Vietnam National University University of Foreign Languages and International Studies English Department

ASSIGNMENT 1

Name: D.O.B: Class:

Nguyen Thanh Thuy 18 / 07 / 1990 21D

The essay focuses on the basic concept of learner identity and teacher professional identity. It also indicates how identity is constructed and how it affects learning and teaching behaviors. From my point of view, teacher professional identity is the way teachers identify their roles and connect them to their teaching behavior. For example, native English-speaking teachers (NESTs) tend to identify themselves as students partners in the construction of knowledge rather than givers of knowledge because they believed that students would learn better when they were put into authentic situations where they were enforced to communicate in English (Le Van Canh, 2013). With regard to learner identity, it refers to learners construction of self and its connection to learning behaviors and objectives. Identity formation is a process of identification and negotiation of meaning. Identification is reificative and participative. It is not an entirely internal process; instead, it is a lived experience of belonging (or not belonging) to a community in which histories and experiences, reciprocity, affection, and mutual commitments are shared (as cited in Tsui, 2007). For instance, Le Van Canh (2013) finds out that the NESTs identity as motivators for the students to use English for authentic communication is formed by their lived experiences of teaching in America where individuals are viewed as completely independent, free, and creative entities. It is also indicated that their lived experiences of learning a second language (Spanish) while in America as well as the experience of learning Vietnamese in Vietnam contributed to the construction of their professional identities (Le Van Canh, 2013). Moreover, according to Wenger (1998), there are three modes of belonging as the sources of identification: engagement, imagination, and alignment (as cited in Tsui, 2007). Engagement means relating ourselves to other members of the community in order to get a sense of who we are and to find out how we can participate in activities and acquire the competence that defines this community. Imagination is a process of relating ourselves to the world beyond the community of practice in which we are engaged and seeing our experience as reflective of the broader connections (Tsui, 2007). However, it can lead to stereotyping because overgeneralizations are made based on specific practices. Alignment is a process in which participants in a community become connected by bringing their actions and practices in line with a broader enterprise (Tsui, 2007). Lets go back to the example of NESTs identity. Why did they identify themselves as motivators for students to use English for authentic communication? It is because they aligned their teaching practices with the discourses prevailing in their home country while resisting aligning them with the local discourses (Le Van Canh, 2013). It is through alignment

that the identity of a large group becomes the identity of its members. In fact, identification has a noticeable impact on learning and teaching behaviors. Lets take a look at Minfangs situation. Minfang, born in a poor village in a minority region, had a painful experience when he was a freshman at Nanda. He felt that not only was his English poor, but his communication style was also different. Most of the students from Guangzhou were very talkative and communicative, using sandwiched English in their daily conversation, that is code-switching between Cantonese and English in class. Compared with them, I was an inert and quiet country bumpkin who was ignorant of this cosmopolitan fad (as cited in Tsui, 2007). It can be seen that he was not fully accepted as a member of the learner community by his peers. Instead, reifications such as a deaf-and-dump student with a special need and Brother Fang indicated his exclusion from membership in the community. It was the asymmetrical relationship between economic powers of the inner and coastal regions in China that made Minfangs previous learning experiences irrelevant. Therefore, to be fully recognized as a member of the community, he started to engage in the social discourse and activities, and align himself with the norms and expectations of the members of this community. This included the ability to speak standard Cantonese and Cantonese slang and the proficiency in English, particularly in spoken English. Similarly, that Minfangs competence in EFL teaching was recognized is another example of identity formation. In his first two years of teaching, Minfangs identity of marginality in the EFL teaching community was largely shaped by the fact that the teaching staff did not fully recognize his EFL teaching competence. The reason lies in his disgraceful history as a deafand-dump student. It can be seen that the center in the process of identification is participation as well as nonparticipation in the social practices and the socio-cultural environments associated with teaching and learning. (Tsui, 2007) NESTs, for instance, did not participate in the local community of practice. Instead, they secured their legitimacy of access to practice by socializing limitedly with the students and trying to familiarize the students with their own practices (Le Van Canh, 2013) The negotiability of meanings is also fundamental to identity formation. According to Tsui (2007), meanings are produced in the process of participation and they compete for the definition of events, actions. In a community of practice, engagement in the negotiation of meanings involves the production and adoption of meanings. Members whose meanings are consistently rejected and whose experiences are considered irrelevant, and hence not accepted as

a form of competence, will develop an identity of marginality. The identity conflicts that Minfang experienced as learner could be due to the fact that his peers and teachers defined the meanings of the learners enterprise differently (Tsui, 2007). According to Minfang, the meaning of EFL learning is hard work and serious learning and the meaning of CLT is fun activities, including oral participation, moving around in the classroom, and shouting at each other (Tsui, 2007). However, other CLT teachers appropriated their experiences of learning EFL outside the classroom as the experiences of learning CLT in the classroom. This rendered Minfangs learning experiences and learning strategies irrelevant. The reification of Minfang as a CLT product by his teachers was an appropriation of Minfangs meanings of EFL learning (Tsui, 2007). It can be seen that the process of identification interacts with the participation in negotiating meanings (Tsui, 2007). It depends on power relationships among members of a community that decide participation as well as non-participation in negotiating meanings. Tsui (2007) indicates that being able to participate in the construction of meanings that matter in a community is just as important as being given legitimate access to practice through reification. The success of negotiating meanings and sharing the ownership of meanings is only achieved by participation.

References
1. Amy B. M. Tsui. (2007). Complexities of Identity Formation: A Narrative Inquiry of an

EFL mation.pdf

Teacher.

Retrieved

on

April

15,

from

http://www.fe.hku.hk/curric/amytsui/bk_reviews/docs/The_complexities_of_identity_for 2. Le Van Canh. (2013). Native-English-Speaking Teachers Construction of Professional Identity in an EFL Context: A Case of Vietnam. Retrieved on April 15, from http://www.academia.edu/3310243/Native-Englishspeaking_teachers_construction_of_professional_identity_in_an_EFL_context_A_case_o f_Vietnam