An Identity Construction-based Comparative Study On Classroom Discourse Between Novice And Expert English Teachers In Senior High School

It is proposed in the new curriculum that the traditional teacher-centered teaching model should be shifted to a student-centered one,and teachers are required to choose appropriate roles and identities in teaching.Nowadays,however,teacher training mainly emphasizes the training of teaching methods and teaching design,neglecting,to some extent,the training of teachers’ awareness and ability of identity construction.As effective construction of teachers’ identity makes it easier to create a harmonious teaching atmosphere to improve the teaching efficiency,it is necessary to systematically study the cultivation of teachers’ awareness and ability of identity construction.However,existing research on identity construction in education and teaching was mostly carried out through narrative analysis,focusing on teachers’ professional identity,and little attention was separated to teachers’ identity construction in specific teaching activities and teachers’ classroom discourse closely related to it.In contrast,although lots of studies on discourse and identity construction have been conducted in pragmatics,the research on identity construction in teaching interaction is still insufficient.In view of the fact that teachers’ identity constructed in and through classroom discourse plays a non-negligible role in effective classroom teaching,this thesis made a comparative study on classroom discourse between novice and expert teachers from the perspective of identity construction,which would be of both theoretical and practical value.The audio of eight reading lessons and eight exercise lessons of two novice English teachers and two expert English teachers in a senior high school in Jiangsu Province was selected as research materials.Adopting Chen’s framework of discursive construction of pragmatic identity,discourse analysis of the transcribed text was conducted to qualitatively analyze the types of identity constructed by novice and expert teachers respectively and the discursive practices related to their identity construction,following which a quantitative method was used to compare the differences.Then,both teachers and students were interviewed to explore four teachers’ self awareness of identity construction and use of classroom discourse,as well as students’ acceptance of teachers’ identity construction and classroom discourse,with a purpose of investigating the possible factors causing the differences.The results show:(1)The main identities constructed by novice and expert teachers include an authoritative teacher identity,an intimate teacher identity,a knowledgeable teacher identity and a guided teacher identity.Compared with that of expert teachers,however,the proportion of different types of identity constructed by novice teachers is uneven.Also,identity construction of novice teachers is often not as easy to be accepted by students as that of the expert teachers.(2)Novice teachers adopt fewer types of classroom discourse to construct identity,and their classroom discourse lacks interactivity and logicality.(3)Many factors causing the differences above include teachers’ self awareness of their own identities and social expectation for teachers’ identity construction,teachers’ competence in maneuvering classroom discourse,as well as their teaching experience.To solve these problems,it is advisable that teacher training should focus not only on the training of teaching methods and teaching design,but also on the cultivation of teachers’ awareness and ability of identity construction.What’s more,teachers themselves ought to keep improving their English proficiency and teaching skill.With these measures,teachers’ teaching ability will be gradually improved.