The role of teacher knowledge and practice in shaping EFL teachers’ glocal identity

Abstract

This study examined the identity development of two Chinese teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) in a globalized city in China. Grounded in the conceptual frameworks of ‘identity in belief and practice’ and the images of teacher knowledge, the study critically analysed the factors that influenced the formation of teacher identities. The data were collected through interviews and classroom observations. It was revealed that the participants acquired and internalized their professional knowledge differently, resulting in differences in teacher beliefs and instructional practices. Individuals’ acquisition of teaching knowledge did not necessarily lead to practical identities that matched their initial expectations. The gaps between teacher knowledge and practice and between the participants’ ideals and reality acted as parts of their ‘glocal’ identity formation. The findings illuminated the tensions and limitations within the educational transfer between Western-style and non-Western-style classrooms in Chinese teachers’ teaching.

Keywords

EFL teacher knowledge glocalization teacher identity

I Introduction

A growing amount of research has focused on identity as an analytical tool for understanding teacher training, education, and development (Norton, 2016). Teachers’ professional identity influences how teachers understand their roles, classroom interactions, and educational issues (Graue et al., 2015). Teacher identity also helps in understanding the nature of teaching and teacher learning (Pennington & Richards, 2016).

Teachers’ knowledge and actions, which are inseparable in shaping their identities, are enacted through their interactions within the classroom (Miller, 2009). Teacher knowledge is a key component of educational research because it lies at the heart of understanding and improving instruction, student engagement, and related educational processes. It reveals much about one’s beliefs, values, and attitudes, as well as the ways in which knowledge influences a teacher’s decision-making processes (Karabenick & Noda, 2004). Teachers’ negotiation of knowledge and practice shapes how they think about themselves, students, and educational processes during their professional development and curriculum design (Song, 2016). The potential relationship between teachers’ varying perceptions of knowledge and professional practice leads to different perspectives about improving teacher education and professional development and about bringing about educational change (Fullan & Hargreaves, 2014).

In the field of second-language acquisition, much research has focused on the congruity between pedagogical knowledge and teaching practices (e.g. Muhamad & Kiely, 2018; Playsted, 2019) while less attention has been paid to incongruity. Instead of simply examining congruence and incongruence, Beuhl and Beck (2015) argued that the variations in the relations between knowledge and practices as well as the consequences of knowledge congruence and incongruence should be of greater concern. The reason is that they affect students’ language learning, and the design and practice of teacher training and professional development in foreign language teacher education (Freeman, 2002). However, how the degrees of congruity and incongruity between knowledge and practice are related to the construction of identities in language teachers under globalization is underexplored.

Due to globalization, the international flow of people and cultures results in increased interactions and changes that have led to the spread of educational ideas and practices. Schools in Asian countries have imported academic curricula from Western countries as part of this globalization process. Their educational systems are driven by the demand to assimilate Western culture in a certain manner (Lin, 2019). A dominant flow of English teachers’ knowledge has been transferred from ‘inner circle’ countries to the rest of the world. The ‘inner circle’ includes countries in which English is used as the primary language, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. This group of countries can be compared with the ‘expanding circle’, which is made up of countries such as China, South Korea and Japan, where English is recognized as a foreign language without playing administrative or historical roles.

Local English teachers are expected to understand students’ needs and to contextually connect the global educational trend to how English is taught (Pennington, 2014). However, teachers’ application of their teacher knowledge adopted from the West may not always correspond with their initial expectations of creating efficient classroom discourse, as ‘local epistemic cultures and contextual circumstances of professional work’ could greatly influence ‘how knowledge coming from other contexts is interpreted, understood and utilized’ (Ahmed & Barnawi, 2021, p. 4). This raises concerns among English language teachers regarding the best strategies for facilitating their effectiveness in an age of globalization in which English as a language serves both global and local needs (McKay, 2018).

A substantial body of research has paid great attention to external constraints in implementing Western pedagogies in non-Western settings. Those constraints include students’ various academic levels (e.g. Dörnyei, 2014), individuals’ learning habits and preferences (e.g. Holliday, 2016), cultural reasons (e.g. S. H. Huang, 2016), and rules and policies (e.g. Sungwon, 2017). However, the research on internal constraints related to teachers themselves, including the construction of their professional knowledge base, has thus far been insufficient. How English instructors look for a ‘better fitting’ teacher identity with their knowledge of local and global needs, resulting in different characteristics of teaching practices and student learning, is less often discussed.

The purpose of this study is to compare the formation and negotiation of identities between two Chinese English-language teachers. The present study builds upon existing literature by expanding language teachers’ identities in a Chinese setting. Rather than assigning a concept of identity as defined in a local context and unilaterally framing these identities inside classrooms (e.g. Brookfield, 2017; Gaches & Walli, 2018), this study contributes to the literature on teacher identity by comparing teachers’ sense of self and knowledge as shaped by and negotiated in the context of globalization.

II Theoretical frameworks

In this study, we use two theoretical frameworks: (1) identity-in-belief (Clark & Flores, 2014; Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2016) and identity-in-practice (Varghese et al., 2005), and (2) the conceptions of teacher learning (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999), which unpacks two types of knowledge: ‘knowledge-for-practice’ and ‘knowledge-of-practice’. The goal of this study is to explore language teachers’ identities, which are continually shaped by the evolution of their professional knowledge in global and local contexts. The employment of these two theoretical frameworks is to serve the goal (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

The relationship of the major constructs in the theoretical frameworks.

The two constructs of the first theoretical framework – identity-in-belief (Clark & Flores, 2014; Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2016) and identity-in-practice (Varghese et al., 2005) – help the researchers analyse language instructors’ identity formation. We argue that different aspects of language teachers’ identities could be enacted in belief systems and observed in teaching practices.

