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Positioning preservice teachers’ reﬂections and I-positions in thecontext of teaching practicum: A dialogical-se lf theory approach

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Nhu Quynh

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Danh sách Quiz

Research paper

Positioning preservice teachers’ reﬂections and I-positions in the

context of teaching practicum: A dialogical-se lf theory approach

Gang Zhu

, Mingyang Chen

Institute of International and Comparative Education, East China Normal University, China

College of Marxism, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai, China

highlights

 Preservice teachers’ reﬂections and metaphorical professional identities were examined..

 Preservice teachers enacted multiple I-positions in the practicum context.

 Preservice teachers' I-positions encompass various positioning strategies.

 Metaphors act as powerful cognitive framework in under standing preservice teachers' professional identities.

article info

Article history:

Received 21 April 2021

Received in revised form

4 March 2022

Accepted 10 April 2022

Available online 31 May 2022

Keywords:

Reﬂection

Metaphor

Professional identity

Positioning theory

Dialogical-self theory

abstract

This paper reports on changes in preservice teachers' reﬂections and metaphorical professional identities

during the teaching practicums in China using dialogical-self and positioning theories. Drawing upon 66

written metaphorical accounts, reﬂective journal entries, and three rounds of semi-structured group

interviews, this study identiﬁed that the participants continually enacted their multiple I-positions,

which encompa ss four trajectories: (1) promoter position (conﬁrmation/consolidation of I-positions), (2)

meta-position (elaboration and expansiveness of I-positions), (3) re-positioning and third position

(contradiction and disequilibrium of I-positions), and (4) reﬂexive positioning (stability and minor

change of I-positions). Additionally, this study conﬁrms that metaphors act as powerful cognitive

frameworks in gaining in-depth insights into preservice teachers' dynamic and evolving professional

identities in learning-to-teach settings. Implications for facilitating preservice teachers’ metaphorical

professional identity (trans)formation and reﬂection in the teaching practicum context are discussed.

1. Introduction

Teaching practicum experiences (i.e., student teaching) are

widely recognized in providing preservice teachers (thereafter

PSTs) authentic opportunities to experiment with innovative

pedagogical approaches and take on new responsibilities

(Anderson & Stillman, 2013; Ulvik, Helleve, & Smith, 2018;

Valencia, Martin, Place, & Grossman, 2009). Researchers have

widely acknowledged the merits of teaching practicums in initial

teacher education programs (e.g., Zhu, 2017; Zhu, Mena, & Johnson,

2020a; Busher, Gündüz, Cakmak, & Lawson, 2015; Çakmak &

Gunduz 2018). However, researchers also empirically demonstrate

that practicum experiences are not always instrumental in

facilitating PSTs’ socialization and smooth transition to teaching

(Zhu & Zhu, 2018, Deng, Zhu, Li, Xu, Rutter, & Rivera, 2018;

Grudnoff, 2011). As a result, PSTs tender to lack essential knowledge

and skills exposed to the stimulating learning-to-teach environ-

ments conducive to reﬂection (Zhu et al., 2020a; Koc, 2012). Stu-

dent teaching is full of dilemmas, whereby PSTs need to justify

different teaching conceptions and conﬂicting ideologies (Ding &

Wang, 2018). PSTs consciously or unconsciously develop

competing views of teaching after the teaching practicums, for

instance, a more “realistic” view of learning and teaching (Lamote &

Engels, 2010).

In the context of L2 teaching practicums,

it is understandable

* Corresponding author.

E-mail addresses: gzhu@iice.ecnu.edu.cn (G. Zhu), 419269615@qq.com (M. Chen).

L2 means a person's second language, or L2, is a language that is not the native

language (ﬁrst language or L1) of the speaker, but is learned later (usually as a

foreign language). In this research context, L2 refers to the English as the foreign

language (EFL).

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Teaching and Teacher Education

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tate

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2022.103734

Teaching and Teacher Education 117 (2022) 103734

that most PSTs will encounter many challenges resulting from ﬁrst-

time teaching, such as the hierarchical power relationship between

mentor teachers PSTs (Zhu & Zhu, 2018) and the conceptual,

pedagogical, institutional, and ethical dilemmas arising as they

transition from university to classroom teaching (Zhu, 2017; Zhu &

Zhu, 2018). Yuan and Lee (2014) found that much attention has

been focused on the “content” (i.e., what) of teachers' cognitions

and beliefs, whereas the “process” (i.e., how) of teachers' percep-

tions and identities are underexplored in L2 teacher education.

Reﬂection, as a constituent element of teachers' professional

development, has been widely examined by Dewey (1933/1993),

Sch

€

on (1987), Zeichner (2010), and Farrell (2016) more recently. In

the case of L2 teacher practicums, PSTs are encouraged to contin-

ually reﬂect upon their dynamic professional identities and peda-

gogical approaches (Zhu, 2017; Zhu et al., 2022). Given the pivotal

role of teaching practicum to PSTs’ professional knowledge and

competency development, a study on how English as a foreign

language (thereafter EFL) PSTs reveal their reﬂections and navigate

their emergent professional identities will deepen our nuanced

understandings of the coherence and disconnection regarding

multiple I-positions from a dynamic perspective.

To achieve this

research goal, the authors endeavor to unpack how the EFL PSTs

construct the paired metaphors encapsulating their teaching re-

ﬂections throughout the teaching practicums. In this way, we can

gain a more sophisticated perception of the change in teaching

reﬂections throughout the student-teaching period.

In 2018, the China ofﬁcially propogatess the core-competency

curriculum reform characterized by key competencies, characters,

and values that students demonstrate when they apply knowledge

and skills to cope with authentic situations. Meanwhile, PSTs'

practice and professional identity have been viewed as new

approach to their professional development. Yet, little is known

about how teaching practicum experiences mediates EFL PSTs' re-

ﬂections and their professional identity construction patterns

within this new policy landscape. Meanwhile, no speciﬁc research

examines the vicissitude of EFL PSTs' professional identity amidst

the teaching practicum via metaphor. To ﬁll out this research gap,

the authors endeavor to identify how the EFL PSTs' reﬂections and

professional identities change throughout the course of the

teaching practicum period. Particulary, the authors aim to identify

the trajectories of EFL PSTs’ multiple I-positions and their meta-

phoric professional identities in the learning-to-teach settings from

the perspective of dialogical-self theory. Moreover, the authors

purported to examine the affordances and constraints of student

teaching experiences by examining the metaphors EFL PSTs

illustrate.

