A Narrative Inquiry On Identity Dilemma Of Part-time Teachers In Tutoring Institutions

Part-time teachers in tutoring institutions are a group of teachers which is rarely mentioned by the academia.The majority them enjoy Bachelor's Degrees or above,and they teach as temporary teachers in tutoring institutions while holding their own jobs.Their part-time identity not only indicates the temporary and instability of this job,but also highlights that these individuals who claim to be teachers actually lack teaching experience in the real classroom situation.They can only explore how to be real teachers by relying on the knowledge and experience they have accumulated in daily teaching practice.The tension between their own job and the part-time job will also affect the production and reproduction of experience in daily life and teaching practice to some extent.Based on narrative inquiry,this paper chose part-time teachers in tutoring institutions,who share similar experiences with me,as the research object.This study describes their teaching practice and daily life in the form of tell stories,aiming to clarify their dilemmas on survival: how do they become teachers,how do they regard their own part-time teachers' identity,how do part-time teaching experiences influence them mentally and emotionally,whether this part-time job help or hinder their personal development and career aspirations.The study finds that in the daily operation of tutoring institutions,the identity boundary between part-time teachers and full-time teachers proves to be very vague.The profit-oriented institutions treat two types of teachers in an equal manner,which leads to the identity dilemma that part-time teachers are overshadowed.From this point of perspective,part-time teachers in tutoring institutions can also be named shadow teachers.Because of the lack of both teaching experience and skills,these part-time teachers have to accumulate knowledge and experience passively in real classroom context in order to be a real teacher.The experience they gain will help them form an educational belief and teaching habitus,which means they will stilldiscipline themselves as the teacher's role beyond the classroom situation.Their part-time teaching experiences also serve as a process of self-reflection,after weighing their own gain and loss during this process,they will consciously make choices based on the possibility of personal development,whether they choose to stay or leave,their decisions always function as strategies to realize ideal life.