Exploring student/teacher interactions in Taiwanese buxiban classrooms from the poststructuralist concept of subjectivity

Abstract

Shadow education gains its name because it mimics the regular system. When new subjects and other curriculum changes are introduced in the regular system, before long they appear in the shadow; as the regular grows, so does the shadow. Unlike the formal schooling system, shadow education is a fee-charging education system and so considered to be half education and half business organisation. In the last two decades, shadow education has become a global phenomenon across continents such as Asia, North America, Europe, Oceania and Africa, and a new field for researchers to explore. The previous research indicates that shadow education does not mimic the formal schooling system only, but further affects it by changing studentsr attitudes towards the formal school system, school teachersr teaching, and studentsr life and learning. Apart from the impact on education, it also raises social issues, such as social justice, inequality, stratification and so on.The influence of shadow education on the formal schooling system and the life of students is vividly shown in Taiwan, where shadow education, called buxiban, is ubiquitous and is regarded as a unique culture. Like other Asian countries, more than 80% of students in Taiwan attend extra classes in the buxiban after school. The number shows dramatic growth in the last decade due to the education reformation and the increasing significance of English as a prominent language in the curriculum, which further results in the popularity and growth of English buxiban in Taiwan.With regard to English language teaching in buxiban, who does the teaching and who is a better teacher m a native speaker (NS) or a non-native speaker (NNS) English teacher m always matters. lNative speakersr fallacyr carries significant weight in parentsr and studentsr minds when it comes to English language learning, which further results in the privileged status of NS teachers and the misconception of their superiority. Due to the nature of shadow education, as half education and half business, the managers of buxibans in Taiwan recruit some NS English teachers to attract parents and students in order to increase profits. Hence, it is not uncommon for buxibans to have both NS and NNS English teachers cooperating with each other in teaching. A lot of research has been conducted to explore the differences between NS and NNS teachers and a dichotomy with unequal relations of power is created to classify them into two groups. However, this NS-NNS dichotomy is problematic because it implies that subjectivity of NS and NNS English teachers is fixed and stable and differences between them are permanent and pre-existing. In this thesis, instead, I argue that teacher subjectivity is in an ongoing process of construction and differences are made rather than inherently pre-exist through thinking with Foucaultrs concept of subjectivity, power, discourse and truth/knowledge along with Baradrs posthumanist ideas of agential realism, phenomenon, apparatuses and intra-action.This thesis aims to disrupt the established NS-NNS dichotomy by looking at how the subjectivity of NS and NNS English teachers is constructed in the intra-activity with both human and nonhuman entities in the context of the buxiban classroom. In order to achieve this aim, this qualitative project utilises data collected from classroom observation and interviews. Extending Foucaultrs ideas of subjectivity constituted within discourse, data were analysed using Baradrs theory of diffraction built on her posthumanist concepts of agential realism, phenomenon, apparatus and intra-action to explore how the material affects the construction of the subjectivity of teachers.This thesis provides original insights into what happens in the buxiban classroom through an examination of the formation of the subjectivity of NS and NNS English teachers respectively. Instead of restraining our thinking of subjectivity within the discourse only, reading the subjectivity differently with Barad leads us to see not only the discourse affects but also that the material matters in the process of the construction of subjectivity, redressing the limitation of Foucaultrs discursive approach. Moreover, the research findings suggest that NS English teachers are not always as powerful and privileged as the literature suggests, which is not merely contesting the results of previous research conducted in the field of TESOL (teach English to speakers of other languages) but also provides researchers another perspective of rethinking the problematic NS-NNS dichotomy. Through reading the subjectivity differently with Barad, the research findings of this study make contribution to theory, the field of TESOL and shadow education.n