. In this study, “buxiban” refers to all kinds of private services that aims to enrich English learning performance, including, tutoring, anchin (安親, an after-school service where students go to buxiban for their homework, and their homework will also be checked by buxiban teachers), children’s English learning buxiban, secondary school students’ buxiban and adult English learning buxiban. Although the previous studies show buxiban is a wide spread phenonmenon in. 政治大. Taiwan’s education, most people hold the impression that school teachers who have. 立. teaching certificates are more qualified and professional than buxiban teachers. I have. ‧ 國. 學. also found that most teacher identity research (see Abednia, 2012; Masoumpanah & Zarei, 2014; Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013; Xu, 2013) focused on teachers in school system, not. ‧. those in buxiban. This observation thus leads to following questions. How exactly is a. sit. y. Nat. buxiban English teacher’s development and practice like? How does a buxiban teacher. n. al. er. io. position himself and his practice in the overall Taiwanese educational system?. v. Focusing on Mill’s rich teaching experiences in different buxiban contexts, this. Ch. engchi. i Un. study attempts to investigate how Mill, a buxiban English teacher, positions himself and how he perceives others’ positioning in Taiwanese English educational system. And most importantly, I wish to engage in dialogues with Mill so that our collaborative reflection on our practice and identity work can lead to fruitful insights on the English education in Taiwan.. 3. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(18) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. 4. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(19) CHAPTER TWO Literature Review The literature review covers two topics: buxiban phenomenon in Asia and language teacher identities as analyzed by the concept of positioning.. Buxiban Phenomenon in Asia The supplementary tutoring service such as the so-called buxiban is found all over the world, especially in Asia. According to Bray (1999), cultural, economical, and educational factors have influenced geographic spread of such services, with cultural. 政治大 impacted regions. The source of such impact has been attributed to Confucian cultural 立 factors making Asia and Asian communities all over the world the most significantly. ‧ 國. 學. heritage.. Confucius was one of the most famous educationalist in ancient China who. ‧. emphasized people’s efforts in order to become successful in their lives (Bray, 1999;. sit. y. Nat. Rohlen & Lettendre, 1996; Salili, 1996). His concept has deeply rooted in Asian people’s. io. er. hearts and was reflected in Chinese ancient exam system, keju (translated directly from Chinese). Keju, seen as the original source of examination system (Zeng, 1999), was a. al. n. iv n C way for Chinese government to recruit it provided a chance for civilians to h eitsnofficials; gchi U. change their social status－to be recruited as government officials, earn more money than what the general civilans could do and thus lead to a better life. The examination system has wide spreaded in Asia and was adopted by Korea and Japan in the early ages (Zeng, 1999) leading an examination-oriented learning culture (Bray, 2003; Kwok, 2004; Little, 1997; Zeng, 1999). Up to now, Confucian concept and keju still play dominant roles in Asian cultures and are reflected in the similar private tutoring phenomenon which has different names in different areas, such as juku in Japan, hakwon in Korea and buxiban in 5. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(20) Taiwan (Kwok, 2001). Among these areas, the topic of buxiban phenomenon has received a large attention (Chou & Yuan, 2011; Huang, 2004; Hsu, 2002). The buxiban phenomenon in Taiwan has been extensively researched in recent years (Chang, 2004; Chou & Yuan, 2011; Huang, 2004; Hsu, 2002). As Chou (2014) points out, the reasons that have caused the flourishing buixibans in Taiwan are the examinationoriented learning culture and credentialism, which can be manifest through students and adult learners’ language learning. For children, the examination-oriented learning culture makes parents highly concern about the children’s academic performance. In order to enhance their children’s academic performance, parents send their children to buxiban to. 政治大. get trianing for higher scores (Chou, 2014). For adult learners, they need credentials in. 立. order to be promoted in their occupations. Therefore, they go to buxiban to improve their. ‧ 國. 學. English abilities, mostly with the special purposes of passing TOEIC, TOFEL or IELTs exam or enhancing their oral ability (Chang, 2004). According to Liu (2002), these adult. ‧. learners range from office and factory workers.. sit. y. Nat. Some researchers focus on the cultural background of buxiban, while others pay. n. al. er. io. more attention to the interrelationship between buxiban (or buxiban teachers) and. v. students. As Kwok (2004) noted, buxiban provides more drilling exercises and more. Ch. engchi. i Un. examination skills than daytime school teachers. Therefore, students tend to go to buxibans in order to attain higher scores on their academic performance after school (Chou, 2008b). This kind of condition is especially reflected in ninth and twelfth graders who need high scores on entrance exams for entering prominent senior high schools and universities (Chou & Ching, 2012). Due to the examination-oriented learning culture and credentialism, it is clear that buxiban plays an important role on people’s language learning in Taiwan and that the function of buxiban is to raise students or adult learners’ academic performance. 6. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(21) The previous studies (Chang, 2004; Chou, 2014; Chou, 2008b; Chou & Ching, 2012; Kwok, 2004; Liu, 2002) not only show the function of English buxibans but also reveal the phenonmenon how people in Taiwan, including children and adults, trust buxiban English teachers and seldom question their professionlism as an English teacher. The professionalism of a teacher in the school system is based on qualification obtained from a teacher education program. As we know, to be a qualified English teacher in the school system, an English teacher must have entered a teacher education program, finished the teacher practice, passed the teacher’s certification exam and end up getting a teaching certificate (Lin & Byram, 2016). Owning an English teaching certificate symbolizes that. 政治大. the English teacher has received a lot of professional training and his or her. 立. professionalism is unquestionable. However, thus far, there have not been many teacher. ‧ 國. 學. training programs offered by the MOE or any univiersities in Taiwan for buxiban English teachers, so their teaching professionalism can not be certified. This lead to the question. ‧. how buxiban teachers develop their teaching identities and how they consider themselves. sit. y. Nat. as teachers in the Taiwanese educational context.. n. al. er. io. Few studies focusing on identity construction of buxiban teachers can be identified. v. particularly in Asia. Some of the exceptions are Trent (2012) and Trent (2016) which will be discussed later.. Ch. engchi. i Un. Language Teacher Identity and the Concept of Positioning Teacher identity is a dynamic transformation which involves the context that teachers experience in and outside of schools as well as the teachers’ belief and value of what kind of teachers they want to become (Sachs, 2001). It is a continuous constructing process that can be manifested through teacher training. As Burns and Richards (2009) states, teacher training (or learning) should be viewed as a process “constructing new knowledge and theory through participating in specific social contexts and engaging in 7. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(22) particular types of activities and processes’’ (Burns & Richards, 2009, p. 4). Novice teachers gain experiences through teacher practice and develop their own beliefs and perceptions on what it means to be a good teacher. The transforming process from not being a teacher to becoming a teacher is like going across a threshold and then grow into the profession (Vonk, 1989). However, such an identity is not stable; rather, it is ‘‘something that they use, to justify, explain and make sense of themselves in relation to other people, and to the contexts in which they operate’’ (Maclure, 1993, p. 312). Martel and Wang (2014) argue that language teachers’ identities are shaped with significant others, personal biographies and contexts. They then give the examples from. 政治大. Park’s (2012) study, Duff and Uchida’s (1997) study and Yi’s (2009) study to. 立. demonstrate the insecurity and constant negotiation between teachers, others and the. ‧ 國. 學. teachers themselves. From Duff and Uchida’s (1997, p. 291) study, a native Chinesespeaking English teacher began to question herself about being an English teacher after. ‧. her students’ mocking that “you were only here for one and a half years and you are going. sit. y. Nat. to teach English [to kids who don’t speak English]? ” This comment made her unsure. n. al. er. io. about whether she was capable of teaching English to those students. This reflects that. v. language teacher’s identity has the following features: “the contingent, shifting and. Ch. engchi. i Un. context-dependent nature of identities emphasizes that identities are not merely given by social structures or ascribed by others, but are also neogtiated by agents who wish to position themselves” (Norton, 2013, p. 5). In the poststructuralist theory, the concept of identity can be derived from Davis and Harré’s (1990) concept of “positioning.” As Davis and Harré’s (1990, p.48) proposes, positioning is a discursive process “whereby selves are located in conversations as observably and subjectively coherent participants in jointly produced story lines.” In other words, speakers claim their own identities for themselves and assign similar or 8. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(23) contrasting identities to their interlocutors in social interactions (Menard-Warwick, 2008) by which positioning and being positioned between them are shown (Davis and Harré, 1990). Hence, positioning implies how identities are manifested through discourse and accentuates the relationship among individuals in the teacher’s life story (Barkhuizen, 2009). Many researchers have conducted their research through the conception of positioning (Canagarajah, 2004; De Costa, 2011; Duff, 2002; Kayi‐Aydar, 2014; MenardWarwick, 2008; McKinney & Pletzen, 2004; Reeves, 2009; Talmy, 2008). For example, De Costa (2011) examined how positioning and being positioned affect the English. 政治大. learning outcome through observing the interaction between a Chinese immigrant student. 立. in a Singapore secondary school with her classmates and teachers and found that. ‧ 國. 學. teachers’ and colleagues’ positioning had some impact on her learning. A number of studies (Canagarajah, 2004; De Costa, 2011; Duff, 2002; Kayi‐Aydar, 2014; Menard-. ‧. Warwick, 2008; McKinney & Pletzen, 2004; Reeves, 2009; Talmy, 2008) have been using. sit. y. Nat. positioning as a way to reveal the impact of second language acquisition through. n. al. er. io. documenting the interaction between language teacher and students. Some studies. v. (Arvaja, 2016; Pinnegar & Murphy, 2011; Trent, 2012; Vanassche & Kelchtermans, 2014). Ch. engchi. i Un. have conducted to investigate the positioning and being positioned between teachers in school and shadow education. More recently, some limited studies began to emphasize how positioning works on constructing teacher identity, such as Trent (2012) and Trent (2016). In Trent’s (2012) study, the researcher investigated how in-service teachers position themselves and others through discourse. The results shows that discourse used to position others has a great power to shape the identities. Trent (2016) aims at investigating how private supplementary tutors, or teachers who are employed by tutorial companies providing 9. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(24) tutoring in English for a fee in Hong Kong, construct their professional identities. In Trent’s (2016) study, he interviewed six private tutors and found out that these private tutors shared similar paradox about being as “private tutors”, instead of being as “teachers.” Some of them found it hard to realize their dreams of becoming teachers because they lack of formal qualifications. As one of the participants, Grace, mentioned, “I’m not qualified as a teacher” and regards herself as merely a “private tutor.” To this point of view, Trent (2016, p.122) proposes, “This positioning, according to Grace, reflects the existence of an identity hierarchy in which those who are able to take on the identity “teacher”, and who are located in real schools are contrasted with a “private. 政治大. tutor”, located in a tutorial center.” Another participant, Vicky, also notes that “When I. 立. was a student I know that some of my school teachers did look down on those working in. ‧ 國. 學. tutorial schools, as just exam machines with short term goals only on exam results…” This supports the subordinate position of these private tutors and their distinction with. ‧. school teachers.. sit. y. Nat. The results of Trent’s (2016) study indicate a phenomenon that the private tutors. n. al. er. io. tend to minor their identities due to lacking teaching qualifications, considering. v. themselves as “exam machines” (excerpt 5, p. 125), lacking the chance to construct close. Ch. engchi. i Un. relationship with the students and without the opportunities to expand their teaching abilities. However, there is no hierarchy in teaching in the real world. A teacher’s duty is to give service to his or her students and solve students’ learning problems. What teaching context that a teacher is involves in does not matter. Trent’s (2016) study begins a conversation between school teachers and teachers who teach beyond school and offers a chance for general public to understand the perceptions of private tutors. This study tries to call for public attention to envisage the existence of these shadow teachers, including both researchers and policy makers. 10. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(25) Similar to private tutoring in Hong Kong, there is also a growing buxiban phenomenon in Taiwanese teaching context. Since this phenomenon has typically been considered an indispensable part of Taiwanese educational context by both parents and students, it is crucial for the general public, researchers and policy makers to envisage this phenomenon and to develop a deep understanding of buxiban teachers. Therefore, the research question for this study focusing on Mill, a teacher who has rich experiences in buxibans is: How does the participant position himself and how does he perceive other’s positioning in the overall Taiwanese educational context?. 政治大. To address this research question, the study traced Mill’s journey as an English. 立. teacher and attempted to understand what he thought about his teaching practice and his. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. unique contributions as well as how he positioned himself and how he was positioned.. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. 11. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.