Identity-in-belief stresses that identities emerge through processes in which ‘teachers make sense of themselves and other people’ (Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2016, p.172), and in their belief systems about learning and teaching (Clark & Flores, 2014). Identity-in-practice emphasizes an action-oriented approach to understanding identity formation in a social context through practices and tasks. In this regard, identity-in-practice requires investigating teachers’ actions in portraying their role as language instructors and building teacher–student relationships by observing their day-to-day educational activities and interactions with students.

The two constructs of the second theoretical framework – ‘knowledge-for-practice’ and ‘knowledge-of-practice’ (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999) – provide tools for exploring how teacher learning occurs during the identity development process of English language teachers. We aim to analyse teacher learning by unpacking the two types of knowledge – ‘knowledge-for-practice’ and ‘knowledge-of-practice’ – and to understand varying images of knowledge, professional practice, and their relationships.

Specifically, knowledge-for-practice especially refers to ‘formal knowledge and theory generated by university-based researchers to be applied to classroom teaching’ (Hong & Pawan, 2015, p. 20). Educational practices are assumed to be derived from the correctness of the theory that distinguishes educators from laypersons (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999). As knowledge users, teachers translate the knowledge they acquire from experts or authorities and implement it in the classroom. Knowledge-of-practice implies that teachers are sources of their own expertise because they not only are informed by and transform knowledge from others but also generate new knowledge (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999). In contrast to knowledge-for-practice, formal or theoretical knowledge is not deemed perfectly acceptable in or beneficial to one’s teaching. Knowledge grows from long-term systematic observations and the understanding of oneself (as a teacher), other teachers, and learners’ sense-making. From this perspective, teachers play central roles in creating knowledge through pedagogical acts, generating their own conceptual and interpretive frameworks, and critically evaluating others’ theories and practices in peer networks.

III Literature review

To fully understand the dynamic relationship between teacher knowledge and practice, and teachers’ identity development in globalization and localization conditions, the researchers conducted the literature review in two areas. The first review section addresses the links between teacher knowledge and teacher practice while teachers form an identity, and discusses the reasons behind their (mis)match. The second review section provides a ‘glocal’ context in which the participants could form their identities and develop their knowledge base for teaching.

1 Language teachers’ knowledge and practice

The major contribution of images of teacher learning and knowledge (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999) to the educational field is that it helps us understand teacher learning by examining the knowledge-practice relationship and teachers’ identities. The distinctions in knowledge reveal how teacher learning is driven by images and assumptions based on certain methods and educational purposes. Following Cochran-Smith and Lytle’s (1999) conceptions, most studies conducted in English-as-a-second/foreign-language (ESL/EFL) classrooms considered the theoretical knowledge of pedagogy (i.e. knowledge-for-practice) as the central construct within language instructors’ knowledge base.

Some teachers appear to have difficulty in internalizing knowledge-for-practice and transforming it into practice. Such difficulty results in the incongruity between pedagogical knowledge and language teachers’ actual instruction (Kartchava et al., 2020). In a study of three Nigerian secondary EFL teachers’ knowledge and language usage in the classroom, Abdullahi (2018) found that their self-defined student-centered teacher identity mismatched their on-site teaching in EFL classes. The students were given little opportunity to talk in class, and all three teachers imitated their previous mentors, who taught English in a behaviorist manner. Such a mismatch is seen more as a source of investigation rather than as a problem to fix. Research findings attributed the mismatch to a lack of continuing professional training (e.g. Cao, 2017; Turnbull, 2018), problems and effects of teacher training (e.g. Gan & Yang, 2018; Mpofu & de Jager, 2018), and misconceptions regarding the mastery of formal knowledge (e.g. Cesur & Ertas, 2018; Shi et al., 2019).

Teacher training is essential for providing educators with continuous learning opportunities where they can develop skills, abilities, and methodological alternatives and fashion their identities as they adapt to various perspectives on teaching and learning (dos Reis et al., 2021). Studies have shown that a lack of continuing training results in a limited ability to apply new knowledge and practice reflective instruction (Novozhenina & Pinzón, 2018). Cao (2017) investigated 55 ESL teachers’ knowledge and practice of written corrective feedback (WCF) techniques in their attempts at teaching writing. She found that some teachers were not well trained to instruct students in writing efficiently through WCF and showed a writer-facilitator identity. Differences appeared between understandings of WCF knowledge and their actual practice thereof, which caused students’ writing to be both unsystematic and unfocused. This finding implies that continuing professional development is essential for effective teaching and educators’ learning processes.

Considering the context-sensitive nature of teaching, teacher education has also been criticized for its limited contextual considerations. Gan and Yang (2018) pointed out that knowledge of teacher education needed to highlight the complexities and contextual nature of language teaching – aspects which shaped the way teachers related their experiences with what they taught and who they wanted to be. Language teacher education programs have not offered space to illustrate the connections between knowledge-for-practice and diverse classroom situations. Mpofu and de Jager (2018) criticized preparation courses that did not serve the need to efficiently incorporate practical and experiential knowledge. Through classroom observations and interviews with ESL teachers, they found that most teacher education only focused on scientific methods for teaching literature, forging ESL teachers’ imagined identity of literature teachers. Educational knowledge should not be framed as standing alone but must be applicable in multiple learning contexts. To be competent, teachers need to know how to relate their teaching to professional, personal, and relevant experiences.

Research on language teachers’ misconceptions of knowledge mastery is mostly associated with the implementation of Western-based methods, such as communicative language teaching (CLT), and its impact on language instruction. Cesur and Ertas (2018) investigated the pedagogical knowledge and practices of 127 English teachers at a Turkish university. They found that the teaching methods did not comply with the theoretical orientation that the teachers believed themselves to be employing. The way these teachers actually taught in their classrooms differed from the knowledge-for-practice that they learned from their education programs. Although the teachers knew that CLT could help learners practice their English skills, they presented an identity of the grammar–translation teacher.

