Negotiating TESOL Discourses and EFL Teaching Contexts in China: Identities and Practices of International Graduates of a TESOL Program

Abstract

This article reports on a study of the material effects of the discourses circulating in a TESOL program housed in a Canadian university on the professional identities and practices that international graduates of the program negotiate and develop in their local professional contexts in China. The principal researcher and two of the study participants discuss pedagogical values salient among program graduates and explore complexities accompanying professional identity negotiation. The article offers recommendations for TESOL programs in affording EFL teachers the possibility to construct hybrid professional identities and dwell comfortably in a “third space” as educational practitioners in a globalized world.