(27) CHAPTER THREE Methods This study adopts narrative inquiry approach. According to Barkhuizen (2007), “Narrative inquiry is reflective inquiry. Through constructing, sharing, analysing and interpreting their teaching stories, teachers get the opportunity to reflect on their own practice and to articulate their interpretations of this practice. Constructing and thinking about stories in this way, therefore, involves both introspection and interrogation (p. 232).” In other words, teachers can derive valuable resource to understand teaching and. 政治大 In order to have an in-depth picture of the study, I used multiple sources, including 立. learning by inquiring into teaching experiences (Beattie, 2000).. ‧ 國. 學. narratives, interviews, dialogues, documents, artifacts and observations, as my data. More detailed description of the research context, the background of the participant, data. ‧. collection and data analysis are presented in the following sections.. sit. y. Nat. Context and Participant. io. er. This study was conducted in northern Taiwan, involving one participant, Mill (pseudonym), who was in his late 30s and has the experiences of working at almost all the. al. n. iv n C possible tracks of the Taiwanese buxiban practice, including those for h e nEnglish-teaching gchi U children, secondary students, and adults. Followings are information about Mill.. Although Mill had rich buxiban teaching experience, as a learner he actually had very little buxiban learning experience. During his schooling, he attended buxiban once when he was a third grader. After that, he had no experience of learning at a buxiban. As he described it himself, he was quite interested in English learning but did not pay much attention to the English classes in school. During college, he began to teach as an Enlglish tutor. He even went to Cambodia to be a volunteered English teacher for one month. After 13. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(28) he came back to Taiwan, he became a buxiban English teacher, and he has been teaching in buxiban for eight years. During these eight years of teaching, he changed his jobs three times. The first buxiban he taught at was a children’s English learning buxiban and he taught there for six years. Due to the unsatisfiying low income, he decided to teach in a buxiban for secondary school students. “Secondary school students’ buxiban” here particularly refers to a traditional style cram school that aims to enhance secondary students’ academic performance. One year later, he turned to a buxiban for adult English learning. When he were interviewed for this study, he had been teaching there for almost two years. Mill has never thought about working as an English teacher in a formal. 政治大. education system. He just wants to teach at buxibans. The reason of this would be later. 立. discussed in chapter four.. ‧ 國. 學. Mill and I were classmates in the Master’s progam. I first met Mill in the first semester of our MA program two years ago. I missed the first week’s class because of my. ‧. job. When we finally met in the second week, he not only gave me all the course. sit. y. Nat. information that I needed, but also gave me all the notes that he took in the first week. I. n. al. er. io. was so thankful and my first impression of him was that he was quite a caring person.. v. After a few classes together, we knew each other better, and he accepted my invitation to. Ch. engchi. i Un. be the participant of this study. The rapport between us was expected to greatly facilitate the data collection and analysis process of this study. Mill’s rich teaching experience in buxiban was just one reason for inviting him to be the participant of this study. Since both Mill and I had experienced some transformation of teaching contexts and we had no intention to become a member of each other's language teaching community, I believed his story and the dialogues between us could provide useful insights for the purpose of this study.. 14. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(29) Data Collection Data collected for this study included one narrative, four interviews, four dialogues between us and two class observations. All the narrative and interview data as well as our conversations and dialogues were conducted in Chinese, recorded electronically and transcribed for analysis. Details of each of the five data sources are presented below. Narrative. The narrative data was about Mill’s overall learning experience. Following Chao (2018), the initial prompt is, “Please tell me when you first became aware of the existence of English.” This Chinese narrative was given in a café in July, 2018 as part of a course. 政治大. assignment, and was lasted for thirty minutes.. 立. Interviews.. ‧. ‧ 國. total.. 學. To collect more information about the participants, I conducted four interviews in. The first three interviews were conducted in August in 2018 as part of coursework,. sit. y. Nat. right after the participant finished his narrative. After the narrative, the researcher. n. al. er. io. conducted three follow-up in-depth interviews. Each of the interviews took thirty minutes. v. and was conducted in the classroom that we took course together (See Appendix for interview questions).. Ch. engchi. i Un. The first interview was to know more about the participant’s English learning background. The second interview was about the participant’s working experience and where, when and why he shifted his teaching environments. The third interview was about how he views his own teaching style. Then, the researcher decided to observe Mill’s class. The fourth interview was conducted after observing Mill’s grammar class at his buxiban classroom in January, 2019. It was mainly about how Mill designed his teaching materials and his teaching 15. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(30) rationale. Dialogues. Dialogues in this study are similar to those adopted in many qualitative studies such as collaborative autoethnography. Chang, Ngunjiri and Hernandez (2016, p. 25) argue such dialogues afford “multiple voices and perspectives” that add rigors and benefits to the study. The possible benefits, as specified by these researchers, are “collective exploration of researcher subjectivity, power-sharing among researcher-participants, efficiency and enrichment in the research process, deeper learning about self and other and community building” (p.25). With these benefits, dialogues as a data collection. 