Exploring Student Teachers' Construction Of Teacher Identity Under Mentors' Influences During Practicum Period: A Case Study

Various approaches to teacher development have been adopted, among which the ideology about the nature of teaching as a state of being, not mere as the way of acting or behaving arouses reconsideration of the nature of field teaching practice. Many researchers (e.g. Tusin, 1999; McLean, 1999) stress the necessity of teachers' personal sense of self and the conscious construction of a refined sense of self during practicum period. And to construct self-as-teacher is a complex process in which both personal and social factors are involved (Danielewicz, 2001; Britzman, 1999).The researcher employs Borich's (1999) theory of dimensions of sense of self, Halliday's (1994) version of functional grammar and Wegner &Vallacher's (1986) action identification theory as the theoretical frameworks. With the support of these theories, the researcher explores the issue of the construction of teacher identity respectively from the angles of sense of self, discourse and action. Moreover, the latter two supply the major analytical frameworks for this study as well.The researcher investigates a student teacher's construction of teacher identity during the practicum period and the effect brought by her mentor's instruction. Two questions are raised in this study: (1) What teacher identity does the student teacher construct during the field-teaching period? (2) How does the mentor's instruction influence the constructing process?Case study is adopted as the research method in the present study. One of the subjects is a student teacher who is enrolled in a field-teaching practice in a cooperative middle school after the three-year period of studying. And the other is her mentor teaching in the cooperative middle school. The researcher employs a discursive approach to data collection. Data sources include interviews, journal writing and classroom-field notes which focus on both the student teacher and the mentor's teaching practice and the mentor's mentoring process.Taking the very beginning of the student teacher's field-teaching practice as a starting point, the researcher analyzes the student teacher's teaching performance, the interview and her teaching journals from the dimensions of sense of self. As the analysis presents, the student teacher develops her teacher identities as a role-player rather than a role-taker, a seeker for her own authority and a follower of authority as well. In the constructing process, the dilemma of where she can place herself appears, and so does the struggle that she suffers when she encounters the problem of authority. While the researcher analyzes the data and attempts to figure out the intern's teacher identity, the influences of her mentor, who functions as a significant other, emerge in her speech. Following this clue, the researcher observes the mentor's mentoring and her teaching conducts. Through the analysis of discourse and identification of her action, her influences exerted on the student teacher are displayed, that is, the mentor's inconspicuous interference, modelling effect and the combined effects of her refusal of the student teacher's pedagogical propositions and the instruction in strong mood.After the analysis and discussion, implications for preservice teacher education are put forward which involve providing more space for student teachers in their pedagogical decision-making and building a productive power relation between student teachers and their mentors in order to achieve more effective field teaching practice.