Development of Professional Identity and Related Metacognitive Thinking Procedures of English Language Teachers Through Spontaneous Collaboration for Pedagogical Problem-Solving

Abstract

This research explores potential benefits of the spontaneous collaboration of a small group of teachers regarding their professional identity (PI) and related metacognitive thinking procedures. The researcher conceptualizes the co-operation of PI and metacognition via interactive pedagogical problem-solving and presents spontaneous collaboration processes of a beginning teacher (BT) and an experienced teacher (ET) of English. Based on the qualitative approach, it was revealed that the BT often referred to the ET’s meanings constituting her PI, but through pedagogic experimentations and dialogic meaning negotiations, BT gradually improved her meanings/PI and related metacognitive thinking procedures as identified BT becoming more self-critical and pursuing professionalism. The ET reshaped her meanings/PI through constant monitoring and regulations, stimulated by the BT, and elaborated these and metacognitive thinking procedures by focusing on what to improve. Implications of the findings are discussed in relation to professional development.

Comprehension of the Co-Operation of Professional Identity and Metacognition of English Teachers in Pedagogical Problem Solving

“…According to their years of teaching, teachers may show different forms and activation of PI and metacognition. Nonetheless, given that the current study tries to reveal and address the outlines or shared patterns of teachers’ pedagogical problem-solving processes and the possibility of their variation, and the operation and development of PI and metacognition embedded in the processes, the study does not sift the participants by the years of teaching experience; refer to [ 63 ] for the comprehension of the operation of PI and metacognition of experienced English teachers, and see [ 67 ] for the comparison of the operation and development of PI and metacognition between an experienced and a novice teacher.…”

“…The questions sought their recent and recent-past teaching procedures, (un)satisfying teaching experiences, endeavour for pedagogic improvement, and ideas of desirable pedagogies and their changes; see Appendix B . The questions were previously applied in researcher’s other studies [ 63 , 67 ] of the exploration of English teachers’ PI and/or metacognition so they were sufficiently validated. Since questions that require too much reflection or a description of the process of overcoming challenges can cause the narrators to restructure their stories to include a happy ending [ 73 ], the researcher tried to let them describe their experiences as they were by not inquiring about any conclusions.…”

“…Their data also revealed the potential of teachers’ daily, flexible, and spontaneous interactions. The implications of their interaction for teachers’ professional development are covered separately in another paper [ 67 ].…”

Contextualization of Communicative Language Teaching in Confucian Heritage Culture: Challenging Pedagogic Dichotomization

“…Founded on Rousseau’s idea of desirable education, cooperative learning is supposed to foster learner participation during the lessons and to facilitate communication and interaction among students or between the teacher and the students, resulting in the learners acquiring cognitive development as well as social skills (Jacobs & Farrell, 2003; Richards, 2006). While cooperating, learners with different levels of (meta)cognition can be a constructive stimulus to one another and can draw out each other’s potential through meaning negotiations (Han, 2021). Specifically, one can refer to the others’ ideas and reshape their own ideas through self or interactive reflection, assisted by others’ cognitive and metacognitive competencies (Han, 2021).…”

“…While cooperating, learners with different levels of (meta)cognition can be a constructive stimulus to one another and can draw out each other’s potential through meaning negotiations (Han, 2021). Specifically, one can refer to the others’ ideas and reshape their own ideas through self or interactive reflection, assisted by others’ cognitive and metacognitive competencies (Han, 2021). In addition, cooperating learners can help each other understand and solve tasks more successfully and construct knowledge together (Henson, 2003; Vygotsky, 1978).…”