Chapter One Introduction
1.1Statement of the problem
The present study attempted to investigate the identity development of EFLteachers at primary schools on the ground that primary English teachers deserve ourresearch attention and that teachers' professional identities could serve not onlyresearch purposes but also practical purposes. In research that focuses on teachers'experience and practices, professional identity is a productive angle for analysis andexploration, while such research value of teachers’ professional identities exactlyoriginates from the fact that teachers' professional identities development contributesto their changing teaching practice as well as their professional development as awhole. The significance of the present study is elaborated as follows.First, EFL teachers at primary schools are worthy of our research attention.English education occupies a prominent position, since English has been an importantdiscipline in the country's college entrance examination since the end of the 1970s(Cui 2006: 6). The teaching of English is officially required in primary schools (Hu2007), with English teachers taking up the third largest group of subject-matterteachers in China's primary schools immediately following Chinese and mathematicsteachers (Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China 2014a). Theidentities of these EFL teachers, therefore, are worthy of our exploration, for bothresearch and pedagogical ends.Second, from a research perspective, identity serves as a productive analytic lensfor examining teachers' experience and practices. It is agreed by many that teachers'behavior and practices can be understood and studied thoroughly only throughanalysis of their identity (Gee 2000; Beauchamp and Thomas 2009; Varghese et al. 2005; Beijaard et al. 2004; Kelchtermans and Vandenberghe 1994). From apedagogical perspective, identity can be seen as an organizing element in teachers'professional lives, reflecting their beliefs，commitments, and understandings. Itmatters for both teachers and their students to understand who and what teachers are(Kelchtermans and Vandenberghe 1994; Varghese et al. 2009).
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1.2Structure of the thesis
Chapter Two will be a critical review on theoretical discussions related toidentity to set the theoretical background for my study, empirical studies that exploredteacher identities to locate the research gap. Towards the end，Wenger's (1998)ecology of identity will be introduced as the general framework for the present study.Chapter Three will be a description of the research methodology employed in thepresent research, including participants, methods of data collection and data analyses.Chapter Four will report and present the findings relevant to the research questions inmy research. Chapter Five will discuss and delve into the findings drawing onprevious literature and theoretical propositions. The final chapter will be a summaryof the findings from the study as well as the implications for future research andteacher education.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Identity theories: The narrative turn
In this section, major schools of thoughts on identity will be briefly reviewed,and then the focus will be the narrative turn in the research on identities. For the timebeing, I will mainly review narrative research from a philosophical andepistemological perspective. The methodology inherent to narrative research will bepresented in the next chapter.The arguably foundational theorists on identity in the social sciences wereWilliam James and George Herbert Mead. As psychology and sociology emerged asdistinct disciplines in social sciences, the research perspective on identity shifted froma mostly private, interior view to one where both an inpidual's internal thinking andattributes and the social structure that surround him or her are equally considered. Inother words, both inpiduals' private thoughts and society's public influence andmeanings become the focus of research on identity.The theoretical approaches that followed Mead's and James's lineage share aconcern on inpiduals' negotiation between the interior and the exterior, amongwhich the most significant contributions were as follows. Erikson's (1950，1959, 1968) theory of identity posits that we experience an identity "crisis” in our adolescence inwhich we determine our ultimate trajectory of our adult lives，and view identity as aprocess and an outcome of human development. His emphasis on development wasthe first in the history of identity studies. Erikson's theory is foundational to theidentity status approach (Marcia 1966) which claims fliat inpiduals can be classifiedinto one of the four statuses with regard to levels in the dimensions of exploration andcommitment in identity development. Eriksonian theory is also essential to thenarrative approach to identity which has emerged as a field of study loosely termed asthe narrative study of lives to which an academic journal is devoted. The presentstudy is inspired by this line of research.
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2.2 Research on teachers' professional identity
A review of the existing literature reveals that a majority of the studies thatinvestigated teacher identity focused on teachers in tertiary education (e.g. Bukor2015; Tsui 2007; Li 2008; Farrell 2011; Day et al. 2006; Duff and Uchida 1997;Dillabough 1999; Liu 2011; Hao 2011; Li 2008). Among these studies, two topicswere under frequent investigation: the content and the development, here respectively referring to the components and characteristics of teachers' professional identities andconstruction and reconstruction of teachers, professional identities. The group ofstudies that explored the content of teachers' professional identities often attempted tocategorize participating teachers with different labels. For instance, in Farrell's (2011)study，the researcher identified sixteen main role identities and pided them into threemajor clusters. This group of studies also sought to investigate specific aspects inteachers' professional identities (e.g. see Duff and Uchida 1997 for the social andcultural facet of identity; see Dillabough 1999 for the gender perspective). In whatfollows, the major findings from the second category of studies，namely those thatexplored the process issue of teachers' professional identity, will be reviewed in moredetails.
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Chapter Three Methodology..........15
3.1Research sites and participants..........15
3.2The role of researcher and the relationship with participants..........17
3.3Data collection..........18
3.4Data analysis..........20
Chapter Four Findings..........23
4.1Leng's narrative..........23
4.2Tao's narrative..........38
4.3 An's narrative56Chapter Five Discussion..........72
5.1development in departmentsof English teaching..........73
5.2development in district-levelresearch group for English teaching..........80
5.3Summary..........86
Chapter Five Discussion
In the previous chapter, the life stories of the participating teachers, Tao, Lengand An, are presented in three parts: their experience as an EFL learner, theirexperience as an EFL teacher，and their expectations of the future. From their lifestories, we could see the development of their professional identities in differentcommunities of practice, and that these communities are not mutually exclusive fromeach other.In this chapter I will examine the participating teachers' identification andnegotiation in different communities of practice，and explore how their professionalidentities developed and what drove such development. I will investigate primaryEnglish teachers' professional identity development in the department of Englishteaching as a community of practice and the district-level research group for Englishteaching. Elements that are found to be shaping primary English teachers'professional identities will be given special attention.The cases of Tao, Leng and An revealed that the English departments, thedistrict-level research group for English teaching were vital locus where theirprofessional identities developed. In flie following, I will examine the development ofthree participating teachers' professional identities in these two communities drawingon tiie fundamental concepts and principles of Wenger's (1998) ecology of identitydevelopment.
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Conclusions
In order to answer the two research questions, what the development of primaryEnglish teachers' professional identities is like and what might drive the development,this study closely examined the narrative cases about three primary English teachers'professional identities' development. By engaging with the three primary Englishteachers, Leng, Tao and An, I presented how their professional identities went throughshifts and changes, and explored what the forces are behind such development. In thischapter, I will first summarize the main findings from my research, then I will discussthe implications for future research, and finally I will examine the implications forteacher education.Before doing so, I find a word of caution is necessary here: I conducted thepresent research not in an attempt to derive any conclusive arguments from thefindings or the discussion. Instead, my purpose is to explore and to provide plausibleanswers to the two research questions: First, what the development of primary Englishteachers' professional identities look like. Second, what the driving force of suchdevelopment might be.
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References (omitted)