Liling

Liling commenced ROSETE 3 in July 2010 and upgraded her Master of Education candidature to PhD. She was interviewed in her eighth term of ROSETE experience.

Chapter 6: The Process Of Becoming

149 Liling’s extended narrative account of her experience of teacher identity construction, interpreted as learning how to teach, reveals evidence of interconnected themes of increasing confidence, independence and responsibility in her experience of becoming. Below, is her response to interview question 2: What have been your successes? Why were these experiences so successful? Liling defined her success in her first stage of teacher identity construction by learning to use the classroom language practiced by local teachers.

My surviving stage

1. When I first walk into the Australian classroom, I found the class is like a market. (Laughter) … a very big shock for me, compared to my teaching and learning experience in China. So my first stage is how to manage the students … my surviving stage …

2. I have a mentor in one of the schools, I had one term, totally observation. She tell me three steps. The first is to observe the Chinese lesson and other subjects, to see what the local teachers would say to the students ... what classroom languages they will use … because this language is not something you can pick up and say it. You need time to get used to it. Then the students will know “that is the language that my teacher will use”. So they will get used to me as well.

3. I take a note of this language, then the second step is you memorise them and do it in front of the mirror … I usually practised this … find some time when there is nobody in the room. I look at myself in the mirror and say these sentences very loudly and very angry, to pretend that there are a group of noisy students in front of me.

4. The third step is I go back to the school and practise it … Then, I know, “Oh, that’s the language that students get used to it.” That’s when I use it, actually, when I say to the students, “Listen to me!” I think it’s useful.

Liling intensified the emotional shock of her first encounter in an Australian classroom by framing her first stage of her teacher identity construction as “my surviving stage”. The reference to surviving in stanza 1 implies that Liling’s success in this stage was foundational to her becoming.

This discourse provides evidence that Liling approached her teacher identity construction systematically, under the guidance of her mentor, introduced in stanza 2. In her discourse she enacted the practice of teaching through references to observing,

Chapter 6: The Process Of Becoming

150 memorising and practising classroom language, thereby providing her access to preliminary identification with the local (teaching) community. In particular, her application of these steps enabled her to enact the first two of Wenger’s (1998) modes of belonging: engagement with local practices, by observing local teachers and practising their classroom language; and imagination, through her strategies of memorisation and practice in front of a mirror. This prepared her for future alignment, through the use of local classroom management practices, language and Discourses in her teaching practice (Wenger, 1998).

Liling’s discourse suggests her teacher identity construction was a determined, effortful process. From the perspective of DST, her response to her initial shock was to follow her mentor’s lead, recognising the mentor as a dominant I-position with the power to influence her becoming and on which her success and survival depended. Student and teacher I-positions evident in Liling’s discourse reveal that her preliminary perceptions of Australian classrooms included “noisy” students (stanzas 1 and 4), who needed to be managed (stanza 1) and disciplined by teachers (stanza 2). Furthermore, teaching practice was associated with being loud and angry (stanza 4).

This segment of discourse suggests that in the first stage of Liling’s teacher identity construction, her relationship with her mentor aligned to that of a traditional model of mentoring, involving the transfer of skills to help Liling, as a novice, survive in her initial practice (Brondyk & Searby, 2013). Liling’s role was played out as that of an apprentice. She conscientiously followed a systematic, deliberate process to support her survival in an unfamiliar educational context. Despite Liling’s identity construction being closely monitored and directed by her mentor, Liling maintained her subjectivity in her discourse, suggesting that from the outset she exercised a strong, agentive position in her own becoming.

The following two segments of Liling’s discourse were produced in response to question 4: Tell me about your development as a beginning teacher of Mandarin? What have been the significant milestones in your development?

Then I have to teach …

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teaching topics are decided by my mentors. I don’t have a lot of right to do my own work because I’m still learning how to teach.

2. … after each lesson, we will have a short or longer discussion about our teaching today and my mentor will ask me, “Tell me three things that you think are successful or failed today.” If I say I think it’s successful, she sometimes will agree with that or sometimes give me more ideas about that. If I think it’s failed, then she will ask me, “Why do you think it’s failed?”

3. This inspire me to do comparison between my teaching and her teaching. … That’s the second stage. In the second stage, I do a little bit assessment, but most of the time, when she do assessment, I help her or I observe.

In this excerpt Liling established the mentoring relationship as one directed and tightly monitored by the mentor. She built the significance of the mentor’s influence through references to the mentor deciding on teaching materials and topics. At the same time, she lessened the significance of her own teaching practice by placing herself in a subordinate position through “I don’t have a lot of right to do my own work because I’m still learning how to teach”. In this segment there is little evidence of Liling enacting teaching practices, other than her reference to “a little bit assessment” (stanza 3).

