A path to professional knowledge and identity building : self study of a native Chinese language two teacher in Western Sydney schools

This thesis focuses on the development of my professional knowledge, practice and identity as a teacher in Western Sydney primary schools of unique status. It focuses on my important achievements and challenges, the changes I made to address these challenges and how they contributed to my professional identity development. Self-study through action research was employed as the methodology to examine my first-year teaching experience. Data collected and analyzed included self-reflective journals, class teacher’s observations and interview, students’ questionnaire and formal discussion notes. Excerpts of these sources were analyzed to identify the achievements and challenges I experienced, and their similarity to the experience of other beginning teachers. I theorized my development as a teacher using the concepts of practical knowledge, professional development, professional learning and professional identity. Similarities to the experience of other beginning teachers include the fact that classroom management issues and classroom teaching all developed in accordance with the stage theory of professional development. However, idiosyncratic factors, including my non-native English language status, my lack of conventional educational background, my casual status and Chinese educational values, all contributed to a unique and different experience as a beginning teacher. Both the similarities and differences in my achievements and challenges affected my sense of belonging; this pushed me to just focus on developing some successful practical knowledge, rather than addressing all the challenges. In order to pursue professional development effectively, the most useful types of professional learning identified were learning from ROSETE peers and supervisors, partly due to the easy access and frequent academic contact with them. The analysis and discussion focuses on the effect of my critical teaching experience in influencing my choice of developing particular kinds of knowledge and what professional learning strategies I used to develop my practical knowledge, as well as how the development of knowledge contributed to teacher professional identity development