Narrative Inquiry of a College EFL Teacher’s Career Change Life in the midst of Curriculum Reform

Abstract

Over the last decade, a global movement of education reform responding to the demands of new market forces and internationalization of higher education has led to restructuring of education systems. The emphasis of the reforms is to replace old systems with new curriculums that aim to improve countries’ competitiveness in the global market. China’s top-tier universities have drastically restructured their English as a foreign language (EFL) curriculum to meet changing needs. To strengthen students’ academic literacy skills for participation in international academic activities, many universities have replaced the traditional General English (GE) curriculum with a more discipline-specific English for Academic Purposes(EAP) curriculum. This change has created new demands and tensions for language teachers. This paper arises from a two-year study examining the complexities of rapid curriculum changes on reshaping tertiary English language teachers’ professional identities in China. In this presentation, we retell the story of a college EFL teacher named Ying, who moved from teaching GE to EAP. Narrative inquiry (Clandinin, 2016) and multiple teacher identity transformation theories were adopted to understand the complexities Ying experienced during her career transition, including the challenges she experienced in grappling with teaching the new curriculum as well as building new relationships with her colleagues and students. Data include in-depth semi-structured interviews and researcher’s fieldnotes from campus visits and lesson observations. The findings indicate Ying made meanings of her career change as emotional engagement. The transition reshaped her professional knowledge and understanding of her institution’s language teaching reform policies. Her story argues for the importance for institutional leaders, English language teacher educators and policy makers to better understand and support language teachers’ experiencing career change in the midst of global curriculum reforms.