An Exploration of Teacher Identity Through the Lived Stories of International Students Doing Microteaching as Part of their Coursework

McDonagh, V. (2018) An Exploration of Teacher Identity Through the Lived Stories of International Students Doing Microteaching as Part of their Coursework. 17th Annual School of Education Doctoral Research Conference, Birmingham, UK, 24 Nov 2018.

Abstract

The research explores the identity of six student-teachers as they navigate their experiences of micro-teaching and practice teaching on a master’s programme in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) in a university in the UK in 2018-2019 academic year. Research on identity has grown in recent years and there is now greater focus on the identity of language teachers. Research has shown that identity is not something static (Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009) but rather something in constant flux as well as being multiple in nature (Gee, 2000; Jenkins, 2008; Lawler, 2014). It is in seeking to understand the dynamics and multiplicities of identity that the participants will keep reflective journals on their teaching experiences and will be interviewed three times over the year. The journals will have guiding questions to support the participants in their reflective writing. The interviews are semi-structured and narrative in nature and seek to explore how the students initially identify themselves and whether this changes over the practicum sessions. These interviews will be audio-recorded, transcribed and then analysed using Connelly and Clandinin’s commonplaces of narrative inquiry (2006) which allows for analysis of situation, time and place and provides an opportunity for the participant’s stories to be told and retold. The interviews will be further analysed using the three themes of identity as set out by Varghese et al (2005), that of identity as being: 1) multiple, shifting and in conflict; 2) relational to social, cultural and political context; and, 3) constructed, maintained and negotiated to a significant extent through language and discourse. The journals will be analysed in a similar manner to the interviews, thus providing triangulation of data.

• Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: McDonagh, Dr Vanessa
• Authors: McDonagh, V.
• Subjects: L Education > L Education (General)
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Modern Languages and Cultures > Language Centre

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