2. Theoretical backdrop

2.1. Positioning theory

As one variant of the broader Vygotskian sociocultural theory,

positioning theory is mainly concerned with the multiple positions

either assumed by or attributed to individuals through narrative

discourses (Harr



e, Moghaddam, Cairnie, Rothbart, & Sabat, 2009;

Moghaddam & Harr



e, 2010, pp. 1e215). Position refers to a “cluster

of rights and duties that limits the repertoire of possible social acts

available to a person or person-like entity (such as a corporation) as

so positioned” (Moghaddam, Harr



e, & Lee, 2008, p. 294). Through a

poststructuralism lens, positions are multiple, changing, dynamic,

ﬂuid, and therefore situation-speciﬁc. Relatedly, positioning can be

understood as “the discursive construction of personal stories that

[maktre] a person's actions intelligible and relatively determinate

as social act and within which members of the conversation have

speciﬁc locations” (Harr



e & Van Langenhove, 1999, p. 395). Posi-

tioning theorists contend that people situate themselves either

interactively or reﬂexively within episodes of discursive conversa-

tions (Davies &

Harr



e, 1990). Successful positioning is usually

achieved when a congruence exists among the constituents of the

triadda position taken or assigned, the speech acts used to perform

it, and the storylines used to substantiate it (James, 2015). Harr



and Van Langenhove (1999) proposed several types of positioning

trajectories below (see Table 1) (see Table 2).

Drawing upon the ontological narratives, S/reide (2006)

posited that PSTs' identity can be constructed and understood

through positioning and negotiation. PSTs elucidate their re-

ﬂections and professional identity through narrative discourses

(CITE). Speciﬁcally, teachers' narrative positioning is operated by

recognizing the available positions (positive positioning) or by

distancing from the available subject positions (negative posi-

tioning) (Kayı-Aydar, 2019). Kayi-Aydar (2015) found that both

relational and oppositional positioning (re)form teachers’ identi-

ties, although sometimes in contradictory modules. Sometimes,

PSTs have to choose diametrically competing discourses to

construct identities across different contexts (Mosvold & Bjuland,

2016). With that said, positioning theory provides a readily avail-

able space for PSTs to share their multiple and dynamic identities

associated with their teaching reﬂections (Glazier, 2009).

2.2. Dialogical-self theory

By synthesizing the scholarly genealogy of American pragma-

tism and Russian dialogism, dialogical-self theory (hereafter, DST)

assumes that self is always situated in the dynamic process of (re)

constructing different I-positions across the dynamic social milieus

(Hermans, 2003; Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010). Derived

from the DST, I-position assumes that there is multiplicity in a self,

which is occupied by various narrative I-positions. This multiplicity

leads to a complex, dynamic, and narratively-structured self

(Hermans, 2001a; 2001b). In this vein, I-position refers to speciﬁc

voices that can be understood as narrative positions of a multi-

faceted self (Hermans, 1996). Speciﬁcally, there are two kinds of I-

positions: those linked to the “internal” and those to the “external”

domain of the self (Hermans, 2001a, p. 252). I-positions within the

internal domain of the self are located inside of a person (e.g., “Ias

hardworking,

”“Iasreﬂective”); whereas I-positions within the

external domain of the self are located outside of the person (e.g.,

my faculty advisor, my school-based mentor, my students), but are

really part of the self (Grimell, 2018). The composition of these I-

positions therefore constantly creates the position repertoire of the

self (Hermans, 2001a), depending upon a broad array of contextual

factors, such as circumstances and interactions. The decentralizing

and centralizing movements of positions in the self contributes to a

dynamic process of positioning and re-positioning between I-po-

sitions (Hermans & Dimaggio, 2007). These I-positions, both

internally and externally, continually intertwine with different

historical, cultural, and institutional relationships (Hermans,

2001a, 2001b; Leijen & Kullasepp, 2013). Meanwhile, I-positions

are both continuous (integrating the roles and positions to the

coherent I-positions) and discontinuous (the discrepancy or

contradiction between personal and professional selves) simulta-

neously (Hermans, 2012a; 2012b). DST includes several main con-

cepts, which are elaborated below (Gube, 2017; Hermans & Gieser,

2011).

DST has been applied in multiple disciplines, such as educa-

tional consulting, global citizenship, and adolescent development.

I-position refers to the various identities constructed among the different his-

torical, cultural, and institutional relationships.

G. Zhu and M. Chen Teaching and Teacher Education 117 (2022) 103734

In teacher education, DST has been deployed to examine teachers'

dialogical identity construction and to bridge PSTs' personal and

professional identities (Zhu et al., 2020a; Grimmett, 2016; Meijers

& Hermans, 2017). The rationale for adopting DST in this study is

that PSTs’ professional identities are both continuous and discon-

tinuous as the teaching practicums progress. Meanwhile, PSTs

continually internally and externally (re)position themselves

against different frames of reference, such as mentor teachers,

university supervisors, and peer groups (Bullough & Draper, 2004).

The rationale for utilizing the positioning theory and the DST is

two-fold. First, teacher identity remains a continuous discursive

positioning, which encompasses but not limited to negotiation,

integration, and shifting between different self I-positions (Arvaja,

2016; Vetter, Hartman, & Reynolds, 2016 ). The interactions be-

tween different selves and contexts contribute to different posi-

tions, speech acts, and storylines, cumulatively resulting in new

positioning (Trent, 2012). Second, in the teaching practicum

context, PSTs narrate their educational beliefs, responsibilities,

rights, practice, and identity perception in both implicit and explicit

approach (Zhu et al., 2020a). The repertoire of these narratives

implies the (mis)match between the various I-positions and the

multiple contexts (Vanassche & Kelchtermans, 2014). As man-

ifested, narrating teacher identity essentially involves constantly

positioning the dialogical self and the work context.

In previous studies, we explored the evolution of Chinese EFL

student teachers' self-generated metaphors about teaching before

and after their teaching practicum, such as their professional

knowledge, relationships with the students and their cooperating

teachers (Zhu et al., 2022; Qin et al., 2021). In another study, we

mainly adopted transformative learning and third space theories to

examine the professional learning experiences of Chinese student

teachers during their teaching practicums. Five major themes

emerged regarding the participants’ professional learning experi-

ences: (1) the disorienting dilemmas, (2) reﬂections and explora-

tions of assumptions, (3) gaining conﬁdence in a new role, (4)

behaviour changes, and (5) integration of new perspectives.

