TY - JOUR
T1 - Autonomy in English Language Teaching
T2 - A Case Study of Novice Secondary School Teachers in Hong Kong
AU - Huang, Jing
AU - Lock, Kenny Yau Ning
AU - Teng, Feng
N1 - Funding Information:
The work described in this paper was supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (GRF Project No. HKBU 12403214).
Publisher copyright:
© 2019 FLTRP, Walter de Gruyter, Cultural and Education Section British Embassy
PY - 2019/3/26
Y1 - 2019/3/26
N2 - Following years of pre-service teacher education, novice teachers are often enthusiastic about embarking on the journey in the teaching profession. However, they may not always possess the internal capacity and institutional support to take effective control of their teaching. This paper reports on a case study of the teaching lives of two novice secondary school ESL (English as a second language) teachers in Hong Kong, drawing on qualitative data gathered through individual face-to-face interviews, and supplemented by email exchanges and telephone conversations, over a one-year period. The study investigates how novice English teachers develop their teacher autonomy, and what factors contribute to their development as autonomous English teachers. The paper concludes that novice English teachers in Hong Kong possess the capacity and are also ready for autonomy, and that an invitational, supportive and collaborative school environment plays a decisive role in affording ample opportunities for novices to develop their autonomy in language teaching. The study suggests that novice teachers should become critically aware of the affordances (opportunities, possibilities, invitations, enablements) in their working conditions, and should meanwhile exercise their teacher agency to act on these affordances to pursue their personal-professional development.
AB - Following years of pre-service teacher education, novice teachers are often enthusiastic about embarking on the journey in the teaching profession. However, they may not always possess the internal capacity and institutional support to take effective control of their teaching. This paper reports on a case study of the teaching lives of two novice secondary school ESL (English as a second language) teachers in Hong Kong, drawing on qualitative data gathered through individual face-to-face interviews, and supplemented by email exchanges and telephone conversations, over a one-year period. The study investigates how novice English teachers develop their teacher autonomy, and what factors contribute to their development as autonomous English teachers. The paper concludes that novice English teachers in Hong Kong possess the capacity and are also ready for autonomy, and that an invitational, supportive and collaborative school environment plays a decisive role in affording ample opportunities for novices to develop their autonomy in language teaching. The study suggests that novice teachers should become critically aware of the affordances (opportunities, possibilities, invitations, enablements) in their working conditions, and should meanwhile exercise their teacher agency to act on these affordances to pursue their personal-professional development.
KW - affordances
KW - novice teachers
KW - professional development
KW - teacher agency
KW - teacher autonomy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85066634904&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1515/CJAL-2019-0001
DO - 10.1515/CJAL-2019-0001
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85066634904
SN - 2192-9505
VL - 42
SP - 3
EP - 20
JO - Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics
JF - Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics
IS - 1
ER -
