Understanding ESL Teachers’ Agency in Their Early Years of Professional Development: A Three-Layered Triadic Reciprocity Framework

Drawing upon the Triadic Reciprocity Framework, this longitudinal qualitative multiple-case study examined how three Hong Kong secondary English as a second language (ESL) teachers exercised their teacher agency to take control of their teaching and professional development. More specifically, the study aimed at exploring how teachers’ intentions and actions for the establishment of their professional identity were afforded and constrained by their workplaces. Findings reveal that these ESL teachers exercised different degrees of proactive, reactive, and passive agency. The four properties of human agency, i.e., intentionality, forethought, self-reactiveness, and self-reflectiveness, influenced the teachers’ proactive, reactive, and passive agency when they responded to personal, behavioral, and environmental determinants. The findings shed light on a three-layered Triadic Reciprocity framework on teacher agency and contributes to a systematic and comprehensive discussion about the various internal and external factors that might exert influences on agency of early career teachers. This study offers pedagogical implications for school teachers, school leaders, and policy makers in Hong Kong and beyond.

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Sustainability of Professional Development: A Longitudinal Case Study of an Early Career ESL Teacher’s Agency and Identity

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13169025 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (16) ◽

pp. 9025

Author(s):

Jing Huang

Keyword(s):

Professional Development ◽

Hong Kong ◽

Teacher Identity ◽

Teaching Profession ◽

Early Career ◽

Teacher Agency ◽

Full Time ◽

Longitudinal Case Study ◽

School Contexts

This paper reports on a longitudinal case study of a Hong Kong early career ESL (English as a second language) secondary teacher, Joyce (pseudonym), who experienced different stages of personal–professional development over seven–eight years (August 2013–December 2020), as follows: (1) entering, and engaging, in teaching for five–six years, upon graduation from a local teacher education BA degree program in summer 2013; (2) resigning from her full-time teaching position and leaving the teaching profession, in response to an “insulting” classroom revisit in her third school; (3) working in an NGO for a short time, after “recovery” from the “insulting” event; and (4) weighing possibilities for resuming teaching, after leaving the NGO in 2019. Drawing on multiple data that were collected over seven–eight years, including interviews, informal communications, and autobiography, this study aimed to examine the issues of teacher attrition and sustainable professional development, in relation to teacher agency and teacher identity, in Hong Kong secondary school contexts. The findings revealed that school and social contexts intertwined with personal experiences, culminating in Joyce’s leaving or staying in the teaching profession. Through focusing on Joyce’s long-term experiences of becoming and being an ESL teacher, the findings shed light on the affordances for, and constraints upon, teacher agency and teacher identity in school contexts.

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Assessing the Learning Needs of Student Teachers in Texas Regarding Management of the Agricultural Mechanics Laboratory: Implications for the Professional Development of Early Career Teachers in Agricultural Education

Journal of Agricultural Education ◽

10.5032/jae.2011.04024 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 52 (4) ◽

pp. 24-43 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ryan Saucier ◽

Billy McKim

Keyword(s):

Professional Development ◽

Student Teachers ◽

Agricultural Education ◽

Early Career ◽

Learning Needs ◽

Early Career Teachers ◽

Agricultural Mechanics ◽

Career Teachers

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An exploratory study of early career teachers as culturally responsive teachers

5th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'19) ◽

10.4995/head19.2019.8928 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Denise Ann Beutel ◽

Donna Tangen ◽

Rebecca Spooner-Lane

Keyword(s):

Beginning Teachers ◽

Exploratory Study ◽

Culturally Responsive ◽

Early Career ◽

Early Years ◽

Individual Growth ◽

Early Career Teachers ◽

Diverse Range ◽

Eastern Australia ◽

Career Teachers

The purpose of this study was to advance understanding on how early career teachers imagined themselves to be culturally responsive and how their beliefs and ideologies about teaching a diverse range of learners were challenged and refined during their early years of teaching. This qualitative, exploratory study was conducted in a large, secondary school in eastern Australia that has a highly diverse population of students. Findings indicate that, while these early career teachers lacked preparation for working with diverse learners, building relationships on multiple levels (with students, with fellow beginning teachers, and with senior staff which includes ongoing support and mentoring from colleagues) is essential for the development of early career teachers as culturally responsive practitioners. Findings are discussed in relation to Garmon’s (2005) six key factors for teaching diverse groups of students: openness, self-awareness, commitment to social justice, having intercultural experiences, have support group experiences, and recognising individual growth. These findings have implications for schooling systems in how they can better transition early career teachers to classrooms and for higher education teacher preparation programs in Australia and many other countries with a growing number migrant and refugee students coming into the school system.

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