Moreover, third space helped the participants negotiate a series of

binaries undesirable in teacher education, such as episteme and

phronesis, stability and evolution of their professional identities

(Qin et al., 2021).

However, this study is the ﬁrst to examine how PSTs elucidate

their teaching practicum reﬂections and I-positions in the context

of core-competency curriculum reform from the positioning and

dialogical-self theory perspectives. Positioning theory attest to the

multiple and dynamic nature of teacher identity (i.e., agentic

identity and dynamically evolving) (Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop,

2004; Cobb, Harlow, & Clark, 2018). Meanwhile, dialogical-self

theory resonates with the dialogical, discontinuous and social

essence of teacher identity (sub-identities and the interactions

between person and context) (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011

; Beijaard

et al., 2004). As indicated, the positioning theory and the

dialogical-self theory, alongside written metaphors, contribute to

new perspectives in analyzing PSTs’ reﬂections and professional

identities in the teaching practicum context.

Table 1

The main types of positioning.

Category Deﬁnition

Moral and personal positioning Moral positioning is a fairly ﬁxed position in which one stands because of his/her perceived role. Associated with that role are

particular behaviors and norms.

Personal positioning is what makes one's moral position more dynamic. Within one's particular moral position, one might act or

speak a certain way given one's personal characteristics or attributes, for example.

Reﬂexive positioning and interactive

positioning

Reﬂexive positioning, which is sometimes called self-positioning, means individuals position themselves through all kinds of

discourses. Reﬂexive positioning is not necessarily like a consistent autobiography without contradictions; individuals' positioning

is more like the fragments of a lived autobiography.

Interactive positioning refers to the process that individuals position others. It occurs when the stories a person tells position another

person.

First, second and third order

positioning

First order positioning is the way persons locate themselves and others'in the conversational space. In other words, ﬁrst order

positioning frames how we act and interact with one another in conversation.

Second order positioning occurs when the ﬁrst order positioning is not taken for granted by one of the persons involved in the

discussion’.

Third order positioning happens outside the actual conversation and likely leads to no change in either the ﬁrst order position or the

moral position of the initiator.

Intentional positioning and

repositioning

Intentional positioning means individuals purposely locate their roles and responsibilities through discourses. There are four types of

intentional positioning: (1) deliberate self-positioning; (2) forced self-positioning; (3) deliberate positioning of others; and (4)

forced positioning of others.

Repositioning means individuals claim a right or a duty to adjust what an actor has taken to be the ﬁrst order positioning that is

dominating the unfolding of events.

Table 2

The main concepts in DST.

Term Conception

Internal relations Internal relations refer to a strand of international positions (e.g. I am a preservice teacher, I like teaching).

External relations External relations refer to voices related to oneself but not necessarily lead to self-characterization (e.g., my mentor teacher is knowledgeable and

helpful.)

Internal-external

relations

Internal-external relations refer to the intermingling of internal and external positions which lead to self-characterization (e.g., my placement

supervisor thinks that I need to more often reﬂect on my teaching practice.)

Third position Third position means a mediator between two conﬂicting positions (e.g., the professional identity tension between progressive and traditional

teacher).

Meta-position Meta-position is a second or a higher level of self-reﬂection, which permits a certain distance from one or more other internal and external

positions. (e.g., the challenges from the teaching practicums make me more resilient as a beginning teacher.)

Promoter position Promoter position implies the temporal nature of the process of positioning and repositioning, which gives order and direction in the development

of position repertoire.

G. Zhu and M. Chen Teaching and Teacher Education 117 (2022) 103734

3. Literature review

3.1. Reﬂection in teacher education

Reﬂection has been persistently advocated in teacher education

ever since the seminal work by Dewey (1933; 1993) and Sch

€

(1987). Being reﬂective is a deliberate philosophical and ethical

code of conduct that weighs underlying, sometimes conﬂicting,

educational beliefs, and daily practices (Larrivee, 2000; 2008).

Drawing upon van Manen's (1977) early hierarchical representation

of three-level reﬂection, technical, practical, and critical, Larrivee

(2008) further conceptualized teaching reﬂection as a continuum

and systematically categorized it into four levels: pre-reﬂection,

surface reﬂection, pedagogical reﬂection, and critical reﬂection.

Through the constructivist accounts of teacher knowledge, Toom,

Husu, and Patrikainen (2015) found that PSTs can reﬂect beyond

solely practical issues on teaching, articulate multiple concerns

about practice in an integrative manner, and learn both from theory

and practice. Relatedly, Stenberg, Rajala, and Hilppo (2016)

conceptualized reﬂection as critical deliberation of classroom

practice in relation to theory-practice dialogue. Meanwhile, they

found that theory-practice dialogue can be strengthened by

structuring teaching practicums, which improve student teachers'

reﬂection from descriptive level to argumentation and contribution

(Stenberg et al., 2016). Despite its increasing importance in teacher

education, there is still a lack of agreement regarding how to

conduct reﬂection in teaching (e.g., Foong, Binti, & Nolan, 2018;

Singh, Rowan, & Allen, 2019). Further, many studies lacked theo-

retical and empirical support to further investigate reﬂection in

teacher education (Marcos, Sanchez, & Tillema, 2011; Marcos &

Tillema, 2006).

3.2. Metaphor in teacher education

Metaphor is “understanding and experiencing one kind of thing

in terms of another” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980

, p. 5). In the teacher

education arena, many view metaphors as effective mediums of

reﬂection (Saban, Kocbeker, & Saban, 2007). Since metaphors are

individual, idiosyncratic, and context-speciﬁc, they act as powerful

lenses in understanding student teachers' tactic referential systems

and serve as “ﬁlters” through which inservice teachers can clarify

their teaching practices (Lynch & Fisher-Ari, 2017; Saban, 2006).

Metaphor has been considered as a teacher identity archetype and

offers “useful windows into teachers’ professional thinking and

cognition” (Saban, 2006, p. 301). Alsup (2006) views the metaphor

as “a powerful form for identity creation and a catalyst for personal

growth” (p. 10).