Language teachers, however, choose not to employ knowledge-for-practice at times because they have a critical perspective on formal knowledge and (re)construct their own knowledge-of-practice for particular contexts (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999). One’s consideration of what and how to teach emanates from their inquiry into teaching, learners’ needs, curriculum, and school settings, and not solely from the theoretical knowledge trained from their teacher education programs. Through the processes of becoming, their willingness and ability to integrate new knowledge into real practices are constrained by a combination of several factors, including teaching experience (e.g. Hosseini et al., 2017), prior knowledge (e.g. Rahman et al., 2018), social acceptance (e.g. F. Huang et al., 2019), parents’ expectations (e.g. Purkarthofer, 2019), and the school’s marketing policies (e.g. Sah, 2020).

2 The context of glocalization

Research on globalization has explored global and local as two independent concepts, as well as the reverse side of one another (Beyer, 2007). The teaching methods, materials, and teacher training developed due to globalization have been seen as a result of the shift in theory development based on inner circle countries (Mahboob & Lin, 2016). It appears that local educational interests reflect a focus on certain types of English, English speakers, and cultures in inner circle countries. The use of methods, teacher education, and classroom policies prevalent in the Western world represents the notion of globalization in the East Asian region (Kumaravadivelu, 2012). Several countries, such as China, Korea, and Japan, have witnessed a shift from a well-established grammar-focused language teaching approach to Western communicative approaches especially CLT, with the recent task-based language teaching situated within the context of globalization (e.g. Li et al., 2011; Tsui & Tollefson, 2017). Schools’ global orientation may represent departures from the local discourse of the national education system (Copland et al., 2014). Communication-oriented English pedagogies emphasize individuality and a shift to consider teachers as facilitators instead of knowledge givers (Li et al., 2011). Their classroom policies root in democracy, freedom, and choices encouraging students’ interaction (Frost et al., 2012). These practices contradict local cultures and traditions and students’ needs in the test-oriented language education system of Asian countries. For example, the grammar–translation method that values the written form at the expense of oral form and unchanged mental disciplines has been widely replaced in the West yet it is fully localized and becomes the mainstream pedagogical approach in China (Du, 2021). Local language teachers without Western education backgrounds often fail to receive sufficient support or training to successfully apply communicative approaches adopted from the inner circle in their classrooms (e.g. Nhem, 2019; Sun et al., 2022). They were encouraged to prepare students to use English globally, yet they were not provided with adequate resources and examples to make a change. Language teachers who received TESOL training in Western countries also have difficulties in finding a balance between preserving local beliefs about learning and implementing a new communicative approach (e.g. Gao, 2018; Han, 2022). Consequently, language teachers have become uncertain or resistant to the application and practice of newly adopted communicative approaches (Wei et al., 2018).

The diverse and complex teaching and learning contexts presented through globalization’s influence could pose a challenge for EFL language teachers. Local EFL teachers need to shape English-language instruction to be congruent with their own purposes based on their understanding of local needs (Alsagoff, 2012). The advent of globalization in education has made language teaching subject to different reconstructions in its glocalized practices. Although communicative approaches have been implemented, the focus of assessment remains on standardized English tests. Thus, English language policy formulation at the global level can contradict policy operations at the local level (Nguyen et al., 2018).

Several researchers have argued that globalization reconstructs local and global interactions in China (e.g. Fang, 2018; Rai & Deng, 2016). Some have looked at the function of students’ local culture in English education in globalizing China. Rai and Deng (2016) studied aspects of how to assimilate English into students’ daily use. They found that glocalized teaching materials benefited Chinese English learners more than materials introducing unfamiliar concepts of globalization, which were beyond students’ life experiences. Others have focused on standards and norms in the English language at a global level and language diversity at a local level. Fang (2018) criticized the monolingual ideology behind standard English and supported local English varieties which benefited Chinese students in developing a positive sense of cultural identity.

As stated, most research focuses on the phenomenon of teachers’ challenges of knowledge–practice integration while forming an identity in a school context, not the process of dealing with them in a bigger global context. Globalization has changed the conditions under which foreign languages are learned and taught. It gives more legitimacy to academic knowledge and skills resting in a ‘Western’ orientation (Pace & Hemmings, 2007). Competitions among schools, students, and teachers are required to satisfy the demand for excellence. How local language teachers build their professional knowledge, analyse learner needs, and do teaching could change in the global context (Kumaravadivelu, 2011). In this process, the role that interaction between ‘global’ and ‘local’ could play in shaping the ways language teachers recognize their teacher identities. How local language teachers fold these messages into their self-image, knowledge-base, and practice is worth exploring.

More studies need to focus on the interplay between educators’ knowledge and identity formulation from a glocal perspective. Glocalization affords a lens through which to better understand local English language teaching discourses and how instructors can shape and negotiate their knowledge and identities. Language teachers’ daily work contexts may show consistency or divergence from the global contours of scholarly knowledge, and their work may or may not gain professional recognition (Yazan, 2018). In this study, we attempted to expand previous research into teacher knowledge and globalization in China by looking at the challenges faced by Chinese English teachers and their identity construction from a glocal perspective. In addition to the collective features of their knowledge, we contribute a new perspective and explore the uniqueness of each individual’s knowledge construction based on both their shared intrinsic and perceivable extrinsic factors. This study focuses on two specific questions:

Research question 1: What teacher identities do Chinese English-language teachers construct and negotiate through self-reflection and teaching?

Research question 2: How does teacher knowledge evolve and influence Chinese English-language teachers’ local teaching under globalization?

IV Method

The case study methodology is employed for an in-depth exploration of language teachers’ identities in beliefs and practices under the influence of globalization. It answers the questions of ‘how’ and ‘why’ about a complex social phenomenon ‘within its real-life context and boundaries between phenomenon’ (Yin, 2017, p. 1). The two participants’ identities in the self-identifying process and teaching practices were compared and contrasted to answer the research questions.

