Engagement and negotiation: Exploring a tertiary female EFL teacher’s professional agency in her career development in P.R. China

Abstract

Agency is considered as a significant construct in teachers' professional development. Given previous literature offers little empirical evidence regarding how female EFL teachers in China shape and reshape their agency in their career development, the current study attempts to explore a Shanghai tertiary female EFL teacher's agency by examining how she manifested her agency and how she negotiated with the situated context to achieve her roles in her career trajectory. The authors applied qualitative approach, i.e. interviews, classroom observation, artifacts, living graphs, and SNS-based communication to collect the data and thematic analysis to analyze the data, so as to present “thick-description” of the participant's “lived experience”. The major findings of this research are: (1) The participant recursively achieved her agency via influences from the past, orientation towards the future, and engagement with the present; (2) Reflection and self-regulation are found to facilitate her agency achievement; (3) The participant's agency was afforded or constrained relatively to her situated context. The study provides insights into possible perspectives of understanding agency and language teachers' professional development.