Moreover, scholars noted that metaphors serve as “vehicles for

reﬂection and consciousness raising among educators” (de

Guerrero & Villamil, 2002, p. 95). Metaphors generated by PSTs

grant their narrative authority and provide an avenue for deliber-

ation on their roles, responsibilities, and pedagogies (Alger, 2009;

Zhu & Zhu, 2018; Lynch & Fisher-Ari, 2017; Saban, 2006). Martinez,

Sauleda, and Huber (2001) categorized teaching metaphors into

three dimensions: behaviorist/empiricist, cognitivist/construc-

tivist, and situative/socio-historical metaphors, which were sup-

ported by Leavy, McSorley, and Bot



e’s (2007) study. Watson and

Wilcox (2000) suggested that preservice teacher reﬂection should

move beyond mere experience compilations towards a deeper

understanding of their multiple meanings. To aid in this processs,

researchers should deeply probe into the change in PSTs' dynamic

reﬂections through multiple data representations. Accordingly, the

integration of teacher reﬂection and metaphors provide an impetus

for us to examine how EFL PSTs negotiate their self-identities and

reﬂective practices throughout the practicum experience (Zhu

Zhu, 2018; Zhu et al., 2020).

3.3. The relationship between reﬂection, metaphor, and professional

identity

Researchers have long recognized the intimate relationship

between metaphors, reﬂection, and teacher identity construction

(Zhu & Zhu, 2018; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Larrivee, 2000, 2008;

Thomas & Beauchamp, 2011). Thomas and Beauchamp (2011)

found that new teachers' metaphors related to professional iden-

tity construction demonstrate readiness for the role and a focus on

students. However, the professional identity construction process is

gradual, complex, and often problematic. In this case, teachers have

the opportunity to reﬂect on their professional identity construc-

tion trajectory, including the nature of English language teaching

and the resulting EFL teacher roles when they create metaphorical

discourses. In EFL teacher education, the metaphors PSTs use can

inform language teacher educators to effectively understand the

beneﬁts and challenges associated with PSTs' professional identity

construction (Zhu et al., 2022). In her review article, Izadinia (2013)

conceptualized PSTs' professional identities as “perceptions of their

cognitive knowledge, sense of agency, self-awareness, voice, con-

ﬁdence, and relationship with colleagues, pupils, and parents, as

shaped by their educational contexts, prior experiences, and

learning communities” (p. 708). However, no speciﬁc research

dealing with PSTs’ reﬂections amid the teaching practicum using

the lenses of dialogical-self and positioning theories.

For this study, we conceptualized EFL PSTs' metaphorical pro-

fessional identity as their implicit and explicit assumptions on their

roles, responsibilities, and repertoires of pedagogies as second

language teachers expressed through metaphors. In light of its

expansive nature, metaphors elucidated by PSTs, acting as media-

tional tools (Lantolf & Thorne, 20 06), can capture their professional

identity development trajectory from the beginning to the end of

the teaching practicums. On the other hand, EFL PSTs’ dynamic

professional identities constantly evolve across different

landscapes.

4. This inquiry

The following overarching research questions guided this study:

1)How did the EFL PSTs position their reﬂections on their teaching

practicum experiences?

2)How did the EFL PSTs position their metaphorical professional

identities through the dialogical-self theory during the teaching

practicums?

5. Contexts and participants

This multiple-case study (Flyvbjerg, 2006) was situated in a

four-year university-based EFL teacher education program in Zhe-

jiang Province in mainland China. For the ﬁrst two years, the PSTs

mainly enrolled in a series of foundational courses on English

literature, applied linguistic knowledge, and language teaching

methods. During the third year, the PSTs participated in video-

recorded micro-teaching sessions and short-term internships.

Amid their ﬁnal year, the PSTs spent one-semester (four months) in

a multitude of public middle and high schools in Zhejiang Province.

Their primary responsibility was to apprentice their EFL teaching

G. Zhu and M. Chen Teaching and Teacher Education 117 (2022) 103734

under the tutelage of one school-based mentor (usually an expe-

rienced EFL school teacher) and one university supervisor (nor-

mally a university-based EFL teacher educator) simultaneously.

There are two reasons for focusing on the EFL PSTs' reﬂections

and I-positions in the context of teaching practicum. First, China is

going through the core competency curriculum reform since 2017,

which foregrounds the essential competencies, characters, and

values that students demonstrate when they cope with complex

situations. In this new educational policy landscape, EFL PSTs have

to teach according to the newly-redesigned curriculum standards.

However, little is known about EFL PSTs' reﬂections and I-positions

in the practicum contexs. Second, the research conducted by the

authors indicate that EFL PSTs (re)positioned their professional

identities before and after their student teaching period (Zhu et al.,

2022). It is therefore necessary to explore their reﬂections and

multiple I-position throughout the teaching practicum period.

Overall, 33 EFL PSTs, who ﬁnished their teaching practicums,

agreed to participate in this research. The participants mirror the

typical gender composition of the EFL teacher workforce in China

with seven male and twenty-six female. Moreover, eleven partici-

pants student-taught in public middle schools and twenty-two in

public high schools. The authors received Institutional Review

Board (IRB) approval from a research university in the U.S. and

protected all the participants’ private information according to the

ethical protocol.

6. Data collection

The authors collected multiple forms of data via written meta-

phors, reﬂective journal writings, and semi-structured group in-

terviews. First, the second author, the director of the EFL teacher

education program in this study, distributed the metaphorical

professional identity written instructions (See the appendices, the

metaphor creating instruction) to the EFL PSTs and collected 66

written metaphors at the beginning and end of the teaching

practicums, respectively. Second, journal writing, as a method of

discovery and reﬂective analysis, has long been championed as an

effective tool for reﬂection (Craig, Zou, & Poimbeauf, 2015).

Considering the instrumentality of journal writing, the second

author collected 66 reﬂective narratives from 33 EFL PSTs who

ﬁnished their teaching practicums from Fall 2017 to Spring 2018.

Subsequently, the authors translated all the written metaphors and

the accompanying reﬂections into English.

The authors conducted three rounds of semi-structured group

interviews (10, 12, and 13 participants each time) to generate

another data layer. The authors meticulously crafted the interview

protocol (see the appendices) and then asked the participants

open-ended questions in an encouraging environment (Seidman,

2013). The use of Mandarin, the interviewees' mother language of

all the interviewees, could make the participants feel more at ease

to provide rich and authentic information. Each interview round

centered on the participants’ instructional reﬂections and their

professional identity perceptions in the teaching practicums.

Representative interview questions included: “How did you

perceive the change of your professional identities compared with

that at the interception of your student teaching?” The authors

audio-recorded the whole group interviews and then transcribed

them verbatim immediately following.

