A Study Of English Teachers' Identity In Junior High Schools-A Sociocultural Perspective

Influenced by “sociocultural turn” of foreign language teacher education,English teachers' identity is increasingly becoming a heated topic in foreign language teacher education.As an essential aspect of foreign language teacher education,English teachers' identity is worth exploring.The education of junior high schools in China belongs to compulsory education,which is extremely essential for the development of teachers and students.There are a large number of junior high school English teachers in China whose native language is non-English and who are living in unique situation and bearing much pressure,so their identity has unique research value.The previous studies of English teachers' identity,however,are mostly qualitative,and few of them are concerned with an analysis of quantitative data.Under this background,the study aims to explore the current situation of English teachers' identity in junior high schools so as to follow the studies of English teacher education.Based on the sociocultural theory,this study is conducted both quantitatively and qualitatively.By adopting questionnaire survey of 132 English teachers,semi-structured interview of eight teachers in Yunnan Province,this study attempts to answer the following two questions:(1)What is the current situation of English teachers' identity in junior high schools?Are there any differences among English teachers in terms of different genders,ages,years of teaching,educational backgrounds,professional titles and regions of school?(2)From a sociocultural perspective,what are the factors that influence English teachers' identity in junior high schools?Through the data analysis,the results show:(1)The overall level of English teachers' identity is high.In the four dimensions of identity,the level of occupational identity is the highest,followed by personal identity,then major identity,and the lowest level of English teachers' identity is situated identity.Among the eight variables,the mean of the occupational value is the highest and the lowest is the sense of organization support.There is a significant difference in personal identity andsituated identity among English teachers with different ages,while those with different genders,years of teaching,educational backgrounds,professional titles and regions of schools have no significant difference in identity.(2)Based on quantitative research,eight teachers are chosen to participate in the interview.From sociocultural perspective,factors influencing English teachers' identity in junior high schools can be divided into three aspects: individual factors,school factors and social factors.Among the individual factors of teachers,the most influential sociocultural factors are teachers' emotion,attitude and occupational values.Among them,the teachers' emotion and attitude belong to the dimension of situated identity in the questionnaire of the study.Occupational values belong to the dimension of occupational identity.Both two variables affect English teachers' identity by affecting the situated identity and the occupational identity.School factors involve school organization culture,which belongs to the dimension of the situated identity in the study.That is to say,school organization culture affects English teachers' identity by influencing their situated identity.While social factors include English new curriculum reform and senior high school entrance examination.English new curriculum reform belongs to the dimension of situated identity and senior high school entrance examination belongs to the dimension of personal identity.Both these two variables affect English teachers' identity by affecting the situated identity and the personal identity.