Chinese students, teachers and scholars abroad /Intl. Conference
23-24 may 2013
Negotiating Chinese Teachers’ Identity
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A case study of native TCFL teachers for degree students in Denmark
While recent researches on pedagogy in Chinese as foreign language teaching (CFL) tend to
focus on how certain pedagogical issues are related to teachers’ choice of methods and the
learning effect of students, how native Chinese teachers negotiate their identity with regard to
teaching/learning culture in a given context has hardly been examined. This paper explores
processes of identity formation of 6 native Chinese teachers of CFL at Danish universities and
aims to offer a qualitative analysis of the nature of Chinese teacher identity constructions and
relations between their identity discourse and the situated teaching culture of Denmark. More
generally, the paper seeks to achieve a culturally grounded understanding of teacher identity
discourse. The study indicated that these Chinese participants’ understanding of the role of being
mentors persists despite being teachers of CFL for Danish university students, a target group
with deep root in values and attitudes different from Chinese educational ones.
Keywords: identity, negotiation, teaching/ learning culture, native Chinese teachers of CFL,
Danish students