The existing research demonstrates that preservice teachers'

personal beliefs and culture greatly inﬂuence their metaphor

adoption and professional identity construction (Zhu et al., 2022).

Accordingly, as both researchers and teacher educators in this

study, we become family with the cultural background of the par-

ticipants. All the participants come from the homogenous com-

munities as the researchers of this study. Meanwhile, we pay

special attention to the participants’ personal beliefs during the

data collection and analysis periods, which have intimate bearing

with their metaphoric narratives and the accompanying reﬂections.

7. Data analysis

The authors iteratively analyzed the written metaphors, the

supporting written reﬂections, and the interview transcripts, which

entailed four steps: 1) Naming/labeling: The authors ﬁrst coded the

linguistic metaphors based on underlying philosophical orienta-

tions and supporting statements. 2) Sorting (clariﬁcation and

elimination): The authors distilled the major themes and the

plotlines derived from the written metaphors and the written

narratives. Meanwhile, the authors also recorded the frequency of

the keywords repeatedly surfaced in the metaphors and the cor-

responding narratives. 3) Categorizing: The authors positioned the

commonly-shared metaphors into one group and further devel-

oped a subheading. Following this line, the authors identiﬁed the

patterns of professional identity construction trajectories. 4)

Analyzing data: The authors analyzed the connotations and en-

tailments of the metaphors embedded within one similar category.

In this way, the authors systemically examined the affordances and

constraints of the teaching practicums that contribute to the par-

ticipants’ differing reﬂections (Saban et al., 2007) and multiple I-

positions.

The data analysis procedure was informed by DST and posi-

tioning theory. The paired metaphors that the participants

composed according to the instruction (See the metaphor creating

instruction in the appendix) were analyzed and placed into one of

the metaphor dimensions by Martinez and colleagues (2001). For

instance, when teachers created metaphors, such as “trainer” and

“knowledge transmitter,” they are prone to fall into the behaviorist/

empiricist metaphor dimension (Martinez et al., 2001). Teachers

within this category hold the belief that students are empty vessels

that need to be ﬁlled up with knowledge as pre-packaged infor-

mation chunks externally transferred to students (Martinez et al.,

2001). Metaphors, such as “road guide” and “a hard-working

sculptor,” more accord with the cognitivist/constructivist orienta-

tion (Martinez et al., 2001), and “butterﬂy” and “sunshine in the

garden” with the situative/socio-historical metaphor dimension

(Martinez et al., 2001). Teachers within this dimension assume that

the learning process is a mutual meaning-construction process,

which involves the dialectic interactions among the learners,

curricula, and milieus.

Throughout data analysis, we coded the metaphors, written

reﬂections, and interview transcripts iteratively and recursively to

increase the study's trustworthiness (Marshall & Rossman, 2014).

Then we met to discuss the categories and themes in the constant

comparative approach (Guba, 1979

). The constant comparative

method entails a three stages of unitizing, categorizing, and the-

matizing (Guba, 1979). In case of disagreement, we reviewed the

texts, negotiated the interpretation, and double-checked the

trustworthiness of the coding process to increase the project's

inter-reliability rate. We also triangulated the different data sources

to increase the data analysis reliability. Additionally, we conducted

follow-up interviews (via emails and telephone calls) to clarify the

interpretation confusions, answer the new questions, enrich

intriguing topics that arise and categorize recurring themes

generated in the initial interviews. In this way, we resolved the

G. Zhu and M. Chen Teaching and Teacher Education 117 (2022) 103734

discrepancies that occurred over the course of the metaphor

analysis through member-checking and peer debrie ﬁng until we

reached a higher-level of abstraction and consensus.

8. Findings

Through constant comparative analysis of the multiple data

sources, the authors constructed four dialogical-self trajectories

among which the participating EFL PSTs engaged their multiple-I

positions throughout the teaching practicums: (1) promoter posi-

tion (conﬁrmation/consolidation of dialogical self), (2) meta-

position (elaboration and expansiveness of dialogical self), (3) re-

positioning and third position (contradiction and disequilibrium

of dialogical self), and (4) reﬂexive positioning (stability and minor

change of I positions) (see Table 3). These four typologies of

metaphorical professional identity positioning mainly involve the

EFL PSTs' role perceptions, responsibilities, and language peda-

gogies. Further, the dynamics of the metaphors speaks to the full

complexities and uncertainties of EFL teachers’ dialogical selves

amid the ﬁeld placements. In this section, the authors depicted the

four modes of professional identity positioning from the perspec-

tive of DST with the corresponding narratives.

8.1. Promoter position: conﬁrmation and consolidation of the

dialogical self

Promoter positions can add value, create a sense of direction,

and stimulate individuals’ further development. Meanwhile, pro-

moter positioning is open towards the future and has the potential

to generate new positions (Meijers & Hermans, 2017). Promoter

positions imply that the EFL PSTs found consistency between their

prior roles and newly emergent role perceptions at the beginning

and end of the student teaching periods. Promoter positions have

some predominant characteristics: (1) they orchestrate and inte-

grate various I-positions; (2) they function as guards of the conti-

nuity of self; (3) they lead to innovators of the self (Meijers &

Hermans, 2018). Speciﬁcally, six participants reinforced their pro-

fessional identities after the teaching practicums (see Table 4). For

instance, S23 and S26 selected “care wheels” and “a lost lamb” to

specify the further realization of their professional identities.

Similarly, S28 adopted “a beautiful Christmas tree” and “a Christ-

mas tree transplanted back to the earth” metaphors to describe the

change in her professional identity at the beginning and end of the

teaching practicums, respectively. S28 conﬁ rmed her student-

centered professional identity towards the end of the teaching

practicum:

Nowadays, I more think from the students' perspectives …

Teachers should facilitate students' long-term intellectual and

socio-emotional development. A teacher should work like a tree

that provides shadow during the scorching summer and shelter

during the stormy weather. (Interview)

S10 assumed that she became “a young eagle in a hot air

balloon” after the two-month English teaching. For this profes-

sional identity conﬁrmation, S10 explicated that she accumulated

more practical experiences, and the teaching practicum acted as “a

hot air balloon” that took her to a new world.

