Research Upon Teacher Identity Of Mandarin Language Assistants

The concept of identity derives from ancient Greek philosophical categories,which highlights the question of "who I am",denotes the ontological concern about the existence of human beings,and remains realistically significant nowadays.Although numerous researches have been conducted to cover the topics about identity of different teacher groups,relatively little attention has been paid to address this particular community,which is volunteer Chinese teachers in Confucius Institutes all over the world(In New Zealand context,the official name for volunteer Chinese teacher is Mandarin Language Assistant,and the majority of them works in primary or secondary schools).Therefore,based on literature reviews about language teacher identity,this paper concentrates on the teacher identity of Mandarin Language Assistants in New Zealand Confucius Institutes,applies the mixed methods of qualitative and quantitative research,attempts to elaborate the following questions:Firstly,what are the associations between teacher identity construction of Mandarin Language Assistants in New Zealand Confucius Institutes and their culture confidence?Secondly,what are the associations between teacher identity construction of Mandarin Language Assistants in New Zealand Confucius Institutes and their professional development disposition?Thirdly,what are the most important influencing factors when it comes to teacher identity development and construction of Mandarin Language Assistants?After having an overview of researches concerning teacher identity and their development and construction,this paper puts forward three specific research questions,conducts a questionnaire for quantitative data collection,then uses SPSS 26.0 for coming to these conclusions:firstly,when it comes to four dimensions and eight factors,teacher identity of Mandarin Language Assistants in New Zealand Confucius Institutes are in a promising condition;secondly,elements like teaching experiences before going overseas,school environment and gender have statistically significant influences over teacher identity of Mandarin Language Assistants;thirdly,the correlation coefficients of culture confidence and professional development disposition are fairly high,which indicates that they are closely related to teacher identity of Mandarin Language Assistants.Apart from quantitative analysis,the qualitative research of this paper is based on the framework of identity formation process that Wenger has proposed,collects information and materials from semi-structured interviews with three participants who had teaching experience as a Mandarin Language Assistants at Confucius Institute of Victoria University in Wellington,and conducts a narrative inquiry to present their teaching and life stories.Since the development and construction of their teacher identity occurs during the process of identification and negotiation of meanings as Wenger observed,this paper summarizes critical events and personal characteristics according to chronological order and meaning-making points,which attempts to elucidate the identity-forming trajectories of three Mandarin Language Assistants,depicts how their teacher identity evolves throughout experiences with a focus on their teaching practices,and explores the influences of New Zealand teaching environment,support from Confucius Institutes,important others,personal practical knowledge,teacher agency,pedagogical reflection and class observation over identity construction of Mandarin Language Assistants in New Zealand Confucius Institutes.