107 / 2021-06-28 11:17:05

Exploring teachers’ professional agency: A narrative inquiry of a national award-winning language teacher in China

teachers' professional agency, narrative inquiry, language teachers, national teaching contest

While teachers’ professional agency has been widely examined in the past decades, the relation between teacher agency and classroom effectiveness is under-explored. This study draws on Connelly and Clandinin’s (2000) methodological and theoretical perspective of narrative inquiry to explore one national teaching contest champion’s (Kate) enactment of professional agency by particularly focusing on how she transformed personal and professional experiences into classroom pedagogy. Through the lens of Craig's (1995, 2007, 2009) narrative conceptualization of teacher knowledge communities, the study delineated three ways in which Kate constructed personal practical knowledge in three divergent professional learning communities. The paper concludes with the complex interplay among teachers’ professional agency, identity and emotions in professional learning and implications for continuous professional development.