Novice English language teachers in Vietnamese secondary schools: resources and identity development

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Copyright: Nguyen, Huong
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Abstract
The study examines novice English language teachers professional identity development and the mediation of the resources that they bring to school. The context is Vietnamese secondary education during the current period of curriculum reform. The study shows that beginning teachers identity development is the management of social positions as the teachers negotiate and invest in the meanings significant in the school context. In this process, the school serves as a meaning-shaping arena, prioritizing certain goals and values and downplaying others. The teachers have to juggle among competing, even conflicting demands and desires within the context while trying to accommodate their own beliefs about teaching and learning formed through their previous socialization. The study found that the novice teachers knowledge and beliefs shaped by their pre-service teacher education provided a limited range of resources in responding to the complex demands of the situated context. As a result, the teachers were trapped in the identities pre-positioned in the school, falling back onto the school s cultures and norms of teaching that earned them access to desirable social positions. In addition, participants appeared to be paradigm bound, relying on apprenticeship of observation as a frame of reference for interpreting, conceptualising and enacting their roles. Drawing upon the ethnographic tradition, this case study is located within the interpretivist paradigm. A reconciliation of Bourdieu s (1989, 1990) Theory of Practice and Archer s (2003) Morphogenetic approach provides a theoretical framework for the research. Participants in the study completed the same pre-service teacher education program and were subsequently employed in different types of schools. The implications of this project transcend both context and data, as it contributes theoretically to novice teacher identity development. The study suggests that confining teachers to a particular discourse or paradigm of teaching and learning might narrow their identity possibilities, and conformity and uniformity (Coldron & Smith, 1999) culture within the school context might thwart changes and development.
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Author(s)
Nguyen, Huong
Supervisor(s)
Stanley, Phiona
Marshall, Stephen
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Publication Year
2017
Resource Type
Thesis
Degree Type
PhD Doctorate
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