政治大. method for this study allow the researcher to work “from self and collective analysis” and. 立. could greatly enrich the understanding of Mill’s positioning and being positioned.. ‧ 國. 學. There are four dialogues in this study. Three of these dialogues took thirty minutes each and were collected in August, 2018. These three dialogues mainly focused on how. ‧. Mill and I view differently the roles of being an English teacher in buxiban and school. sit. y. Nat. system. We discussed the differences between buxiban and school English teacher, such. n. al. er. io. as teaching styles, teaching philosophy and teaching methods.. v. In October in 2019, I also invited Mill to observe my English class at my school and. Ch. engchi. i Un. conducted the fourth dialogue right after the observation. These four dialogues was recorded electronically and transcribed for analysis. Informal conversations. In qualitative study, the relationship between the researcher and the participant can be as close as that between friends (Owton & Allen, 2014). In fact, many conversations happened during the lunch or school break time. Some conversations of course happened on LINE, a social communicative tool that is popular in Taiwan. These informal conversations were all recorded as a way to clarify Mill and my thoughts. 16. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(31) Class Observations. Class observations were conducted two times in 2019. The purpose of class observations were to understand how the buxiban teacher participant and the researcher as a school teacher present their English teaching in their own teaching context between the two teachers. The first class observation on a two-hour grammar class was conducted in January in 2019, which took place in Mill’s buxiban. During the observation, I paid attention to the interaction between Mill and his students－what language he used in class and how he guided his students to meet his teaching goal. Through the observation, I knew how Mill. 政治大. designed his lesson, his teaching materials and discovered his teaching strategies, which. 立. reflected the participant’s own teaching philosophy.. ‧ 國. 學. The second class observation took place in October in 2019. In the second class observation, I invited Mill to observe one of my classes and then have a follow-up. ‧. dialogue with him to know his thoughts about school teaching. All the data was collected. y. sit. n. al. er. io. Data Analysis. Nat. primarily by means of a paper-and-pencil.. v. In order to enhance credibility of this study, I invited Mill to read all the transcription. Ch. engchi. i Un. as a form of member checking (Shenton, 2004). And I noted down my reflection as reflective commentary to monitor my own initial impression of each data (Shenton, 2004). Data analysis of this study was performed in three stages. The first stage was the holistic-content analysis procedure (Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach & Zilber, 1998). According to Lieblich et al. (1998), holistic-content analysis is a way to analyze narrative materials which sees the story as a whole and the theme will be generated from it after it has read by the researcher many times. Thus, after collecting Mill’s English learning history 17. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(32) narrative, conducting the first two interviews about Mill’s English learning background and his working experiences, I transcribed the narrative data, printed out the transcriptions, read them several times and marked the texts for key concepts (categories). Then, I derived the themes from those key concepts (Iyengar, 2014). Based on the categories, I coded three interviews. Through this process, I constructed a profile of how Mill became a teacher he is now and tried to address the research question. In the second stage, I explored Mill’s teaching practice based on the narrative data and the first three interviews. I used critical event analysis (Webster & Mertova, 2007) to identify life-changing events that had consequences and impacted his teaching practice.. 政治大. According to Webster & Mertova (2007), critical events are those “unplanned and. 立. unanticipated events (p. 83)” that happened in one person’s life which cause “life-. ‧ 國. 學. changing consequences (p. 83).” These life-changing consequences “are only identified after the event (p.83)” and also, during the events, the person has “strong emotional. ‧. involvement (p.83).” Through the dialogues between Mill and me, I tried to explore our. sit. y. Nat. discussion about our views toward English teachers, English teaching, and school and. n. al. er. io. buxiban teaching systems. As Davies and Harré (1990) proposed, “The words the speaker. v. chooses inevitably contain images and metaphors which both assume and invoke the. Ch. engchi. i Un. ways of being that the participants take themselves to be involved in.” Through critical event analysis, what Mill said in our dialogues could be regarded as how he positioned himself which helped me to understand what Mill thinks about his teaching practice and his unique contributions and addressed to the research question. In the final stage, again, I used critical event analysis (Webster & Mertova, 2007) and took the data from the previous stages to explore how the shifts that we each experienced in our teaching and development reflected our self-positioning in the teaching system, focusing on who the participant thought he was in our discussions. By 18. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(33) the narrative data, interviews and our dialogues, how we position each other would be emerged and the research question “How does the participant position himself and how does he perceive others’ positioning in the overall Taiwanese educational context?” was addressed.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. 19. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.