8.2. Meta-position: elaboration and expansiveness of professional

identity

Meta-position (theme 2), also known as a superordinate posi-

tion, entails that the self moves above itself and takes a “helicopter

view” (Hermans, 2012a; 2012b). Meta position permits a certain

distance from one or more other positions (Hermans & Hermans-

Konopka, 2010). Meta-position suggests that the EFL PSTs sharp-

ened or expanded their sophisticated understandings about their

professional identities compared with their initial professional

identity perceptions. Within this category, ten participants narrated

that they further developed their professional identities, which

encompasses their perceptions on EFL teachers' roles, teaching

beliefs, pedagogical approaches, and how to build the professional

relationships within the ﬁeld placement communities (see Table 5).

For instance, S5 initially thought that students are “the sun and the

barometer for teachers’ instructional activities.” Later, S5 described

herself as “an elementary school student,” realizing that only when

teachers change their professional identities as “an elementary

school student” will they develop their authentic curiosity and

make the classroom atmosphere more engaging.

Furthermore, regarding expansive understanding about teach-

ers' roles, S11 found that, apart from classroom teaching routines,

he had to arrange students' seats in the classroom, organize class-

room activities, and settle down the disputes among the students.

In a similar vein, S24 admitted that he had changed from “a cocoon”

to “a butterﬂy” by integrating the cutting-edge theories that he

learned from the university coursework to his English classroom.

Regarding the importance of professional development, S3 speci-

ﬁed herself as “half a bucket of water” after the teaching practicum.

S3 derived this metaphor from the Chinese idiom customarily used

to describe the teachers’ role: If a teacher wants to give a student a

glass of water (e.g., subject knowledge), he/she has to have a bucket

of water (e.g., newer knowledge on subjects, teaching, and

learning).

8.3. Re-positioning and third position: contradiction and

disequilibrium of the dialogical self

The third theme, re-positioning, and third position mean that

the EFL PSTs formed new professional identity perceptions by

rejecting or immensely modifying their prior professional identity

perceptions at the end of the student teaching. According to DST,

the third position emerges when conﬂict occurs between two

Table 3

The typology of professional identity positioning.

Category I-position change

mechanism

The connotation of professional identity positioning

Promoter position consolidation/

conﬁrmation

The EFL preservice teachers perceived a consistency between prior role and newly emergent role perceptions at the

beginning and the end of the student teaching period.

Meta-position Elaboration/

Expansiveness

The EFL preservice teachers deepened or expanded their understandings about their professional identities compared with

their initial professional identity perceptions at the inception of the teaching practicum.

Repositioning and

third position

Contradiction/

disequilibrium

The EFL preservice teachers formed new professional identity perceptions by rejecting their beginning professional identity

perceptions at the start of the student teaching.

Reﬂexive positioning Stability/minor

change

The EFL preservice teachers experienced no obvious professional identity changes from the beginning to the end of the

teaching practicums.

G. Zhu and M. Chen Teaching and Teacher Education 117 (2022) 103734

positions. The third position can reconcile, lessen, and mitigate the

contradiction in the original positions (Hermans, 2001a; 2001b;

2003). Since most PSTs have “naïve idealism” and over-simplistic

perceptions of teachers' roles before the teaching practicum, it is

unsurprising that 11 participants featured in this project encoun-

tered different processes of contradiction/disequilibrium regarding

professional identity reconstruction after the teaching practicums

(See Table 6). The contradiction/disequilibrium practicum experi-

ence testiﬁes to beginning teachers’ professional identity tension or

identity crisis (Meijer, De Graaf, & Meirink, 2011) reported by in-

ternational researchers. These tensions often stem from the con-

ﬂicts between what types of teachers these beginning teachers

want to become and the constraints of the multiple practicum re-

alities, which are always fraught with helplessness, maladjustment,

and reﬂections on their shortcomings.

Following the existing ﬁndings, this study indicates that three

aspects of professional identity contradiction/disequilibrium exist

after the teaching practicum. First, some participants changed their

pedagogical orientations from behaviorist to constructivist after

the student teaching (Leavy, McSorley, & Bot



e, 2007). Within this

category, S4 showed that he more embraced the belief that “stu-

dents are the masters of classroom learning” and worked as a

learning facilitator by empowering students’ interactive English

learning process. Second, the participants developed newer

student-centered professional identity perceptions compared with

their initial traditional teacher-centered ones. For example, S16,

S21, and S32 all conﬁrmed that they reconstructed humanistic

professional identities towards the end of the teaching practicums,

suggesting more student-centered professional identities. More

speciﬁcally, S21 adopted the “bird feeder ” metaphor to elucidate

her beginning identity (“A teacher should design, prepare, and

provide the English learning materials.“). Later, S21 shif ted her

professional identity and reﬂected that:

… an English teacher should be a road guide … Learning should

essentially a process of discovery, and teachers should guide the

students' discovery in the forest. In this way, I can cultivate

students' learning passion.” (Reﬂective journal entry)

As manifested in the written metaphors, S21 shifted her pro-

fessional identity from a traditional teacher to a learning guide.

8.4. Reﬂexive positioning: stability and minor change of

professional identity

The fourth theme, re

ﬂexive positioning, indicates that the EFL

PSTs experienced no noticeable professional identity change from

the beginning to the end of the teaching practicums evidenced by

the metaphors and corresponding written reﬂections. Through the

positioning theory lens, reﬂexive positioning means individuals

position themselves through various discourses (Davies & Harr



1999 ). From DST perspective, reﬂexive positioning is more like

integrating the fragments of a lived autobiography (Hermans,

2003; 2012a). Due to the long-lasting inﬂuence of the existing

educational philosophies, mentorships, and the politics of the

placement schools, some PSTs did not encounter apparent profes-

sional identity transformation.

In this project, six participants showcased the comparative

stability of their professional identity construction (See Table 7). S8,

S19, and S25 chose almost the same metaphors to describe the

change in their professional identity construction. More specif-

ically, S19 admitted that it was her ﬁrst time to encounter students.

As expected, she was nervous and had no idea what to do. S19

further stated that she had not shifted her professional identity

from a teacher education student to a full-ﬂedged teacher. She was

more inclined to treat her cooperating teacher as her mentor rather

than an equal colleague. After two-months teaching, S19 wrote that

she had developed a strong sense of responsibility. However, S19

still described herself as “a rookie,” and the primary reason was that

S19 found her weakness in teaching and classroom management.

As a novice teacher, S19 embraced the attitude that “The early bird

catches the worm.”