1 The school

The school was a privately-funded college with an emphasis on foreign languages and cultures, as well as international trade and economics in a global city, G, China. The English learning policies at the university created a globalized environment: the university expected students to have an international perspective, communicative ability in English, and a high pass rate on standardized examinations (i.e. National College English Test [CET] in China). The school grounded its educational philosophy on a global commitment: the school’s official website states, in Chinese, that ‘We aim to train qualified students with a global perspective, moral quality, and intercultural communication competence.’ The school offered different short-term exchange programs for students to study abroad, such as in the USA, the UK, France, and Switzerland. On the homepage of the English Language Department, being global was demonstrated as a key objective. Global and local interactions also featured in the motto it upholds, stating that the department ‘takes the path of globalization of English language education by introducing the advanced pedagogical concepts and management modes adopted in leading domestic and foreign universities’. Each semester, the department invited famous scholars in the fields of British and American literature, second language acquisition, and English translation from all over China and from foreign countries to give presentations to faculty and students.

Similar to the core courses, the English course was worth five credits, regardless of the students’ majors. Serving mainly academic purposes, the school required all non-English majors to pass Level 4 of the CET. Passing the CET-4 held particular significance for Chinese students because many Chinese universities would refuse to issue a diploma until the student received a CET-4 certificate (Wu, 2015).

To become more competitive in the global market, the school sought to recruit faculty members who held foreign degrees. More than 50% of its faculty members had studied abroad. In the English department, where the two participants worked, around 54% of the faculty members had foreign credentials or experience abroad.

2 Participants

A purposeful sampling approach (Palinkas et al., 2015) for participant selection was used to compare similarities and variations. The purpose of participant selection was derived from two factors: first, to investigate the possible impact of different educational backgrounds on a teacher’s identity formation; and, second, to increase the possibility of including divergent views on educational issues due to the participants’ contrasting learning experiences.

Wendy, a 28-year-old single Chinese female, received a Bachelor degree as an English major at a university located in South China and a Master degree as a TESOL major at a top university in England. Since her graduate years in England, she spent time traveling throughout the UK, as well as traveling outside of the UK to other countries. While teaching at this school, she participated in several academic exchanges abroad in Sweden and Australia.

Lili, a 29-year-old single female, was born and raised in a rural area of China and did not have foreign-based experience. She received a Bachelor degree as an English major at a university in her hometown and a Master degree as a translation major at a top university in the city G. Lili came from a low-income family and studied hard to move to the city G.

3 Data collection

The theoretical framework identity-in-belief (Clark & Flores, 2014; Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2016) and identity-in-practice (Varghese et al., 2005) guided the collection of data. Regarding identity-in-belief (i.e. what the participants believed about who they are), semi-structured interviews (Galletta, 2013) were considered primary data for understanding the participants’ sense of ‘self’. Each participant was formally interviewed twice. Each interview took between 60 and 90 minutes and was audio-recorded and transcribed in Chinese. The entire content of the interviews was translated into English by the first author who is bilingual in Chinese and English and earned her doctoral degree in an English-speaking country. The first-round interview serves to identify the participants’ understanding and beliefs concerning their roles as language teachers, the purpose of language learning, instruction, and education, and their learning and teaching experiences. Some of the questions included: ‘What is the main purpose of English language teaching in your view?’ and ‘How would you describe your roles?’ The second-round interview questions focus on proxies for globalization, by asking the questions ‘What challenges lie ahead for teaching English under globalization?’ and ‘Do you notice any impact from globalization on students’ learning?’ The researcher tried to probe teachers’ reflections on globalization and understand their views on local and institutional language policies in a global context. The researcher also conducted informal conversations with the participants after each classroom observation. These conversations center on the participants’ decision-making actions, thoughts, and feelings about specific events or episodes during the class.

Considering the focus of identity-in-practice (i.e. how individuals portray their identities in teaching), the researcher’s observation highlighted how similarly or differently the participants identified themselves in interviews and their actual practices. The researcher visited each participant’s English classes three times a week, making around 16 hours of observations in half of the spring semester and the whole of the fall semester. To consciously observe the research setting, including the events, actions, and the participants’ verbal and non-verbal communication, and so as to better compare the observation data with the data received from interviews, the researcher used three types of observations (Spradley, 2016): descriptive, focused, and selective observations when taking field notes. In the initial stage, the researcher focused on gaining a general picture of everything that took place in the setting (descriptive observation). As the research progressed, the researcher shifted the focus of observations from descriptive to searching for categories belonging to different domains or themes. For example, in the domain of ‘kinds of teachers in classrooms’, the researcher focused on teachers’ ‘teaching style’, ‘the focus of subject content knowledge teaching’, and ‘teacher–student interactions’.

The selective observations helped the researcher narrow down the focus of the observation and sort out the differences among specific cultural categories (Spradley, 2016). For instance, it became apparent through continued observation that there were different ‘kinds of teachers’ in Wendy’s classes: an authoritative teacher and another who valued speaking activities, which contradicted her self-defined identity during interviews.

4 Data analysis

To examine patterns in similarities and differences, thematic analysis (Glesne, 2015) was used to analyse the data. The content of each participant’s statements and actions was identified and coded. While developing the coding categories, data segments from the interview transcripts and field notes were carefully examined and compared within and between codes and categories. Themes such as ‘CLT teacher’ and ‘local needs’, have emerged through the researchers sorting out the relationships among different categories through connecting strategies (Maxwell, 2013).

To avoid fracturing the initial data into discrete segments and ignoring the actual relationship of things in specific contexts, the researcher also applied narrative analysis to understand the data in a holistic context and focused on the relationships among different segments, or parts, of the data of the interview transcripts or field notes (Maxwell, 2013). This process intended to investigate how the teachers constructed meanings through storytelling for their identity categories.

