The Negotiation of Teachers' Sociocultural Identities and Practices in Postsecondary EFL Classrooms

Abstract

This article explores the complex interrelationships between language and culture, between teachers' sociocultural identities and teaching practices, and between their explicit discussions of culture and implicit modes of cultural transmission in their classes. A 6‐month ethnographic study examined how teachers deal with institutional and curricular expectations regarding their teaching of (North American) culture in their EFL classrooms in a postsecondary institution in Japan. The study also explored the teachers' changing understandings of what constitutes culture and of how they viewed themselves in terms of their various social and cultural roles. Common themes included (a) the complexities and paradoxes associated with teachers' professional, social, political, and cultural identities and their (re)presentation of these in class; (b) their quest for interpersonal and intercultural connection in that EFL context; (c) their desire for educational (and personal) control in the face of contested cultural practices; and (d) disjunctures between teachers' implicit and explicit messages in relation to their cultural understandings and practices. We discuss these themes and make recommendations for teacher education purposes. We argue that the cultural underpinnings of language curricula and teaching must be examined further, particularly so in intercultural situations in which participants are negotiating their sociocultural identities as well as the curriculum.

“I Am Combined”: Chinese Teachers’ Cultural Identities and Pedagogical Learning

“…First, the teachers in our study used their personal experiences, often cross-cultural ones, and their understandings of these experiences to make sense of pedagogical content and concepts, similar to previous studies (Duff & Uchida, 1997;Menard-Warwick, 2008). Sometimes, this reference to personal experiences and understandings was prompted by the instructors; at other times, the teacher participants chose to connect with their experiences and understandings while processing new concepts introduced in this PD course.…”

“…The process of doing this complex cultural and social identity work was analyzed by Duff and Uchida (1997), who examined how four English as foreign language (EFL) teachers' sociocultural identities interacted with their institutional and interpersonal environments in Japan. Viewing identities as "co-constructed, negotiated, and transformed on an ongoing basis by means of language" (p. 452), this ethnographic case study found that the teachers' sociocultural identities developed along two dimensions: a biographical/professional one (e.g., past learning and teaching experiences) and a contextual one (e.g., the local classroom culture).…”

“…Also, culture was frequently viewed as dynamic and complex and described as "split, hybrid, mixed" (Menard-Warwick, 2008, p. 635), "heavily textured" (Duff & Uchida, 1997, p. 476), and "subject to constant negotiation" (p. 460). Cultural identity was further conceptualized in relation to the constructs of affiliation, belonging, Duff and Uchida (1997) linked cultural identity to constructs of positioning, belonging, and interculturality. Reflecting the difficulty of defining "culture", terms such as "sociocultural identity", "social identity", and "cultural identity" refer to various aspects of cultural identity and the terms "role" and "identity" are used interchangeably.…”

“…As we will describe below, research has further revealed that language teachers' cultural identities interacted with various aspects of their teaching (e.g. material selection, teaching approaches) in significant ways (Duff & Uchida, 1997;Fichtner & Chapman, 2011;Menard-Warwick, 2008). This important link between cultural identity and teaching practices points to the value of teachers doing cultural identity work within teacher education contexts.…”

“…In the area of culture teaching in language classes, Duff and Uchida (1997) highlighted that learning to teach culture means developing an identity as a culture teacher by critically looking at one's own cultural and biographical roots. They suggested that "in examining such abstract constructs as culture and identity, collaborative inquiry and self-reflection on the part of participant, including researchers and students, are very valuable" (p. 479).…”