Similar to S19, S8 assumed herself as “a three medium-cooked

steak”dshe had the basic qualiﬁcation for teaching but was too

naïve. S8 narrated that the three-year teacher education course-

work enabled her to forge the basic English teaching ability (i.e.,

how to design English class with clear objectives and vigor) and

learn about the head-teachers’ responsibilities (i.e., work as the

bridge between the head-teacher and the students). However, the

placement school where S8 practiced her teaching emphasized

students' English test scores and high-school acceptance rates.

Under that circumstance, S8 had to give up her communicative

English instructional approach and cater to the test-oriented

Table 4

Promoter position: The summary of professional identity conﬁrmation/consolidation.

No. Age Gender Placement Before After

S10 23 Female Middle school a clumsy bird with a string in its mouth on the cliff a young eagle in a hot air balloon

S14 22 Female Middle school a calf sponge

S22 21 Male High school husband-Gazing stone statue a metallic tool husks rice

S23 21 Female High school car wheels a car wheel with directions

S26 22 Female High school a lost lamb a lamb who found the path

S28 22 Female Middle school a beautiful Christmas tree a Christmas tree transplanted back to the earth

Table 5

Meta-position: The summary of professional identity elaboration/expansiveness.

No. Age Gender Placement Before After

S3 21 Male High school A deer that just walked out of the forest Half a bucket of running water

S5 25 Female Middle school Sunﬂowers in the sun An elementary school student

S6 26 Female High school A frog in a well An eagle ﬂying in the sky

S11 23 Male Middle school A gardener A permanent revolving gyro

S17 23 Female High school Watering pot Double sided adhesive tape

S20 22 Female High school Dry rice Beacon

S24 23 Male Middle school A cocoon A butterﬂy

S27 21 Female High school A colorful ﬂower A hidden love

S30 21 Female High school A yacht without the propelling power A well-decorated wagon

S33 23 Female High school An Ant A climber on a cliff

G. Zhu and M. Chen Teaching and Teacher Education 117 (2022) 103734

teaching approachdmechanic English grammar practice and

intensive test preparation activities. Consequently, S8 described

herself as “a ﬁve-medium cooked steak” after the teaching practice.

9. Discussion

This qualitative inquiry reveals that EFL PSTs' metaphorical

teaching reﬂections not only display the ﬁne-grained perceptions

regarding “role one fulﬁlls or activities one engages in” (i.e., “the

what”) but also the “multiple-I positions” they think about “the self

as a professional” (i.e., “the who”). This paper contributes to the

newer scholarship on how EFL PSTs positioned their instructional

reﬂections and the accompanying dialogical selves via the paired

metaphor narratives, written reﬂections, and interviews. A situated

and recursive analysis of the EFL teachers' agentive actions reveals

that the participants became “identity brokers” by employing

differing positioning strategies to consolidate, expand or recon-

struct their I-positions (Kayı-Aydar, 2019). These intentional posi-

tioning tools include promoter position, meta-position, re-

positioning, third position, and reﬂexive positioning, which

collectively help the participants demonstrate situated knowledge,

codes of practice, and establish multiple professional relationships

(Cobb et al., 2018). Echoing publications by Abednia (2012), Trent

(2010; 2013) , and Yuan and Mak (2018), we found EFL PSTs

changed from a linguistic and technical view to an educational view

of second language education. As their reﬂections and metaphors

entails communicative and constructivism-oriented EFL teaching

narratives, the PSTs gradually transformed their professional

identities, which further their pedagogical reasoning (Loughran,

2014) and professional socialization as teachers (Nazari & De

Costa, 2021). The participants’ knowing, doing, and being are all

related to EFL teaching practice, which collectively polished their

practical theories of teaching (Tiilikainen, Toom, Lepola, & Husu,

2019).

In this study, positioning the participants' dialogical-selves il-

luminates various explicit/implicit assumptions underpinning their

responsibilities and behaviors that constitute a particular act of

positioning, such as distancing and conﬁrming the multiple-I po-

sitions (Vetter et al., 2016). The positioning also reveals the

different storylines trajectories (i.e., conﬁrmation/consolidation,

elaboration/expansiveness, contradiction/disequilibrium, and sta-

bility/minor change in this study) that either enable or restrict the

participants' professional identity construction and practice (Lee &

Schallert, 2016). At a deeper level, this research indicates that the

participants’ identity positioning have intimate bearing with their

pedagogical reasoning, which underpins their informed profes-

sional practice during the teaching practicum period (Kavanagh,

Conrad, & Dagogo-Jack, 2020; Loughran, 2019). From the stand-

point of pedagogical reasoning, the EFL PSTs weave the knowing

and doing in EFL teaching practicum, which both contribute to their

reﬂections and identity positioning.

First, through the DST lens, each I-position represents a spatial-

relational act, which exists in the accounts of meta positions, third

positions, and promoter positions (Meijers & Hermans, 2017). The

continuity and discontinuity of PSTs' professional identities corre-

spond to the promoter positions and counter-positioning of selves.

Meijers and Hermans (2017) contend that I-positions will

encounter decentering (or centrifugal) movements when they are

replete with fragmentation, disorganization, and contradictions. In

this study, the participants' re-positioning and third position lead

to the opposition of their professional identity construction as EFL

teachers. Oppositely, I-positions will come across centering

movements (or centripetal) movement when they contain coher-

ence and consistency (Meijers & Hermans, 2017). Related to this

research, the participants’ promoter position, meta-position, and

reﬂexive positioning contribute to the coherence of their profes-

sional identity construction as EFL teachers (Raggatt, 2012). Overall,

these two I-position movements complement one another to ﬁnd

an identity balance between change and discontinuity, on the one

hand, and stability and coherence, on the other hand, in the

teaching context.

Second, the vicissitude of the reﬂection level and the teaching

belief conﬁrm that metaphors can act as powerful windows in

examining student teachers' tactic referential systems and serve as

“ﬁlters” through which teachers can clarify their teaching practices

(Saban, 2006). This research showcases that the metaphor accounts

elucidated by the participants cogently provide a medium for

reﬂection on their dialogical-self positioning. From the reﬂection

Table 6

Repositioning and third position: The summary of professional identity contradiction/disequilibrium.

No. Age Gender Placement Before After

S1 23 Female Middle school a lonely shepherd a hard-working sculptor

S4 22 Male High school ants on a hot pan bamboo sprouts after the rain

S7 23 Female High school an eagle a wild goose

S9 25 Male High school sunshine and rain a gust of wind

S12 21 Female High school the little monk just down the hill “white snow in sunny spring”-style worker

S15 22 Male High school a parrot a dog with a collar

S16 23 Female High school a trainer in a zoo sunshine in the garden

S18 22 Female High school mimosa pudica sunﬂower

S21 21 Female Middle school bird feeder a road guide

S29 25 Female High school a shy sparrow a conﬁdent sun

S32 21 Female High school a transfer student a student union president

Table 7

Reﬂexive positioning: The summary of professional identity stability/minor change.

