Understanding the Professional Practice of Teachers of Chinese as an Additional Language through the Lens of Teacher Agency

Min Bao, Wei Ren and Danping Wang
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Min Bao: Institute of Linguistics, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai 200083, China
Wei Ren: School of Foreign Languages, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
Danping Wang: School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics, The University of Auckland, Auckland 1142, New Zealand

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 18, 1-15

Abstract: Teacher agency plays a key role in sustaining the professional practice of language teachers, including teachers of Chinese as an additional language (CAL), to ensure sustainable multilingualism in universities. This paper reports on an exploratory study that examined five CAL teachers’ experiences of using teaching materials in a leading Belarussian university. Drawing on theorization about teacher agency, the analysis of the participants’ experiences helped to reveal the manifestations of teacher agency in their engagement with teaching materials in their teaching, which emerged from interactions between individual aspirations and contextual conditions. In particular, the findings highlight that three factors, namely teachers’ beliefs, teacher identity, and relationships within their community, play significant roles in mediating the participants’ exercise of agency in using teaching materials. The findings not only contribute to the conceptualization of teacher agency, but suggest that pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and materials development of CAL teachers should be emphasized in supporting effective teaching, so that they can achieve sustainable professional practice to ensure sustainable multilingualism in universities.

Keywords: teacher agency; Chinese as an additional language (CAL); Chinese teaching and learning; agency orientation; Chinese textbooks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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