Identity Construction Of English-language Substitute Teachers In Chinese Junior Middle Schools

In the early days of the founding of the People’s Republic of China,in order to meet the needs of China’s education development,the state encouraged and mobilized the masses to run schools,resulting in “substitute teachers”,which were mainly distributed in rural areas of China,with fewer cities.With the deepening of reform and opening up,especially the full implementation of the “two-child” policy since 2015,the number of urban substitute teachers,which originally accounted for a small percentage,has soared.Substitute teachers in cities are mainly distributed in the middle school stage of primary education,especially English-language substitute teachers(ELSTs)in China’s junior middle schools.Previous research and social attention focused on the external or material dimensions such as the “causes”,“different pay for equal work”,and “retirement policy”of substitute teachers,but their identity and career development have been neglected.The professional level and professional development of ELSTs in China’s junior middle schools have a significant impact on the English teaching effect and fairness of the compulsory education stage,which needs to be highly valued.Based on the sociocultural theory and discourse analysis theory,this study uses the narrative inquiry method and interview method in qualitative research to study the identity and professional development of ELSTs in China’s junior middle schools in coastal cities,trying to analyze the situation of individual teachers characteristics and influencing factors in different situations.The paper first clarifies the concepts of substitute teacher,identity,and English teacher identity by combing the relevant literature and constructs a four-dimensional eight-factor structure of ELSTs in China’s junior middle schools identity from the perspective of social cultural theory.The research results show that:(1)Vocational identity,professional identity,self-identity and situational identity are competing and negotiating in permitting and restricting the identity of ELSTs in China’s junior middle schools.Under the mutual influence and role of these four,ELSTs in China’s junior middle schools show different identities;(2)Through narrative exploration and analysis,ELSTs in China’s junior middle schools,encounter the gap between theoretical self and practical self in substitute work,and found the lack of professional level and anxiety,they mostly solve problems by watching and imitating the teaching of excellent teachers,continuous theoretical learning without teacher knowledge;(3)For love of education or future career planning,ELSTs in China’s junior middle schools maintain an active work input;(4)Regional differences due to birth place and growth environment,from different ELSTs in China’s junior middle schools in different regions have different situational identities,and the sense of regional identity has a greater impact on the substitute teachers’ situational identity.