(35) CHAPTER FOUR Results This chapter traces Mill’s journey to become an English teacher and attempts to understand what he think about his teaching practice and his unique contributions. In this chapter, I present Mill’s experiences as two topics. The first one is Mill’s English learning journey, which discusses how his English learning experiences is reflected in his current teaching. The second is Mill’s English teaching experiences, which provides an understanding of his English teaching belief. This part also include an observation of. 政治大 these two topics, the route of how Mill became a buxiban English teacher and how he 立. Mill’s classroom, which reveals what it is like in Mill’s teaching environment. Through. ‧ 國. 學. thought about his teaching practice and unique contributions are constructed.. Mill’s English Learning Journey. ‧. Elementary school－The enlightenment. y. Nat. sit. “It was him, a foreign teacher in a children’s English learning buxiban, who. n. al. er. io. enlightened me to learn English.” Mill described how the teacher made an effort to. i Un. v. delight the children during the class, “the most impressive was that he would sweat in. Ch. engchi. class.” “All of his gestures were so dramatic…when he said, ‘tall’, ‘short’, ‘big’, ‘little’…he would behave in an extremely exaggerated way.” Mill did not care what the teacher taught, and he did not remember what he had learned in class. All he could remember was that it was an interesting class. “The teacher made me realize that we should pay our sweat, expression, action, voice and professionalism if we want to be impressive.” When Mill talked about this experience, his eyes glowed with excitement and he was amazed by the teacher’s attitude and his devotion. Although Mill did not understand any 21. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(36) English words, the teacher still tried hard to communicate with the students using body language, which was impressed by Mill. However, it was just for a short period of time for him to know this language, and he had not encountered English again until he entered junior high school. Junior and senior high school－An English self-learner Mill told me he learned English by himself. He said he never paid attention to his school English teachers because he thought what they taught was too boring. When I was in junior high school, I began to have English class. I hated all the. 政治大 not my fault. The English class was too boring.” 立. school English courses, and I was not interested in the school English teacher. It was. ‧ 國. 學. During his junior high school, English was so easy that he did not need to spend too much time preparing for it. He said, “I did not view English as English. I learned it, and I. ‧. had tests on it.”. y. Nat. sit. Moving on to high school, he tried hard to maintain his English proficiency level－. n. al. er. io. he bought some English magazines to read and listen to the CDs. “Since I was the best. i Un. v. student in English in my class, I didn’t want to lose.” He said it was not easy because he. Ch. engchi. needed to study English magazines, listen to the CDs, and clarify the ideas of the articles and even try to enjoy the content of it all on his own. He specified that he did not care what his school English teacher taught in class. “I looked down on the word, ‘teacher’.” I did not care what he said or what he taught in class. Why not? The reason was: every time when I try to ask some questions to my school English teacher, he would say, ‘Come to me after class and I will answer your questions.’ However, he just ran 22. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(37) away EVERY TIME after class. Damn it! Therefore, during school English class, he usually lowered his head and read English article or whatever he wanted to read. “Among all the school courses, English was the only one that I refused to participate. I always lowered my head, read articles, listened to the CD and solved English problems by myself.” Then, he mentioned one experience that he was praised by his high school English teacher. It was an afternoon English class, the school teacher passed down the printouts of an essay to the class which was written from one of my classmates. He kept praising the. 政治大 first, but then I found a 立 little bit strange, so I read the article and found that it was. great exclamation and fresh words that were used in that article. I did not notice at. ‧ 國. 學. mine. I blushed immediately because I never peacocked myself and it was a rare time for me to be under the spotlight. [Except for looking at me…] The teacher kept. ‧. looking at my classmates who looked pretty or worked hard in his class. And then,. sit. y. Nat. he looked at the other classmates who had prominent family background; however,. er. io. everyone just looked at me because only I would use pseudonym in the essay. It was. al. iv n C U get any credits on this. attention to him in his class…I h didenot think ng c hhei could n. the first time that I saw the teacher felt very embarrassed because I never paid. “I did not want to show off. I just wrote [essays] for pleasure,” Mill explained. He commented his school English class and said, “I did not want to learn the skills of studying English.” When my classmates followed the ways to learn English vocabulary that teacher guided in class, I just tried to learn English in my own way. During that time, I did not realize that I was learning specific grammar rules or something. I just kept 23. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(38) reading… Although Mill spent a lot of time on English, he did not recognize it as studying English; he clarified, “Every subject that I studied at school was for exams, except for English.” He said, “To me, learning English was not like studying English. I never thought about I was studying English while learning it.” In Mill’s mind, English was more than a subject to him because he learned it in his own way, such as reading English articles. When English teachers taught in class, they taught it as a subject. They provided students with English learning skills and the students strived hard to learn these skills. Mill showed a highly disproval toward how school. 治政 English teachers taught to students. He said he despised the大 concept of “teachers.” 立 Since College－Keep going, and keep trying. ‧ 國. 學. Regarding college English learning, Mill depicted it as “a cycle of challenging,. ‧. failure, problem facing, and ability growing.” He studied English literature when he was. sit. y. Nat. in college, and he said, “At least… to me, I was quite interested in English, especially,. io. al. er. this language. I chose literature to be my major because it was just like reading story. n. books….” When he entered college, he faced a big trouble－ he did not know how to speak English.. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. It was a flaw…or a kind of challenge. Some of the professors taught in English at college. When they spoke in English, the students answered in English. Therefore, my challenge was to enhance my oral ability to the level that I could answer those questions in English. He told me it was impossible for him to speak English since he had not be in any kind of English speaking environment before college. In order to improve his oral ability, 24. