A Study on Construction of EFL Teachers’ Multiple Identities at Universities in the Context of IT-based Education Reforms

Authors

  • Jianping Li, Guanying Wu

Abstract

Based on narratives of four visiting scholars concerning their teaching experiences in the context of IT-based Education Reforms in China, this paper aims at exploring construction of EFL teachers’ multiple identities at universities and the factors that have afforded and constrained their identity construction. It can be concluded that the interviewees have succeeded in constructing their identities as practitioners, managers, guides and instructors through self-adaptation to the new roles and promotion of IT-based teaching competence, whereas they feel it hard to construct their  identity as the researcher. As to the supporting factors, professional training, learning projects on integration of information technology into curriculum teaching, public teaching contest and mentors’ guides contributed to formation of their identities. What’s more, inner-motivation, self-assessment, personal reflection were the significant individual factors that have impacted the EFL teachers’ construction of their multiple identities. However, burden of teaching tasks, lack of systematic training in academic research and few opportunities to communicate with leading experts in a certain field have constrained their construction of researcher’s identity. It is suggested that Chinese EFL teachers should enhance their multiple identities through all-round improvement of IT-based teaching ability and seek more opportunities to be engaged in academic research while the institutions should optimize the current promotion system to support EFL teachers’ engagement in their academic research for a win-win situation.

Published

2020-02-29

Issue

Section

Articles