Teacher's Professional Identity

According the Chad Hansen (1993), Chinese is an ideographic language. Chinese learners are visual learners whereas English is a phonological language and one of the key skills to learning English auditory, such as listening and speaking. As an EFL teacher, it is important for myself to understand how my students learn a language and what I can do to teach to my student’s needs. The local Education Authority in Hong Kong offers professional development for teachers to sign up for courses and workshops to understand how teachers can improve and reflect their teaching for the students. As previously mentioned, teachers in Hong Kong find it very difficult to find time to attend workshops or courses organised by the Educational Department

Kelchtermans (2009) explains that a teacher’s professional identity is directly linked with the teacher's job satisfaction, occupational commitment and motivation in their line of field. As stated by Burke and Stets (2009), there are three factors that affect the professional identity of a teacher. Person factors, role factors and social factors. I will discuss on how these three areas have affected myself and my profession on being a teacher in Hong Kong. A teacher's belief and morals are generally shaped by their early childhood experiences. How their teachers were a role model or even family members (Knowles, 1992). I myself as no different. The value of being a teacher wasn't when I started education but would be how my teachers taught when I was a child. In a sense, it is like designing a curriculum or even a small activity. Thinking backwards and starting with your objective and reflecting how I as a teacher would be able to guide and scaffold my students to reach the learning objective. Putting myself in the shoes of my students, or my previous primary school teachers to open a wider perspective on teaching. These personal educational beliefs guide myself to work as a teacher and consequently affect my professional identity as a teacher (Akkerman

Each unit takes approximately four weeks to cover. During co-planning with the teachers, which takes place once a week, we would discuss and share ideas of what we would be focussing on in the upcoming lessons for that week. During my first year at my school teachers during the co-planning would be rather passive. A lot of the time teachers would rarely ask questions on why or what the purpose of the teaching objective. Culturally, I’ve found that local teachers from Hong Kong, find it very difficult to teach outside of their comfort zone. Even during co-teaching, a lot of the times I would be leading the role of the English teacher while my local colleague would support by holding classroom discipline. Socially and personally this would leave myself as an outsider to the school community with my colleagues. While this was not the most ideal scenario for teaching, my self-belief and professionalism had to be changed. Finding evidence and exploring possible methods to allow myself to be matched with the school community, especially within the English Department but at the same time still keeping my authentic identity of