5 Data coding procedure

The first author collected and coded the data, and collaborated with the co-author for data analysis. The researchers applied three strategies as contributing to the trustworthiness of the study: triangulation, peer review, and member checking (Glesne, 2015; Lincoln & Guba, 1985). In the triangulation process, the researchers consistently compared and checked the data drawn from fieldnotes, interviewers, and classroom observations and sparked discussions about the best way to solve any discrepancies between the two authors’ interpretations of the data (e.g. Villegas et al., 2020). In the peer review process, a colleague who is expertise in the relevant areas was invited to intervene when suggestions were needed in terms of the researchers’ certain different perspectives (e.g. Ko, 2020). In the member checking process, the researchers shared an initial analysis with the participants to check for the accuracy of the interpretation (e.g. Cheung & Hennebry-Leung, 2023).

V Findings

This section presents two cases (Wendy and Lili) in response to the research questions. Wendy and Lili primarily revealed two types of identities: self-defined and practical teaching. Wendy’s self-defined identity as a ‘CLT person’ contradicted the identity she exhibited in practice. Lili’s self-defined identity as a ‘responsible English teacher’ was more consistent with her practical identity by supporting a grammar-oriented approach. The participants built upon and expanded their teacher knowledge and personal experiences on their identity construction in classrooms. Their professional knowledge evolved differently, resulting in different characteristics of the participants’ teaching practices where the West had an influence under globalization.

1 Wendy

a Identity-in-belief: ‘Language is a tool to communicate. I am a CLT person’

Taking classes in the UK helped form Wendy’s teaching philosophy based on the CLT approach. The promotion of language as social interaction has a noticeable impact (Nunan, 1999) on Wendy’s philosophy formation and practices. Disagreeing with the instructional styles of her previous Chinese professors, she recollected that ‘They did not ask us to speak. We read and wrote for different English tests. When I first came to England, I was not even able to talk to my landlord fluently.’ She realized the value of basic interpersonal communication (BICS) during her stay in the UK.

Language is a tool to communicate. I am a CLT person. Students should always come first. We teach for them [students]. That was the most important thing I learned in

England. And why do they learn it? Talking! Talking! Right?!

Wendy strongly advocated the CLT to improve students’ BICS first and argued that English-language education should include practical uses, given that ‘students need to know how to discuss cultures and public affairs in English . . . know how to really use it in those English speakers’ lives.’ Throughout the interviews, Wendy routinely compared and divided teachers by grouping them into ‘traditional teachers’ and ‘non-traditional teachers’. She regarded those with foreign degrees as ‘non-traditional teachers’ and others with local degrees as ‘traditional teachers’ following the ‘wrong path’. She defined the ‘wrong path’ as deductively focusing on linguistic rules. When asked about how to prepare students for national and school language exams, Wendy expressed her student-centered focus, which requires students to assume a large share of the responsibility for applying knowledge and making meaning of what they have learned.

Grammar is something that students should have learned from elementary school or middle school. They should be the people who take charge of using this knowledge to deal with tests, not teachers. As college-level students, they should not still focus on grammar or tests now.

Wendy held that college-level English learners should prioritize critical thinking over simply obtaining knowledge of grammar for tests. She found that her students who had been used to ‘traditional English teaching’ lost their motivation to speak and even resisted engaging in class.

I encouraged them to answer my questions in English. They did not answer. I asked them in Chinese; they still did not answer and just looked at me. I told them that I did not mind their mistakes, but the whole class was so quiet, and nobody was willing to raise [their] hand actively. They had been used to learning mute-English for years.

Students’ mute-English (Zhang, 2009)¹ reinforced Wendy’s decision to make changes: ‘I got trained in England. I cannot stay in such a mute classroom and only know CET tests. Students need to talk!’ Wendy showed strong pride in her teaching philosophy and implementation of CLT, not focusing on CET tests. Wendy said that she created a ‘Western-style class’ by implementing flexible attendance and food policies.

I hope they feel comfortable in my class. Some teachers may not like students eating in class. I am flexible. I do not care about their absences too much. They are adults. They are responsible for their own learning.

Wendy felt confident about her teaching and teacher–student relationships. She added that she understood the importance of a democratic classroom – not as a given, but as an ongoing effort to empower students and promote their motivation.

b Identity-in-practice: A mismatched image of CLT teacher

Wendy’s teaching demonstrated her unique understanding of the CLT approach by focusing on oral communication, using authentic materials and resources, minimizing grammar instruction, and placing herself at the center of instruction. Wendy appropriated her CLT knowledge that she had learned in England and incorporated it into her own classroom activities in China, without considering their actual impact on students’ language learning.

Wendy followed closely her speaking instruction at a discourse level. She liked to let students role-play, so she divided the students into three groups and asked each group to teach a unit from the textbook without much guidance. She asked students to ‘be creative to design the lesson’ by themselves. Some students struggled with Wendy’s open-ended expectations of what constituted appropriate role-play. One student shared her feelings in class: ‘I feel nervous. I don’t know how to cover all of the knowledge within a limited time.’ Wendy then provided several suggestions for students, such as changing the teaching sequence or inputting more class discussions for listeners’ engagement.

When using the textbook, Wendy translated and explained the text sentence by sentence in Chinese to ensure students’ comprehension. She then asked the students about the main idea of the text, but usually nobody responded. Wendy tried to relate content to students’ personal experiences and picked one student.

Wendy:

Tao, what are the new things you have tried so far?

Tao:

Em . . . what do you mean?

Tao could not figure out an answer. Wendy started leading:

Wendy:

Ok, what about new food? Since you have been here for two years?

Tao:

(Silent and blushing)

Wendy:

Nothing new? I don’t think so! Say something to us. Talk.

Tao:

I see nothing. I’m not sure the question.

Wendy:

Do you like the local food?

Tao:

(Shaking his head and quickly making eye contact with his deskmate)

Wendy:

Very local food? No?

Another student quickly answered, ‘I like Tangbushuai [glutinous rice flour balls].’ Responding, Wendy turned to Tao.