However, in this second stage, the post-lesson feedback sessions emerged as significant influences in Liling’s becoming. Her account of these sessions (stanza 2) suggests they provided a dialogical space after each lesson in which Liling and her mentor discussed her teaching practice. The account of dialogue with her mentor suggests a development in the mentoring relationship, related to her references to agreement and disagreement within the discussion. In terms of DST, the possibility of disagreement and agreement suggests evidence of a relationship in which “good dialogue” is practiced as a “developmental process and an active learning-via- interchange that gives impetus to the self” (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010, p. 175). Thus, then I have to teach reveals Liling engaged in good dialogue as an active learning strategy in her second stage of teacher identity construction. Whilst the reported dialogue in stanza 2 includes references to binaries of success and failure which Coombs and Goodwin (2013) recommend avoiding in mentoring relationships, stanza 3 suggests the dialogue was a positive experience which inspired Liling. Her

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152 discourse reveals that the mentor’s words and actions provided benchmarks against which Liling assessed her own performance as a teacher. Consistent with findings of Van Rijswijk et al. (2013), Liling’s discourse suggests she attributed authority to her mentor’s voice, as well as the embodiment and a marker of good teaching.

The following segment of discourse, also part of her response to question 4, provides evidence of Liling’s increasing independence and responsibility in planning and classroom practice.

I have to do all the planning by myself

1. But the final stage, I have a Year 8 class ... only one class … I have to do all the planning by myself … kind of like ... I’m the mentor and she is my practice student.

2. I said, “This is topic that I want to deliver and this is the content that I wanted to put in…” … days that I’m not in the school … she teach the lessons according to my plan.

3. … I do assessment by myself and I write the report, also by myself, but still she give me a lot of advice.

Through this account Liling enacted teaching practice through references to planning, joint delivery, assessment and reporting. She built the significance of her role by likening herself to “the mentor” and the mentor to her “practice student”. This was intensified in stanza 2 through her use of reported speech (“This is topic that I want to deliver and this is the content that I wanted to put in…”) and reference to the mentor teaching “according to my plan”.

Through her discourse, Liling positioned herself as the subject and active agent, emphasised in stanzas 1 and 3 through the use of “by myself”. This segment reinforces Liling’s teacher identity construction as the exercise of responsibility, independence and agency, in a supportive environment in which the mentor continued to “give me a lot of advice” (stanza 3). This third stage in Liling’s account of teacher identity construction suggests evidence of the third of Wenger’s (1998) modes of belonging through alignment of her own practices, language and discourses with those of the community of local teachers.

Chapter 6: The Process Of Becoming

153 The segment below underscores the influence of engaging in a professional learning network in Liling’s increasing independence and responsibility. This was told in response to interview question 3: How do you access assistance if you need it?

You need to get help from others

1. The majority of the help I will get from my mentor … I also get help from other staff, teachers in the office, in that department or other department, because in my mentor’s mind, she think she develop me as a real teacher in Australian context so she said, “If you want to be a teacher, you need to get help from others. I can’t tell that person that I get help for you.”

2. So, if I need help, she tell me … to find this teacher. She give me the number or … email address or … name. I go to that office or contact her by myself. Then we kind of establish a personal relationship. Then, next time, if we encounter some problems, we can contact each other again.

3. When people establish a relation to another and then another ... so, you can develop a very good relationship to every teacher in the schools.

This excerpt reveals that Liling exercised active agency, by enacting practices of building and engaging in a professional network. Using reported speech in stanza 1, Liling positioned the mentor as the facilitator of her increasing independence, a position further developed in stanza 2. Liling enacted her development “as a real teacher” through the practice of building her network in the school. She did this by first positioning herself as subject and initiator of the (generic) relationship with the “other” teacher, and then strengthened the network by her use of “we” which was linked to a shared “personal relationship”. In the last sentence of stanza 2, her use of “we” as subject suggests a reciprocal relationship, implying that “problems” belonged to either party and solutions were shared. Thus, Liling positioned herself as an equal contributor within the professional network in the school. Her reference to developing “a very good relationship to every teacher in the schools” suggests that Liling’s active engagement in a professional network was an element of her becoming.

Liling’s relationship with her mentor and experience of seeking assistance from other teachers exemplify the importance of relationship building in the process of becoming (McNally et al., 2009; Stronach, 2010). The I-positions Liling enacted in the relationships with her mentor and other teachers, revealed her progress in teacher

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154 identity construction, from:

1. novice and compliant apprentice in my surviving stage, to 2. receptive protégé in then I have to teach, to

3. confident collaborator and contributor, in I have to do all the planning by myself, to

4. real teacher in you need to get help from others.

Through the excerpts of discourse analysed above Liling, portrayed her teacher identity construction as a developmental process, highlighting four elements in her becoming:

1. acquisition of local classroom management language and practices

2. dialogue with her mentor in regular post-lesson feedback sessions which provided inspiration and guidance, and

3. opportunity to exercise responsibility and independence in teaching practice

4. building a professional network in which she was an equal contributor.

The accounts of Chun Zhen and Liling analysed above highlight their engagement in local teaching practices, and the influence of a professional learning network in their experiences of teacher identity construction. Furthermore, their mobilisation of their inner selves, through Chun Zhen’s commitment to never give up and Liling’s determined and methodical interpretation of her teacher identity construction as learning how to teach, helped to define the particularity of each individual experience of becoming. The discourse of Nuan, analysed below, highlights the integration of her personal exploration of her cultural identity with the experience of learning how to teach.