职业院校英语教师文化身份的研究

发布时间：2016-08-04 07:51

Chapter 1    Introduction 

1.1    Purpose of the Study 
In EFL situation of China, to meet the requirement of English teaching, English teachers are asked to act as English native speakers not only in language knowledge and skills but also in  the  way  of  thinking.  However,  they  are  Chinese  and  influenced  more  by  Chinese  culture. They  may  encounter  the  problems  about  how  to  treat  Chinese  culture  and  western  culture, even  the  challenge  of  changing  their  values  and  behaviors,  which  may  cause  them  to experience  the  contradictions  and  conflicts  between  the  two  cultures  even  suffer  from  the bewilderment and the confusion.  English is not highly regarded in some vocational colleges: the indifference from college policy  as  well  as  the  ignorance  and  inability  from  students  cause  the  lower  self-efficacy among  English  teachers,  most  of  whom  usually  do  not  have  strong  sense  of  profession, compared  with  those  in  institutes  and  universities.  Besides,  English  teachers  in  vocational colleges  have  to  strive  for  another  theoretical  knowledge  and  practical  skill  to  become double-certificated teachers. So English teachers, as both the language learners and language educators  deserve  more  research  attention,  for  they  have  direct  influences  on  their  students. Therefore, it is meaningful to find answers about “who the English teachers were” and “who they become” both as EFL learners and teachers. That’s also what this study aims to explore.  
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1.2    Significance of the Study   
This study explores the English teachers’ culture identity issue in EFL context. Identity, as the non-linguistic outcome, one of the aspects is to let people realize and experience their own  value  and  get  the  acknowledgement  and  the  approval  of  the  society  in  the  process  of achieving  their  goals.  People  need  this  sense  of  identity  to  consolidate  and  gain self-confidence  and  self-esteem,  to  develop  interpersonal  relationship,  and  to  respect  their own and others needs and emotions. This study offers a glimpse into some English teachers’ present  living  conditions  and  state  of  mind,  especially  the  cultural  parts  associated  with English, which could facilitate the understanding of English teachers in vocational colleges. It also  gives  pedagogical  suggestion  on  cultural  teaching  in  English  class  and  makes implications for young teachers’ professional training and development in vocational colleges.   
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Chapter 2    Literature Review 

2.1    Definition of Cultural Identity  
Identity or Self-Identity seems to be a common used but quite illusive word. In a simple sense, identity refers to who a person is, as perceived by self and other. In other words, we can understand  identity  as  the  total  of  a  being’s  knowledge  and  understanding  about  himself  or herself. This concept can be expressed as “Shen Fen” in Chinese, as there are some words as “Shen  Fen”,  “Gui  Shu”,  “Zi  Wo  Ren  Tong”  in  Chinese  translations  of  Identity.  On  the  other hand,  identity  can  refer  to  the  process  of  construction  in  which  people  explore,  pursue  and confirm  their  identification.  This  concept  can  be  expressed  “Ren  Tong”  or  “Shen  Fen  Ren Tong”  in  Chinese.  “Identity  with  the  meaning  of  process  could  also  be  called  identification” (Wei, 2011:46).  The  definitions  of  identity  vary  a  great  deal  in  various  fields.  People  have  multiple identities and ways of defining themselves, for example, a man might see his own identity as a boss before his employees; while at home with his parents, wife and children, his identity as the son, the husband and the father could be salient. According to Sun (2010:405), “the types of  identity  vary.  Each  of  these  identities  carries  a  series  of  meanings  and  entails  a  set  of behaviors  as  well  as  actions  that  express  the  identity.”  The  meaning  of  identity,  however,  is not the same for all the people who share the identity. Moreover, identity is also widely used in a diversity of fields like philosophy, psychology, sociology, mathematics and linguistics.  In  the  field  of  SLA,  the  definition  of  identity  can  be  placed  on  a  continuum  of “structuralism  and  constructivism”  (Gao,  2007:  104).  The  structuralists  emphasize  the  given social  group  membership,  such  as  race,  gender,  nationality,  and  class;  from  a  structuralist perspective,  L2  identity  is  typically  defined  as  group  membership  in  a  target  culture  at  an ethnical level. While the constructivists focus on identity as the interaction between individual and  social  environment  and  is  situationally  constructed.  “Identity  concerning  ‘who  a  person is’, is a constellations of construct, situated in specific communicative events.
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2.2    Previous Studies on Cultural Identity Abroad  
The Social Psychological approach of L2 learning began to be given concerned research attention in the late 1970s. Lambert (1974) is the first one that involves the change in learners’ self-identity.  Through  distinguishing  subtractive  and  additive  bilingualisms,  he  focused  his research on the self-identity change. Subtractive bilingualism is defined as the acquisition of a second language at the expense, or ultimately at the expense of the first (Matthew, 1997); with subtractive bilingualism, the learner’s native language and native cultural identity are replaced by  the  target  culture  and  target  cultural  identity.  While  additive  bilingualism  is  taken  as bilingualism  in  which  a  second  language  is  acquired  without  detriment  to  the  first;  with additive  bilingualism,  the  learner’s  native  culture  and  native  cultural  identity  are  maintained while  the  target  culture  and  target  cultural  identity  are  acquired  in  addition.  Lambert’s bilingualism  entails  biculturalism,  so  learning  of  a  new  language,  is  also  more  or  less  the identity change. What lost or maintained is not only two languages but also the identity of two cultures.  Social  Psychological  Model  has  generated  great  interests  from  some  psychologists and  linguists.  Following  by  are  the  Acculturation  Model  (Schumann,  1978),  the  Inter-group Model (Giles and Byrne, 1982), and the Social-educational Model (Gardner, 1985). In 2005, D?rney  developed  and  revised  Social  Psychological  Model  and  put  forward  L2  Motivation Self  System,  which  includes  Ideal  L2  Self:  A  personal  representation  of  what  an  individual would like to be in the future associated with L2.If we want to be our ideal self speaking a L2, the  ideal  L2  self  will  produce  great  motivation  for  learning  to  shorten  distance  between  the real  self  and  ideal  self.  D?rney  combines  motivation  with  self-identity  and  insists  that  ideal L2 self could drive L2 learning, which also makes new contributions to SLA and self-identity research. 
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Chapter  3    Methodology.........11 
3.1    Research  Questions......11 
3.2    Research  Method  .........11 
3.3    Participants.........12 
3.4    Data  Collection............13 
3.5    Data  Analysis.....16 
3.6    Ethical  Considerations  ..........19
Chapter  4    Results  &  Discussions.....20 
4.1    Zoe’s  Story.........20 
4.2    Eric’s  Story.........25 
4.3    Crystal’s  Story....28 
4.4    Conflicting  minds,  great  efforts.......32 
Chapter  5    Conclusion.............35 
5.1    Major  Findings.............35 
5.2    Implications........38 
5.3    Limitations  ........39 