Wendy:

Yeah. Tangbushuai. Have you tried?

Tao:

(Shaking his head)

Wendy:

See! It’s new for you, right?! So, you have a new experience now. If one day you started liking it, then you experience a transition because you did not like it at the beginning. So does the author.

Tao:

(Nodding with a skeptical face)

Wendy limited student interactions by restricting students’ answers to only those deemed acceptable. When the word ‘communication’ collocated with ‘language teaching’, Wendy interpreted it as the least-mediated of all communication channels, spoken interactions, or talking. Her students followed her reasoning without engaging in a significant reflection in textual learning. Instead of authentic two-way communication, her oral discussions aimed at meaningful conversation structures failed to extend and develop beyond simple basic communications.

Wendy did not conceptualize explicit grammar instruction as an integral part of the CLT. She did not negotiate the demands of grammar-oriented English tests but overlooked the teachable moments of the tests. In identifying the correct form between the present perfect or the present perfect progressive for the sentence, ‘I’m pleased to say that the team __ (play) well all season’, Wendy answered that the correct answer was both ‘played’ and ‘play’. One student raised her hand and asked:

Student:

Professor, why are they both okay? Doesn’t ‘all season’ indicate that the game has finished?

Wendy hesitated to respond to the question. After a short silence, she responded:

All season means the speaker had known how the whole season went. In other words, the action has been done. But ‘have been doing’ means something keeps ongoing. This is annoying. I heard English people using both expressions. Let me double-check with my colleagues and give you a better answer next class.

Wendy shared her feelings with the researcher after class.

I have the least confidence in explaining exercises, especially grammar. I really struggle with how to make the explanation of English grammar interesting. It is not text learning that we can create different topics to discuss. Not something interesting. I think they still do not have linguistic intuition. If you have such intuition, you will know the right answer without studying grammar rules.

To Wendy, CLT and grammar-focused instruction were not compatible, as grammar learning was ‘memorizing organized principles’ and lacked flexibility for teachers to make innovative activities. She prepared her materials in advance, but her grammar instruction skills often lagged.

Teacher-centered instructional styles dominated teacher–student relationships in Wendy’s classroom. Her authoritative position conflicted with her self-description as someone who valued adult learners’ freedom in decision-making. Despite being permitted to bring food to class, her students decided to only eat during the break because Wendy told students that she ‘does not like students making noise when chewing food loudly’. For late attendance, Wendy did not hide her unease and commented: ‘When I was in England, and whenever any classmate was late, we always emailed the professor in advance. That is the basic respect.’ Wendy said to the researcher after the class, ‘Students need to know how to respect teachers; otherwise, they will not listen and behave well.’

2 Lili

a Identity-in-belief: ‘I’m a responsible English teacher’

Lili defined herself as a ‘responsible English teacher’ who prepared students for a job market that focused on language test credentials. Her educational background in China and her job experiences influenced the formation of her teaching philosophy. Lili acknowledged her strong linguistic knowledge that she learned through grammar–translation instruction in her undergraduate classes as an English major in her hometown.

We learned grammar rules and translated sentences between English and Chinese. I started being aware of the relationships among words, phrases, signs, and symbols. The mastery of linguistic knowledge is important. I was admitted into a top English translation program with high GRE scores. A diploma from a top school is always a ticket to a better job.

During her graduate year in city G, the translation-focused training made her concerned about how to evaluate English learners. She said: ‘I was trained to pick words, relate sentences to the context, and manage the paragraph construction. A good English learner should be capable of native-like writing.’ Lili particularly noted that nativelike speaking was not necessarily required for all students. She said that ‘many jobs in China did not always require the workforce to be equipped with oral communication skills in English.’ Thus, she prioritized building linguistic knowledge, not practicing speaking skills.

Lili used the word ‘needs’ to describe her understanding of the role and responsibility of English instructors as well as to frame her pedagogical activities.

Our teaching skill progresses along with the needs for societal change. You cannot deny the invisible power of globalization. TOEFL [Test of English as a Foreign Language], GRE [Graduate Record Examinations], and IELTS [International English Language Testing System] come from the United States and England. If it was 20 or 10 years ago, not so many people would have taken them. Now it is too common. We need to help students handle a greater variety of English tests.

Lili said that it was her duty to teach English, along with societal and student needs. Globalization led Lili to believe that English-language education has become more exam-oriented, requiring various national and international English tests. She stated that ‘good English teaching should first help students be competitive and adapt to exam-oriented English education.’

Lili strengthened her belief that obtaining multiple English certificates, such as CET-4 and -6, along with high scores on international language tests such as TOEFL or IELTS, was important. She said: ‘I saw students put their TOEFL and GRE scores in home-tutor advertisements as an approval of the language ability on the campus.’ She held that as fierce competition for jobs increased the importance of these credentials, language teachers should focus accordingly so that ‘grammar comes first in practice’.

If you just have a CET-4, what capital will you have to compete with other employees? You need more ‘cards’ in your hands. That is why I have been paying much attention to students’ mastery of grammar and vocabulary. Foundation is really important. Without the high scores on post-graduate entrance tests, I would not be accepted by that top school and get my current job.

Lili viewed the purpose of English-language education from a market perspective and perceived the quantity of English-language certificates as an essential form of capital for students to be globalized. For Lili, grammatical knowledge was the foundation for students to perform well on language tests.

b Identity-in-practice: Form-focused English teaching

Lili implemented instructional practices based on her beliefs about what the students should learn. To help students receive high scores on CET-4 and -6, she provided explicit grammar-focused instruction. The strategies commonly used by Lili included exemplification, translation, repetition, and word association, which were quite similar to the ‘Focus-on-formS’ approach (Uysal & Bardakci, 2014).