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(39) he spoke to a British teacher in the language center on campus whenever he had time, he read out loud some English articles by the lake on campus almost every day and even played a game with his classmates which is called, “English only push-ups.” The rule of the game was easy. Anyone who spoke Chinese during a specific period of time needed to do push-ups. In order to improve my speaking, I would get up at six in the morning and went to the lake. There were some stairs by the lake, so I just sat on them and began to read the articles out loud. [I did this] Almost every day from freshman to fifth year of college.. 政治大 No matter how long the立 words were, he just read the words out loud. “I did not look. ‧ 國. 學. up the words in the dictionary because I was lazy. I just kept reading, reading and reading out loud. Maybe I would finish two chapters of that book.” With this training, he told me. ‧. he could read very fast, but he could not fully understand the meaning of the words.. sit. y. Nat. As he recalled those memories, he said he was the worst one in English speaking. er. io. among his classmates at first. “I remember when I spoke English, I would blush and. al. iv n C h situation, the eye.” He was embarrassed for this e n g cbut h iheUtold himself, “I did not want to n. sweat, and I would use a lot of body language. I didn’t have any courage to look others in. lose.” He took up the situation as a challenge. He tried to answer questions in English if the teachers used English to ask him. He said, “Sometimes I could not get the positive reply from the teachers, but I just kept trying and trying.” With persistence, “my English became the best among my classmates [when graduation],” he said. “The aim of my English learning was not for studying English...I think it was a process of self-fulfillment.” From elementary school to college, Mill did not want to follow the path that school teachers gave, but tried to follow his will to learn this 25. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(40) language. “I did not study for scores. I just did not want to lose…Anyway, I did not care about the marks, like 82 or 86. What I care was the feeling of perseverance.”. Mill’s English Teaching Experience From Mill’s English learning experiences, it is obvious that English teachers did not play a part in his life. And mostly, his thought for “teacher” is negative. Although he said he learned English by himself, he still stepped into this profession as an English teacher. This made me wonder what changed his thought and made him become an English teacher. In order to get more understandings, I embarked on the journey of investigating his teaching experiences and the difficulties that he overcame as being an English in buxibans these years.. 立. 政治大. Mill’s English teaching experiences can be divided into four sections. The first. ‧ 國. 學. section is his initial idea of becoming a teacher. The second to the fourth section is how. ‧. and why he switched his working places from children’s English learning buxiban, secondary school students’ buxiban to adult English learning buxiban.. y. Nat. er. io. sit. Being a teacher－Before working in a buxiban. When talking about being a teacher, Mill said, “I despise the word ‘teacher’.”. n. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. My college classmate asked me, “Your English is so good. Why not the taking teacher’s certification exam?”(…) I really detest this. I just do not want to be a school teacher because I think school teachers are “huì rén bù juàn”, 毀人不倦. (The original meaning of this Chinese expression is “helping people learn tirelessly.”). The word “huì”, 毀, I mean here is destroy. (Mill thought school English teachers destroyed students.) However, I do not think the problem has to do with teachers or students. It is the whole educational system which makes the problem. The educational system turns the teachers into the ones to please 26. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(41) others and changes our college students into machines. I totally disagree with this system, and also, I can not make a lot of money from being a teacher. Although he said he did not imagine himself being a teacher in the future, he still started to teach as a private tutor in his junior year. He went to a church and taught ten students. “It was an easy way to make money because the salary was four hundred and fifty per hour. However, I was really painful because they (the students) were not willing to learn.” This the painful English teaching experience did not stop Mill from being an. 政治大 one week. In his mind, 立 teaching in Cambodia was just an opportunity; one of his. English teacher. After college, Mill went to Cambodia to be an English assistant for. ‧ 國. 學. classmates in college invited him to go with her. He did not mean to be a teacher there, but the one-week experience of teaching in Cambodia was unforgettable. He. ‧. taught at an elementary school and was amazed by how the students there treated. io. sit. y. Nat. their study.. n. al. er. When they went into the classroom, they would take out their uniforms and. Ch. i Un. v. shoes carefully from their tiny bags. (…) When they appeared, they had neat. engchi. and tidy appearance. They even washed their feet before class in the bathroom. They worked hard during class. (…) You could see they sit up straight, quite straight. Mill said he was very touched by how the students behaved in the classroom which showed how they valued education. Although the Cambodians put much emphasis on education, it was sad to say that few of them could get into a junior high school. He said, “What I gained from Cambodia teaching experience was the 27. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(42) students did not treat English as (studying) English.” They learned English because it was fun. They didn’t study English for tests. They learned it because it would be useful in their future. Whether there would be tests or not, they just learned it… Students in Cambodia didn’t have any chances to go into junior high school. But they were still willing to learn English and sang English songs with me. Mill explained that he had encountered too many tests or exams in his English learning process; although he had become an English teacher, he still needed to pass. 政治大 for exams. Compare to the 立 students in Cambodia, “they love useful English. the entrance exam to get into the graduated school. Learners in Taiwan always study. ‧ 國. 學. information, like numbers and banknotes,” he said. When he taught them the conception of money, banknotes, numbers, including how to say buy and sell or. ‧. anything that related to their daily lives, they were willing to learn. “They wanted to. sit. y. Nat. learn the phrase－ ‘Thank you.’ because they could use it.” Mill said from this. er. io. experience, he realized, “If the students do not want to learn what teachers teach, and. al. iv n C U it successfully.” “As long as the students think it is h useful, e nthey h ilearn g ccan n. this kind of teaching is useless.” He wanted to give something useful while teaching.. A depressive teacher－Teaching in X children’s English learning buxiban Mill merely taught in Cambodia for one week; later on, he came back to Taiwan for mandatory military service. Afterwards, he began to work at X, a buxiban with both anchin department and children English learning department (“Anchin”,安親, is an afterschool service where students go to buxiban for their homework, and their homework will also be checked by buxiban teachers.) When I asked why he wanted to become a buxiban teacher, he answered, “First, I wanted to make money. Second, school English education 28. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(43) was excluded from my thought.’ He said, the flexible working schedule was also the reason. He emphasized, “[As a learner] I seldom paid attention to school English class because it was too boring.” However, during the first year working at X, Mill nearly lost his enthusiasm in English teaching. I taught both anchin and children’s English learning class. In anchin, it was like a game called, “hitting the gopher.” What does that mean? When students began to talk, we (teachers) would punch them on the head. The students were prohibited to talk. It was a torturing job. In children’s English learning class, the students was asked to speak, the more the better. I called it the activity of “pulling the gopher.”. 治政 Every time when they dug into the ground, you needed 大 to pull them out and made 立 them speak. ‧ 國. 學. To Mill, that was a torturing job because he needed to play two different kinds of. ‧. character and he did not like that. Moreover, in the anchin class, he had a lot of. sit. y. Nat. administration work. He had to pick up the phones and contact the students’ parents; he. al. er. io. needed to monitor the students’ scores closely and he had to spend extra time teaching. v. n. students after class. Not being able to adjust, Mill worked there only for one year before he changed to another buxiban.. Ch. engchi. i Un. An enthusiastic teacher－Teaching in Y children’s English learning buxiban Next, he taught Y children’s English learning buxiban for five years. Compared to X, Mill said he approved the working environment in Y. In Y children’s English learning buxiban, the teachers were asked to teach in English. They were asked to pronounce correctly, speak fluently, and tried to make students understand English-only instruction. The main goal for teachers was to make students listen to English and speak English.. 29. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(44) I spent a lot of time thinking about how to make students understand while preparing for the class. I needed to express the meaning of the English words, phrase or sentences through my facial expression or action. Sometimes the students did not understand, I needed to pronounce the words in a very exaggerated way or did a very big movement. I also spent time trying to figure out a way to make a reading passage much easier for them. When Mill encountered any problems, he would reflect on himself first. For example, when students could not understand what he was talking about, he would think “I must have done something wrong, so they did not understand.” He cared about. 治政 students’ feelings a lot and he would pay a lot of attention to 大those shy kids during the 立 break or before class. ‧ 國. 學. I would tell him or her, “You memorize the vocabulary really well.” “You read quite. ‧. fluently.” “Wow, you’ve finished your homework and your handwritings are. sit. y. Nat. pretty!” “Oh! Don’t be afraid. I’ll help you. I’ll help you for sure.” “It’s OK. You. al. er. io. can whisper. I’ll listen to you. I’ll give you a sticker if you speak.” No matter what. n. happened, I would tell the students, “Let’s do it together!”. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. “You need to stand in their shoes,” he said. Mill’s teaching style was enthusiastic and caring. Meanwhile, Mill’s oral ability improved a lot because he needed to co-teach with international teachers. However, he told me he faced some challenges while working with them. Usually, the international teachers only taught what they wanted. They did not care about students’ thoughts. Seldom did them care. Seldom. I kept trying to discuss with them before class about what we were going to bring to our students. Those 30. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(45) international teachers really didn’t care what they taught, and they just wanted to play games with the students. They usually played games, and picked up one or two things randomly to teach and then left. In order to deal with this situation, Mill usually needed to prepare a lesson plan before class and then he would try to persuade them to follow his lesson plan. “Although I needed to overcome these situations, I was still willing to teach in Y.” Mill said, “Teaching in Y children’s English learning buxiban matches well with my own English learning process. I like to learn English in a natural way [learning English in the English environment], so I was willing to compromise [to international teacher].”. 政治大 I am a machine producer－Teaching in Z secondary school students’ buxiban 立. ‧ 國. 學. However, after five-year experience of working in the children’s English learning buxiban, Mill changed to Z secondary school students’ buxiban under financial. ‧. consideration. Z secondary school students’ buxiban allowed him to make more money to. sit. y. Nat. support his family and his new-born child. For this career change, he spent almost five. io. er. days finishing all the previous exam papers and model exams in General Scholastic. al. Ability Test, a college entrance exam in Taiwan. He said, “If you want to teach in a. n. iv n C secondary school students’ buxiban,h ‘problem e n g solving’’ c h i Uis the necessary ability.” During this time, he used grammar translation method (GTM) as his teaching method. “GTM was the best way to answer students’ questions. I could give them what they wanted in the shortest time possible.” However, he said he was totally disagree with that kind of teaching or English learning environment. In this buxiban, the students didn’t want to get involved in class. They didn’t want to participate in any kinds of activities, or I seldom implemented activity to them…The only sense of achievement that I got from working there was scores. 31. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(46) In Mill’s thought, the students were like prisoners. “They were prisoned at school, and were put into jail again in buxiban after school.” He showed a strong disapproval of the exam-oriented style of teaching. Mill did not want to pay so much attention to exams or scores, and said, “Didn’t I need to fight the attitude that students had toward English?” Feeling disappointed in the exam-oriented goal, Mill concluded his teaching in Z secondary school students’ buxiban as－“Repeat! Fake Game! Repeat! Test! Homework!” When talked about GTM, Mill said, “The way I taught there was quite opposite to my teaching belief” because “The students were not happy!” He said the students went to buxiban with no purpose, and what teachers did there were just filling up exam skills for. 政治大. them. “I needed to compromise my teaching style and used GTM. That was my. 立. sacrifice.”. ‧ 國. 學. Mill could not tolerate his working environment, so he only taught in the secondary school students’ buxiban for one year. He said, “I, as a teacher, turned myself into a. ‧. machine producer. It seemed like I was not teaching English… and just like Chinese,. sit. y. Nat. science and math…English became an another subject.”. n. al. er. io. A passing-by teacher traveler－Teaching in an adult English learning buxiban (up to now). Ch. engchi. i Un. v. Having nothing in common with the secondary school students’ buxiban, Mill decided to move once again to an adult English buxiban. In order to get into the adult English buxiban, he took a lot of English exams, like the GEPT Advanced Test and TOEIC. Having lots of English certifications was the basic requirement for entering an adult English buxiban. This is a way to show teachers’ abilities. Many teachers take the exam every year. We need to update our certification. We cannot use the certification 32. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(47) that we took three hundred years ago. It is a whole new conception. Mill thought there is a difference between a buxiban and a school teacher. Our salary and our levels of education is not in direct proportion. The only way to increase our salary is based on the number of our students. And our salary will increase only when our students continuous presence in our classes. The high or low salary basically bases on our teaching performance. In the adult English learning buxiban, teachers need to maintain their own professionalism through passing different kinds of English exam. In other words, they. 政治大. need to keep learning English. “I think whether a teacher is professional or not can best. 立. be revealed through their experiences of teaching in an adult English buxiban,” Mill said.. ‧ 國. 學. “Most of the students there are adults. Although some of them are high school students,. thought,. ‧. they are mature enough to tell if the teacher is professional or not.” Mill elaborated on his. sit. y. Nat. io. er. As teachers who teach in adult English learning buxibans, we need to make the. al. students understand our teaching style. We need to care about every word we use and. n. iv n C U ages because I don’t know if h e nlevels try to satisfy students from different h idifferent g cand the student will come back to class next time or not. Maybe I thought the previous class was fun and he would show up next time, but he didn’t. And he was also absent in the following lessons. Mill said teaching in the adult English learning buxiban is like in a buffet. “He [The student] can eat anything he wants. He can choose to take oral and listening lessons this time, and next time he takes TOFEL or IELTs. It’s a free market system.” Mill shows great assent of this kind of conception. “If he doesn’t like your class, he won’t show up 33. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(48) next time.” Mill showed great confidence in his teaching by using metaphor eating at sushi-go-around to indicate that students have a lot of choices which made it difficult to teach: Working in buxiban is like eating at sushi-go-around. We are those sushi dishes and the students are like customers. They can choose whatever they want. They come here autonomously. They can choose. They have the rights to choose, to quit and to complain. Students at school don’t have these rights. And they [school teachers] can’t hear students’ real voices.. 政治大 (laugh). Everything is derived from 立students’ reactions.” In order to maintain his own “How we teach is following how students react. No one teaches us how to teach. ‧ 國. 學. English abilities, Mill constantly needs to prepare the English certification tests, and he needs to prepare for his lessons before class based on what the buxiban requires and what. ‧. he wants to bring the students. “Based on the teaching material that buxiban give, I make. sit. y. Nat. my own teaching materials, including handouts or PowerPoint slides.”. er. io. Mill mentioned that in adult English learning buxiban, students seldom talk in class:. al. iv n C hthe In that environment, he needed to talk all i Uwould respond to him. e ntime. g cNohone n. “The students seldom talk in class. They want to understand what teachers say in class.”. Actually, it is miserable. Now I do try to look for their “voices”. To be truth, this is funny. Actually, students’ voice are seldom heard in adult English learning buxiban because they think it is embarrassing to speak out. I wish I can hear their voices. I often tell them “If you can, come and chat with me after class. I care about their voices a lot… However, only one in twenty will really talk to me after class… And most of them are not students [they are working now]. 34. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(49) That is…actually…pathetic because…the school teacher had destroyed them. I asked him how he knew the students would understand his lessons. He replied, “Just stand in their shoes.” He gave me an example, When I am designing my lesson, I will try to guess what the students feel in this lesson. I will guess how they may react to every word and sentence that I say. I just stand in their shoes because in real teaching, a teacher is not the only one in the classroom. During the class, I might speak or talk unintelligibly and then observe their facial expressions and reactions. We need to be very patient, explain in a very. 政治大. clear way and try not to push them too hard.. 立. In order to know the students’ feelings, Mill would go to his students directly after. ‧ 國. 學. class and asked them if they understood the lessons and what their overall feelings were. ‧. toward the class.. sit. y. Nat. I ask them why they choose my class, and they say, “It is ‘Useful’!” They say what. io. er. the teacher teach in class can incite their resonance [towards their lives]. (…) The. al. students and I are in the same age, and we can understand what is going on in our. n. iv n C U hen lives and we can share our thoughts through this g c h i language.. Mill said he had some struggles. “Sometimes what the teachers do does not match with what the students need,” he said. He used to teach in an interactive way and tried to force students to think and talk in class; however, his students told him that they preferred something more direct. “They want answers,” he spoke in a disappointing way. Facing this kind of response, he said he tried to meet the students’ needs through his handouts and continued using his own ways to teach during the class. He did not force students to speak; instead, after he asked a question, he would stop and look around, and then, he 35. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.

(50) would answered it by himself. “It’s just a compromise between dream and reality,” he said. He said through teaching in the adult English learning buxiban, he wished to share his life values with his students. “What I want to bring to them is something they can use in their daily life.” He usually used his life experiences to encourage his students. To Mill, English learning is about showing perseverance. Just like studying for a master’s degree, which is the highest position in life that he wanted to pursue. “It is not what you can do or not, but what you want to do or not,” he usually told his students. He emphasizes, “Everyone has his own professionalism, and just like my professionalism is English.” He said,. 立. 政治大. I’d never studied abroad and I didn’t come from a wealthy family. My father is a taxi. ‧ 國. 學. driver and my mother just work part-time. And… I don’t go to buxiban… My family. ‧. background might be worse than theirs [the students], but why can I become your English teacher right now? Because I invested a lot of time and will. And I believe in. y. Nat. er. io. sit. myself. I keep going even now.. al. iv n C h e and he told them, “English learning is a process, n gitcis hnoti aUresult. It is a friend who can n. Mill tried to encourage his students through his own English learning experiences,. accompany you to become a grown-up. If you view English only as a result [like scores], you will lose your passion in [learning] English continuously.” Being an English teacher in buxiban for eight years, Mill thought that he was trained to own an ability－how to make students learn English happily. This brought up a memory. There is a School F in Taoyuan. As everybody knows, F is an extremely suck school. 36. DOI:10.6814/NCCU202000868.