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Significance of this study lies in the abundant and valuable information about how secondary school language teachers develop their professional identity in a rural,multiethnic sociocultural context in Yunnan province, China. This empirical research helps front-line teachers, school leadership, government policymakers, teacher educators and researchers to get access to the real situation of Chinese rural EFL teachers about their classroom practice and professional development.
Firstly, the present study is significant for rural secondary school EFL teachers.This study examines the professional identity formation of three rural secondary school EFL teachers, whose personal biographies, language learning and teaching beliefs and experience gained from professional training programs are valuable for front-line teachers.
Secondly, detailed comparison of teachers’ classroom practice before and after their participation in the NTTP of ers the teacher educators and school leaders a useful reminder to understand teachers’ true response to the curriculum reform and professional training program. The present study is particularly vital for educational researchers, for it of ers a new perspective to explore language teachers’ professional identity.
Thirdly, the present study is important for educational policymakers. This study selects rural EFL teachers working in multiethnic regions as focal participants, and describes how local socioeconomic situation and multiethnic cultural characters indirectly af ect teachers’ teaching beliefs and pedagogical practices in the classroom.These data are particularly pragmatic for the policymakers.
Taking teachers’ identity as an analytical tool, this research is one of the pioneering studies that explore professional development of Chinese rural EFL teachers in multiethnic regions. The significance of the present study also lies in the implementation of an integrated theoretical framework for exploration of the multilayered, multifaceted professional identity construction process. The study adopts the Identity Formation Theory (Wenger, 1998), History-in-Person Theory (Holland & Lave, 2001), and Identity-in-Discourse and Identity-in-Discourse (Varghese et al., 2005) as an integrated theoretical framework to support the exploration of teachers’ professional identity development.The combination of integrated theoretical framework and qualitative case study research approach builds up a new and powerful interpretive framework, which can be taken as an example for other research.