Chapter 4    Results and Discussion 

4.1    Zoe’s Story 

Zoe was the representative of Chinese class in junior middle school and high school. She “was into” Chinese literature and almost got full mark in the Chinese exam of entering high school.  Before  College  Entrance  Examination,  Zoe’s  head  teacher  told  her  English  majors could  be  more  promising  than  Chinese  majors  and  suggested  her  taking  English  as  her  first major. Therefore, Zoe reached an agreement with her best friend to major in English. Attitude to English Learning: “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well.” Zoe was admitted in English department of a normal university while her friend was not, which made her “lonely.” Worse still, the first class was a “shock” to her: she was “dumb and numb”  though  she  knew  the  teacher  spoke  English  fluently,  she hardly  understood  what  the teacher said. Zoe disclosed the idea of transmitting to Chinese department in the letter to her friend  but  the  reply  from  her  friend  “deeply  touched”  her:  “In  fact,  languages  are  the  same, learning a new language means opening one more window.” Zoe was greatly influenced by her teachers, especially the intensive reading teacher who had just finished training and came back from America. Zoe mistook him as an English native speaker  in  his  first  class  for  his  oral  English  is  “really  marvelous”.  In  her  opinion,  he  was “perfect”:  “excellent  spoken  English”,  “great  humor”,  and  “on  good  terms  with  students”. “Those weak classmates did not feel stressed in his class, for he always comforted them ‘take your  time’  and  corrected  their  errors  friendly”.  In  fact,  most  of  her  teachers  had  the experiences  of  studying  abroad  and  some  of  them  became  the  “distinguished  experts  in English teaching and linguistics now”. “Every teacher is outstanding, and I am so lucky to be the  student  of  the  big  shot.”  Zoe’s  foreign  teacher  was  an  exchange  scholar,  and  he  was “objective”  in  teaching.  “In  introducing  western  life  and  culture,  he  would  also  talk  about things like ‘when we are walking on the street, we do not know when the bullets may fly to us.’ He let us know more aspects of an issue, not something one-sided.”  

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Conclusion 

The  above  descriptive  analysis  of  the  three  cases  reveals  that  English  teachers,  as  both the EFL learner and teacher, their cultural identity is complex, multiple dimensions, dynamic and  changing  cross  time  and  place,  which  is  in  line  with  the  characteristics  of  identity  in Constructivism, perceiving identity as a process of construction, and interaction between the agency and the external environment (Gao, 2007).The three participants, no matter as the EFL learner  or  the  EFL  teacher,  to  some  extent,  exercise  their  own  agency  in  constructing  their identity,  and  construct  different  cultural  identity. Though cultural identity  is  hard  to  describe in details and capture as a whole, every English teacher has her or his own dominant cultural identity  which  is  diverse,  conflicting,  experiencing  contractions  and  struggles,  and  changing in  their  learning  and  teaching  process.  Here  is  the  brief  information  about  the  participants’ dominant cultural identity with main features. 
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The reference (omitted) 

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