Context, Communities, and Conflict: Novice Language Teachers in Malaysia

Abstract

AbstractThis narrative inquiry focuses on two Malaysian novice English language teachers whose pre‐service teacher education had included two years of study abroad. The experiences of novice language teachers remain an under‐investigated area and this study furthers our understanding of that experience. Furthermore, while research on the effectiveness of pre‐service language teacher education has reported mixed results, accounts on the impact of studying abroad claim multiple benefits. Thus this study extends the literature on novice language teachers by adding a study abroad dimension. It asks what influences the teachers’ pedagogical decision‐making and how they now view their study abroad. In line with models of language teacher cognition, a dynamic interplay of influences on these novice teachers’ classroom practice emerges. These influences include their ‘apprenticeship of observation’, the national and local context, their professional learning, and support networks. Multiple layers of both context and community were found to influence the teachers. The study abroad experiences features in both positive and negative ways. It conveys status, and raises expectations, but is not always regarded as relevant to teaching in Malaysian primary schools. It can also, however, have an alienating effect. This is a previously unacknowledged effect of study abroad on language teachers.