Identity Construction Of Local English Teachers In A Sino-foreign Cooperative University

In light of the increasingly globalized higher education and English as Lingua Franca in a number of fields,high-quality EFL teachers will be critical to cultivating creative and innovative Chinese students in the 21 st century.Meanwhile more rational understanding has been undertaken as against the NS(Native speaking)-vs.-NNS(Non-native speaking)EFL teacher dichotomy,and NNS EFL teachers are found to claim such distinct advantages as multicultural awareness,bilingual language ability and L2 learning strategies in ELT.In recent decades there is a boom of Sino-foreign cooperative universities(hereafter SFCUs)established across China as a measure of its higher education reform,thus leading to new chances for the ELT reform nationwide;local English teachers(abbreviated as LETs henceforth)working in such a special sociocultural context and their construction of teacher identity are however much less explored.The present qualitative study investigates how two SFCU LETs constructed their teacher identity in response to this special context by adopting semi-structured interviews supplemented with literacy interviews and exchanges via e-mails and phones.In view of the multidimensional and multifaceted characteristics of teacher identity,this study draws upon the integrated framework of Trent’s(2016)identity-in-practice and identity-in-discourse.Results show that(1)Multiple identities in terms of personal identity,professional identity,situated identity and institutional identity contest and negotiate in enabling and constraining teacher identity construction,for which LETs display different professional trajectories;(2)Local Chinese teachers of English present confident and responsible images in the SFCU through discursive and experiential construction in their narratives,and their social responsibilities are highlighted in charity activities;(3)LETs arecharacteristic of “hybridity” as the third space with notable advantages in free code-switching of bilingualism,empathy to the students and devotion to the combination of internationalization and localization.Implications for English teaching reform and teachers’ professional development in China,together with future research directions,are discussed.