An Exploratory Study of Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers’ Professional Identity Construction in a Globalizing China

Abstract

Abstract Employing one-to-one interviews, this study explores, from a poststructuralist view, how Chinese English Teachers (CETs) struggle to construct their professional identity within the dominant ideology and disempowering discourses of native-speakerism in a globalizing China. Twenty-five CETs were interviewed, and the results have shown that applying human agency and subjectivity, CET participants manage to counteract the disempowering discourses and reach a relatively balanced power relationship with their native speaker (NS) counterparts mainly through four ways: Othering the NSs; exploring their own unique strengths; taking special roles in ELT; and establishing their credibility through hard work. The Chinese culture of learning, specifically, Confucian values, also plays an important role in CETs’ professional identity construction.