‘I thought I was a refugee’: a narrative inquiry of an EFL teacher’s piloting of a newly published textbook

Abstract

ABSTRACT Textbooks hold a central position in English Language Teaching (ELT), providing linguistic, sociolinguistic, and cultural resources embedded within specific pedagogical frameworks. Despite its centrality, the end-users’ engagement in textbook development remains vague and untouched. Situated within a textbook development project, this longitudinal study attempts to delineate an experienced English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) teacher’s piloting of a newly published textbook in tertiary education in China. Drawing on data from semi-structured interviews, field observations, classroom observations, and documents spanning over one year, the narrative inquiry traces and depicts the participant’s transition from ‘groping in the darkness’ to ‘seeing a silver lining in the cloud’, which is fluctuated with the participant’s analysis, adaptation, evaluation, and appropriation of the material, highlighted with her re-interpretation of the textbook rationales and re-construction of the personal pedagogical approach in a context-response manner. Facing the challenges and pressures during the textbook piloting project, the teacher’s continuous self-reflection and perseverance are the fundamental driving forces to customize the materials. Furthermore, the flexibility of the textbook content and the support from the editorial team do play essential roles in the piloting project. Through deciphering the rocks and roses in a teacher’s first encounter with a newly published textbook, the study provides practical insights for textbook publishers, textbook writers, language teachers and teacher educators regarding both textbook development and professional development.