A self-study through narrative inquiry about construction of teacher professional identity: Stories of “non-Chinese, non-native” pre-service English teachers in Hong Kong

This paper investigates the construction of teacher professional identity of “non-Chinese, non-native” pre-service English teachers whose cultural backgrounds and linguistic repertoire are different from the host context’s in the English language field in Hong Kong. In English language teaching field, those English teachers are significantly emerging and arising nowadays. During their teacher education program, they were allocated to teach in local mainstreaming schools as Field Experience (FE). Their self-perceived teacher cultural identity, their position where they stand as English teachers comparing to their counterparts, native-English teachers (NETs) and local-English teachers (LETs), and the perspective of teachers, principals, and students are investigated and analyzed to have a better understanding of how those factors influence in constructing their teacher identity. An in-depth individual interview was conducted in order to collect comprehensive qualitative data. The data were analyzed using Marshall & Rossman’s process of generating so as to develop themes. The participants in this research study were four non-Chinese, non-native English pre-service female teachers who all have completed their FE teaching practicum in first semester of year 5. The findings show that construction of their teacher professional identity is highly influenced and constructed by their personal experiences and experiences encountered in their FE schools. This study has significant implications on education institutions, stakeholders, policy makers and direction for future research so as to provide more supportive context and help them to be well-rounded teachers.