A Study On The Identity Of Volunteer Chinese Teachers Abroad

"Identity",indicating the individual role gradually developed during the process of self-identifying with the society and others in a particular culture and society,is an important concept in the cultural and social research.Identity development occurs in an intersubjective field and can be best characterized as an ongoing process,a process of interpreting oneself as a certain kind of person and being recognized as such in a given context.As a newly-rising and burgeoning social identity,volunteer Chinese teacher has its own complexity and dynamic nature.At present,researches at home and abroad on "identity"theory have made some achievements and many studies have been done to explore the identity of foreign language teacher.Yet the research on the identity of international volunteer Chinese teachers is almost zero.Under this circumstances,drawing upon Vygotsky's sociocultural theory,and applying quantitative and qualitative methods,the paper aims to explore the present situation of the identity of volunteer Chinese teacher,its characters,influential factors,and put forward some effective suggestions according to my analysis.This paper used the questionnaire "The questionnaire of English teacher Identity in Senior High School”proposed by Xun Yang(2012)for reference,and designed it's own "The questionnaire of international volunteer Chinese teacher identity".The questionnaire is divided into dimensions:occupational identity,professional identity,individual identity and environmental identity;eight factors:occupational values,sense of belongings,teaching beliefs,teaching standards,work engagement,behavior tendency,interpersonal identity and cultural identity.The data are collected through questionnaires(twice)and semi-structured interviews(three times)from 41 international volunteer Chinese teachers from Beijing Foreign Studies University and analyzed by the social statistics software SPSS 22.0.The study aims to answer the following questions:First,what is the basic situation of the identity of volunteer Chinese teachers during their internship?Is there any significant change?What is the reason?Second,which dimensions/factors have changed?What kind of change are they?Is there any significant change?What is the reason?Third,what are the influential factors of the identity of volunteer Chinese teachers?What does it suggest for improving the level of the identity of volunteer Chinese teachers?We found that the overall level the identity of volunteer Chinese teachers was relatively high and it was significantly improved during their internship.But there are still some volunteer teachers having identity problems.Among the four dimensions,volunteer teachers'occupational identity level was the highest;professional and individual identity were relatively high;and the environmental identity level was the lowest.Besides,over one-year's practice,their occupational,professional and individual identity level had made significant improvement,yet their environmental level had no significant change.From the perspective of eight factors,the volunteer teachers' work engagement level increased greatly,yet interpersonal and cultural identity remained the lowest level over this year.Based on related theory and the interview,we found that student's appraisement,organizational support,social cultural environment and individual practical knowledge are the four main influential factors of volunteer teachers' identity.Among these four factors,student's appraisement played an important role in improving the level of volunteer teacher identity and little organizational support was the main causes of identity problems.Based on the finding,we proposed the following suggestions:From the standpoint of relative institute:1)Hanban should focus on cultivating the volunteer teachers' spirit of volunteer and strengthening their service motivation;2)The Confucius Institute should adopt human-based management and provide more concerns and support for the volunteer Chinese teachers;3)The Confucius Institute should provide more training and guidance about local language,culture and teaching skills.From the standpoint of individual volunteer Chinese teacher,they should improve the level of their identity by self-reflection,strengthen the communication and connection with their leaders and colleagues,and attend more peer-coaching activities.