Using Narrative Inquiry to Investigate International Graduate Assistants’ Teacher Identity through Their Teaching Experiences in the Doctoral Program

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday I)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Teaching and teacher education (TETP) round-table 2

Proposal

Objectives
In the past three decades, there were great bulks of research interest aim to deal with “foreign TA problem”, yet, to date, the issue remains like a puzzle unsolved and the problem is elusive. English proficiency was first identified by Bailey (1984) as a “foreign TA problem”. Both undergraduate students and their parents complained about International Teaching Assistants’ (ITA) English proficiency. Thus, students and their parents’ attitudes had become a decisive factor to resolve foreign TA problem.
In order to explore international graduate assistants’ teacher identities, this study focuses on how they build their own identities through teaching experiences while teaching as a graduate assistant. The overarching question that guides this study is:
How do international teaching assistants view themselves as a teacher educator while teaching as a graduate assistant in the doctoral program?
Two sub-questions are therefore emerged, including: 1) What are the differences in the classroom culture between participants’ home country and the U.S.? and 2) What are the differences in the teaching strategies they implement between their home country and the U.S.? Why do they teach differently?

Methods
The study employed a multiple case study approach in order to investigate international doctoral students’ teaching experiences in the program. Two English-as-a-second-language (ESL) learners as well as doctoral students were selected as the participants in the study.

Data Sources, Collection & Analysis
The data was collected through interviews which were conducted with two ESL learners as well as graduate assistants.
Data was collected throughout two phases. In phase I, at the beginning of the semester, six open-ended questions were answered during the first semi-structured interview. In phase II, in the middle of the semester, researchers conducted the second semi-structured interview with the participants.
Data was analyzed using thematic analysis techniques and narrative inquiry and teacher identity as interpretive lenses. Findings included the individual case reports and two themes. Each individual reported: their experiences when teach in the home country and the U.S., and how they value the differences by adapting themselves to U.S. classroom and adjust their teaching strategies.

Conclusions
The results of the study emphasize the importance of narrative inquiry in exploring identities. As Pavlenko (2001) asserts, “L2 learning stories are unique and rich sources of information about the relationship between language and identity in second language learning and socialization” (as cited by Block, 2007, p. 867). Stories are powerful sources that enable researchers to explore identities narratively. In addition, more attention should be given to research on teacher identities, as Olsen (2008) states, it “treats teachers as whole persons … who continually reconstruct their views of themselves in relation to others, workplace characteristics, professional purposes, and professional purposes, and cultures of teaching” (p. 9). The study contributes to the application of narrative inquiry and teacher identity theory in international doctoral students’ teaching experiences in higher education, and to the research on international doctoral students’ learning to teach in the U.S. Moreover, it serves as a reference for university administrators, especially in training and assisting Asian students.

Authors

• Ching Hsu-Kim, UNLV

• Janet Gao, The George Washington University