Unlike the traditional grammar translation method, she provided personalized examples and reinforced students’ understanding through meaningful translation tasks and interactive sentence creation. In explaining the use of a modal verb – should in an if-clause – Lili utilized several techniques such as exemplification, repetition, and L1 translation to explain its meaning and use.

Lili:

Should is used after if to suggest a less strong possibility. Let me give you an example: if [the name of a student]’s brother should come, give him this letter. One more time, [pay] attention, if [the name of a student]’s brother should come, give him this letter. The possibility of his brother’s arrival is higher or lower? Higher or lower?

(Looked around the classroom)

Students:

Lower.

Lili:

Yes. Lower. Once should appears after if, it means [that] the chance of the occurrence of the action represented by the verb after should is significantly reduced. Ok? Again . . . [Lili repeated what she just explained one more time] What did I say?

Student 1:

Should 在if 从句中时 . . . 代表这个动作发生的可能性比较小 [students

repeated the teacher’s explanation in Chinese].

Lili:

Right. Should 在if 从句中时, 代表这个动作或是这种情况发生的可能性比较小

[Lili explained the grammar rule in Chinese once more].

Lili:

Can someone translate this sentence for us?

[Lili then moved on to elicit a translation of her example from a student].

During the interview, she justified her grammar teaching as follows.

The good thing is that the students pay extra attention to your teaching once they hear that you are introducing a grammar rule . . . like an equation in mathematics. They are not interested but have to pay attention to using the rules to deal with more sentences.

However, after the class, she shared her mixed feelings about teaching grammar with the researcher.

We need to teach correct English. Before students speak a language other than their native language, a firm grasp of correct grammar will help them use effective vocabulary and speak the right sentences in the future. Grammar comes first in practice. But we have to admit that for students . . . especially at their age (sigh) . . . they are supposed to have strong communicative ability (sigh). Ideally, speaking and listening should come first. I know it is not good to spend so much time on grammar. But CET-4 is over there. They need to graduate.

Conceptualizing grammar as being rule-bound, Lili considered that learning grammar aimed at speaking English ‘correctly’ and ‘accurately’. Her focus on accuracy theorized grammar as an aspect of a foreign language that was ‘right or wrong’. On the other hand, she revealed ambivalence as she regarded solely teaching grammar as something not ideal but needed due to the pressure of CET examinations and graduation.

Lili corrected students’ pronunciation errors and provided constructive feedback in class. The lack of group work and authentic interactions was obvious in her class. She often skipped the discussion section in the textbook. Lili justified her skipping by stating that ‘Our department encourages us to learn and use Western ways to improve students’ communicative ability, but also has scheduled teaching tasks for the teachers.’ She said that she learned the CLT approach from peers who trained at foreign universities. She tried to incorporate it into her teaching but felt the result to be neither real nor effective.

I observed their [teachers using CLT] classes. Their teaching mode seemed more relaxed. Students are required to do many presentations and discussion tasks. But it is not practical . . . a bit unrealistic. We can learn that Western style for reference only, but in practice . . . how? I know it is popular. I tried it years ago, and the students’ scores were even lower than before. Maybe it is my problem. My teaching is not good enough. The class time is limited. We have to have priorities when teaching. Without even being able to create correct or complete sentence structures, they struggled to directly come to the stage of giving speeches.

The Chinese teachers who were educated in China and abroad (like Wendy) did not use their transnational experience to make sense of what was relevant to them as language teachers and other teachers, including Lili, within the national test-oriented education context (Hong & Pawan, 2015). Lili queried how the CLT was applied appropriately in her school setting. She stated that ‘I am not the only person who has such feelings.’ The school was unresponsive to the needs of teacher training and did not provide peer mentorship. Thus, Lili decided to go back to her original grammar-oriented method based on the content of the CETs after the failure of her trial of the CLT in English teaching.

Lili’s teaching showed a hybrid method: a Focus-on-formS which contained grammar knowledge as the primary component and included structured oral interactions as a response to the school’s demand for global communication skills. Although she did not share control over the class content and activities with the students, Lili’s attitudes toward students’ classroom behaviors were flexible and quite Westernized considering that student behavior was strictly controlled in Chinese culture. Lili was not strict about eating in class or late attendance. Some of her students ate snacks during class. Whenever students arrived late, Lili never asked for an explanation but gestured for them to quietly enter through the back door of the classroom.

VI Discussion

The findings imply that Wendy and Lili progressed towards the construction of a glocal identity. We theorize the definition of ‘glocal identity’ by borrowing the concept of a ‘glocal contact zone’ (Kramsch & Yin, 2018): When local cultural interests confront global economic and linguistic necessities, language teachers portray who they are through how they understand their relationship with the world and how that relationship is structured through negotiation of the clash between global and local. Both teachers’ identity constructions were influenced by contextual factors such as globalization and local initiatives (national and institutional language policies) in response to globalization. The findings of this study refined the existing literature regarding glocalization and language teacher knowledge by revealing how these two concepts were related to language teachers’ identity development.

1 Glocalization

Research on globalization in the area of education has viewed ‘global’ and ‘local’ as independent concepts (e.g. Brown, 2016; Cvetkovich, 2018) overlooking the dynamic of their interaction, the ‘global’ expressed in the ‘local’ and the ‘local’ as a particularization of the ‘global’ in individual cases. In this study, the construction of the two teachers’ identities showed glocal characteristics. The findings revealed the inclusion of global and local contexts in continuous negotiations, along with how the intertwining of these two notions increased the complexity of the two participants’ identities. Glocalization emerged through the two teachers’ hybrid identities simultaneously developed alongside tensions between the CLT and localized testing policies in language and teaching practices. The development of the language instructors’ glocal identities involves seeking a legitimate position in the global language community. Wendy primarily reinforced students’ practice via speaking activities. This legitimized her ‘CLT teacher’ identity in her belief as her own capital between the national and institutional pressure. In contrast, Lili decided to make a greater effort toward grammar-oriented English teaching so as to preserve her legitimacy from students’ high scores on national CET tests. The two teachers showed language teachers’ difficulty in reconciling the global and local ideologies, values, and instructional practices.

