Perspectives of transformative learning and professional agency: A native Chinese language teacher's story of teacher identity transformation in Australia.

The notion of teacher identity has gained momentum in second language (L2) teacher education in the past decade. However, the research into Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) teacher identity has yet to receive more attention. The study employed a narrative inquiry to explore a native Chinese CFL in-service teacher's identity negotiation and transformation within an international teacher education program. Self-reported narrative accounts, including multiple in-depth interviews and once-a-term reflective journals, were complemented by field notes and program documents. This data captured how the participant teacher negotiated internally with self and externally with the new environment to pursue professional growth. Mezirow's transformative learning theory was used to reveal the cognitive trajectory of the participant's teacher identity transformation with critical reflection as the central stage. Further, guided by Eteläpelto et al.'s framework of professional agency, the study also unraveled multiple external and internal influences on the transformational trajectory. The findings confirmed the value of integrating these two theoretical perspectives to explore language teacher identity development and offer insights into L2 teacher education practices focusing on teacher identity development.

Chinese language teachers' dichotomous identities when teaching ingroup and outgroup students.

Research into second language teacher identity has experienced a shift in recent years from a cognitive perspective to social constructionist orientation. The existing research in Chinese language literature in relation to Foreign Language (CFL) teachers' identity shift is principally in relation to the change of social, cultural, and institutional contexts. Built on the current literature, this research asks: "How might teachers' self-images or self-conceptualizations be renegotiated when they are located within their own mainstream cultural and educational system, yet comprised of students from various cultural backgrounds?" The data were collected from a group of CFL teachers in a South China university. The research found that students' backgrounds largely impacted on, and led to, the teachers' dichotomous relational identities, but did not dramatically change the teachers' perception on what or how much subject knowledge to be possessed to make an ideal CFL teacher. This attribute of their identity was sustained even though the teaching content was modified at a practical level in response to groups' differences. Further, the CFL teachers' pedagogical identity remained stable with only minor modifications when teaching "ingroups" and "outgroups" of students.