From EGP to ESP: University EFL Teachers’ Professional Identities in China

Research on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ identities in the curriculum shifting period from English for General Purposes (EGP) to English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has just begun to draw attention from scholars in China (e.g., Ai et al., 2019; Jiang, 2022; Jiang et al., 2020; Qi et al., 2021; Tao & Gao, 2018) and other similar contexts (e.g., Mahendra, 2020; Mohamed et al., 2016; Rebenko, 2020), but there was a scarcity in terms of empirical research. To help fill the gap, this study sought to examine a cohort of EFL teachers based in a Chinese university in the transitional process from EGP to ESP. Conceptualized within a sociocultural approach, this study was framed with four theoretical constructs: teacher professional identity (Barkhuizen, 2017; Kayi-Aydar, 2019; Varghese, 2017) sits in the center, surrounded by teacher knowledge (Shulman, 1987), teacher autonomy (Benson, 2017; Littlewood, 1999) and teacher practices. Informed by these theoretical constructs, a qualitative multiple-case study was adopted in this research to investigate EFL teachers’ professional identities in the curriculum transitional phase from EGP to ESP. These categories such as teacher knowledge, teacher autonomy, and teacher practices were associated with research informed by the sociocultural approach. While these theoretical constructs were important to guide the conceptualization of the thesis, they were used to help, at the methodological level, with literature review and data collection and analysis. Also, these aspects carried essential qualities that collectively contributed to the dynamics and display of EFL teachers’ professional identities in the process of their responding to and embracing the curriculum changes from EGP to ESP. This study endeavored to address a set of key research questions as follows: iv (1) What are the characteristics of EFL teachers’ professional identities in the transitional process from EGP to ESP? (2) How and in what ways did EFL teachers display their professional identities in the transitional process from EGP to ESP? (3) What factors (and/or how these factors) may have or not impacted their professional identities in the transitional process from EGP to ESP? Methods employed in this qualitative case study encompassed questionnaires, interviews, and documents to collect data. Data were analyzed through content analysis (Churchill, 2013) and successive approximation (Neuman, 2014). Findings derived from different data sets were cross-checked and compared to map a general pattern or tendency. The major findings are: (1) Chinese EFL teachers’ professional identities as emerged in the transitional process were shown with complexity and multiplicity, which were also dynamic, emotional, relational, and interactional as observed in three broad aspects of teacher knowledge, teacher autonomy, and teacher practices; (2) Chinese EFL teachers’ professional identities were specifically displayable by way of program preparing, classroom instruction, as well as professional development in relation to their knowledge, autonomy, and practices; and (3) key factors having impacted the development and display of Chinese EFL teachers’ professional identities were found to include internal factors (i.e., educational background, corporate work experience, knowledge of learners, intrinsic motivation, and personal traits/preferences) and external factors (i.e., policy, mentoring role, syllabus, timetabling, institutional support, and connection with colleagues/professional community). v This study offered an integrated theoretical lens to look at EFL teacher professional identity and guide EFL teachers confronted with similar situations. As reviewed, research on language teacher identity primarily chose to examine the issue either from the perspective of knowledge, or autonomy, or teaching practice. There was very little research that tried to look at the three related aspects in combination. This thesis incorporated the three strands of research – teacher knowledge, teacher autonomy, and teacher practices – as a conceptual and analytical tool to investigate typical Chinese EFL teachers’ professional identities in the transitional process from EGP to ESP. The combined approach to examining the related core aspects would provide a better understanding of EFL teachers’ professional identities by looking at the dynamics of teacher knowledge, autonomy, classroom practices, and their interplay in the transitional period of centralized curriculum reform. This integration of related research and theoretical constructs, therefore, would provide an alternative theoretical lens. Empirically, it yielded a set of context-specific research evidence to contribute to the existing research on teacher knowledge, teacher autonomy and teacher professional identity, and an empirical base to inform the development of a framework for researching teacher professional development. Pedagogically, the empirical data and the findings could help EFL teachers in the transitional process to reflect upon their professional identities and teaching practice, thus providing an alternative approach to formulating professional training and development for the EFL teachers in China or a starting point for EFL programs moving from EGP to ESP