Previous SLA studies regarding glocalization generally discussed the challenges that educators faced between students’ local language use and the cultural values of the target languages (e.g. Fang, 2018; Takkaç Tulgar, 2021). The proposed study showed that the interaction between ‘global’ and ‘local’ extended beyond language and language use to include language teaching and the instructors’ beliefs. With different values of the global English and CLT under globalization, the teachers believed that they belonged to different pedagogical groups, that is, Wendy’s ‘non-traditional’ and Lili’s ‘grammar-comes first’ groups. Their teaching emphasized either a global teaching trend or a local need. Wendy stressed the ‘use’ value (Kramsch, 2014) of English: that is, English as a resource for acquiring usable skills for communicative interactions in a social world, and invested her effort in improving students’ speaking skills to be a CLT teacher. Lili viewed English with more attention paid to its ‘exchange’ value (Heller & Duchêne, 2012) as a resource to add profit to foreign language users’ economic and symbolic capital in a global economy. She taught English as a commodity to create a potential source of personal economic benefit for ‘service providers’ (Kubota, 2011), including schools, the testing industry, and the labor market.

Situated in the same global and local contexts, the two teachers perceived and developed their relationships with global and local communities differently as they struggled and negotiated between global and local values of English-language education. The contextual resources that people draw upon in practices are recognizable, but not necessarily shared (Blommaert et al., 2018). The teachers’ insufficiently shared conditions (e.g. educational experiences and beliefs) caused the development of different forms of glocal identities.

2 Teachers’ knowledge and practice

The existing literature on language teachers’ identity is grounded in a teacherly perspective through oral narratives in an educational context. It does not associate teachers’ identity construction processes with in-depth knowledge-practice relationships (e.g. Analisti, 2021; Moghal, 2022). The finding of the study revealed that the two teachers’ identities developed in the negotiation of different types of knowledge about CLT and practices, along with the purposes of students’ learning. Wendy’s teaching identity formation presented a case of ‘knowledge-for-practice’. Derived from her theory-based learning experience about CLT in the UK, she imagined herself as a Westernized CLT teacher. Lili’s case demonstrated ‘knowledge-of-practice’ as she constructed her ‘responsible teacher’ identity through a process of theorizing professional knowledge, Focus-on-FormS, for a Chinese context. Her knowledge of CLT was based on her self-study through observations of colleagues with Western backgrounds – and her sense-making of the test-oriented education prevalent in China. The two cases showed how Chinese language teachers negotiated the knowledge and implementation of the new method differently.

Earlier studies (e.g. Beijaard & Meijer, 2017; Farrell, 2018) have reported the positive role teachers’ professional knowledge played in the development of their professional identities after receiving training in teacher education programs. For these two teachers, the college-level language teachers’ professional knowledge, including knowledge-for-practice and knowledge-of-practice, might not fully help them develop a teacher cognition, as evidenced by Wendy’s incompatible CLT teaching and Lili’s ‘grammar-comes-first’ pedagogy. The two teachers interpreted knowledge-for-practice as different sets of methods and beliefs that were removed from the essence of the knowledge itself. When implementing Western-based instructional knowledge in non-Western settings, the translation of theories and pedagogies into practice is likely to be more complex and challenging (Hong & Pawan, 2015). For Wendy and Lili, who were either UK trained or learned from colleagues trained abroad, the CLT itself remained more symbolic than practical in the context of local teaching. It is not only external factors (e.g., globalization policy, test-driven systems, and teacher training) that yield gaps between knowledge and practice (e.g., Sah, 2020; Shi et al., 2019) but also internal factors, such as beliefs about instructional roles and views on the value of English, influenced the mismatch. Such a gap made the teachers develop a hybrid discourse of integrating Western and non-Western beliefs and practices.

VII Conclusions

This study demonstrated how the two Chinese teachers built upon and expanded their professional knowledge and personal experiences in their identity construction. As seen in Lili’s and Wendy’s cases, language teachers’ current aspirations for their self-defined identities may or may not reflect their actual teaching practices. Based on the research findings, the following two conclusions can be drawn.

First, language teachers’ identifications and affiliations with language teaching can go beyond the dichotomized notions of global and local. When teachers negotiated the competing knowledge about ‘Western’ and ‘local’ as they learned to enact their own personal visions and practiced what they learned, they negotiated their professional identities between global and local demands. When a particular culture or pedagogy in a context is assumed to be more advanced than another in globalization, teachers tend to adopt or negotiate it by reprioritizing their teaching philosophy.

Second, the formation of teachers’ identities is closely intertwined with teacher learning and knowledge. The participants defined their professional identities through two lenses: first, learning how to teach by reflecting on their personal experiences of learning English, and second, acquiring instructional knowledge and the image of an ideal teacher. The expanded knowledge they acquired concerning CLT and students’ needs supported them in imagining their identities and adjusting their instructional styles. The two teachers’ identity formation constituted a process in which they defined ‘right’ knowledge and ‘who is right’ through their voices and practices as a local response to globalization. Each of the participants adopted different types of knowledge and negotiated the legitimization of the ‘right’ knowledge they believed to be true in the teacher-learning process.

The limitation of this study is that the sample size might restrict the possibility of revealing more differences and varieties of teacher identities found in different educational settings. This article suggests four directions for future research: (1) expanding the diversity of the participant population to include language teachers in other inner circle or expanding circle countries; (2) comparing individuals with similar educational credentials to explore complex contextual factors, (3) drawing more data from students’ voices and class participation to examine how their expectations influence teachers’ imagined communities of the ideal professional identity and their understanding of their present educational practices; and (4) applying quantitative research method as a supplement, such as including inter-rater reliability.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Maomao Feng

Hoe Kyeung Kim

Notes

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