No. Age Gender Placement Before After

S2 22 Female High school a clumsy parrot a parrot that speaks only a word

S8 23 Female Middle school three-medium cooked steak ﬁve-medium cooked steak

S13 22 Female Middle school a nestling a little bird ﬂying low

S19 22 Female Middle school green hand rookie

S25 22 Male High school a ﬁsh in a pond a ﬁsh in a river

S31 22 Female High school a bird free of the cage a bird with home

G. Zhu and M. Chen Teaching and Teacher Education 117 (2022) 103734

level speciﬁed by van Manen (1977), most of the participants

moved from technical reﬂection category to practical and critical

reﬂection categories in student teaching. According to Larrivee

(2008), the majority of the participants shifted from pre-

reﬂection and surface reﬂection levels to pedagogical and critical

reﬂection levels evidenced by their metaphors and narrative. Spe-

ciﬁcally, metaphor can be constructed not only as psychological

modeling experiences, which allow reiﬁcation of teachers' prior

experiences, but also as a powerful analytical framework that leads

to new forms of conceptual knowledge (Zhu et al., 2022) and

practical theories of teaching. The metaphors vividly exhibit the

instructional choices and reasons the participants adopt, which

further trigger the formation of their dispositions, ie., teachers'

tendencies to face instructional situations with mindset inherent to

the practice of teaching (Tiilikainen et al., 2019, p. 125). Further-

more, metaphors can reduce teachers’ complex educational phi-

losophies and actions into a comprehensible image, thus entailing

practical knowledge about teachers in speciﬁc professional con-

texts (Martinez, Sauleda, & Guenter, 2001).

Third, the dynamic change of the multiple I-positions contrib-

utes to a nuanced understanding of how EFL PSTs retain, modify, or

regain their professional agency in the learning-to teach settings

(Heikkil

€

a, Iiskala, & Mikkil

€

a-Erdmann, 2020). Essentially, identity

positioning involves continually coordinating past, present, and

future selves with perspectival understandings about teaching (Lee

& Schallert, 2016). Both conﬁrmation and distancing I-positions

lead to identity construction. This study also corresponds to

Brickhouse's (2001) assertation that “learning is not merely a

matter of acquiring knowledge, it is a matter of deciding what kind

of person you are and want to be and engaging in those activities

that make one part of the relevant communities” (p. 286). As

Britzman (2003) contends, learning to teach (student teaching in

this study) is always a process of becoming a person you aspire. This

reﬂection is consistent with Wenger's (1998) argument that

learning is not solely an accumulation of skills and information, but

a process of formationd“a formation of a certain personality or, on

the contrary, avoiding the formation of a certain personality” (p.

215). In this sense, there is a dynamic interplay between learning-

to-teach and professional identity construction.

Fourth, the four types of professional identity change in this

study further testify to the dual nature of “identity-in-practice” and

“identity-in-discourse.”

Varghese, Morgan, Johnston, and Johnson

(2005) posit that “identity-in-practice” is an action-oriented

approach to understanding identity, underlining the need to

investigate identity formation as a social matter, which is achieved

through concrete practices and tasks. Meanwhile, “identity-in-

discourse” encapsulates identities that are discursively constituted,

mainly through language (the written metaphors in this study).

Consistent with the argument, the participants illustrated their

professional identities both through their concrete reﬂective

teaching practicum experiences and the written metaphors they

created. This study demonstrates that the participants' professional

identities have a dual focus: practice and discourse, and they

interact with each in a dynamic approach. Fairclough (2003) argues

that “what people commit themselves to in texts is an important

part of how they identify themselves, the texturing of identity” (p.

164). Relating to this research, the participants both expressed their

action-oriented and discourse-oriented professional identities: the

continuous process of legitimating, rationalizing, and modifying

their metaphorical perceptions on themselves regarding language

teachers’ responsibilities, roles, and appropriate pedagogies.

Implications

Teacher education throughout the world is going through the

“practice turn,” which purports to foreground teachers' profes-

sional knowledge and practical experiences (Loughran, 2013; Reid,

2011). In this scenario, this study has three implications for teacher

education. First, this article shows that it is important to facilitate

prospective teachers' reﬂections, especially pedagogical reasoning

(Loughran, 2019) and negotiation of multiple professional identities

(Xu, 201 3), in the teaching practicum settings. Articulating PSTs' I-

positions through metaphors during the student teaching period

provide alternative avenues for school-based mentors and teacher

educators to bring PSTs' tacit knowledge and beliefs into awareness.

Reﬂections and metaphorical narratives adequately enable PSTs

practicalise theoretical knowledge in teaching. Speciﬁcally, the

participats in this study developed procedural (re-positioning/third

position in this study, S1, S12, S21, S32), reﬂective-adaptive (meta-

position, reﬂexive position in this study, S3, S11, S24, S33), and

reﬂective-theorizing (promoter position in this study, S10, S14, S22,

S28) approaches to practicalizing contextual knowledge (Cheng,

Tang, & Cheng, 2012). The four positioning trajectories, including,

meta-position, and reﬂexive positioning, explored the epistemic

nature of teachers'practical knowledge. A close examination of

these reﬂective narratives via metaphors and positioning provided

in-depth analysis of the participants' practical argument in teach-

ing. Compared with conventional quantitative assessment on

teaching practicums, reﬂective accounts through metaphors argu-

ably provide more information on PSTs' pedagogical reasoning and

professional learing in the context of teaching practicum.

Second, positioning PSTs' multiple I-positions through DST, we

can readily identify the coherence and contradiction of their pro-

fessional identity construction. EFL PSTs' professional identities

normally change from the imagined to the practicised in teaching,

which entails the active socio-psychological process of meaning

negotiation between the contextual factors and internal variables

(Xu, 2013). In this case, metaphors provide alternative mediational

tools to explore PSTs' dynamic belief system and practice (Zhu et al.,

2022). Viewed in this light, EFL teacher educators can better

identify the enablers and constraints associated with PSTs' profes-

sional learning and identity construction in the teaching practicum

context, especially the deep-rooted schism between theory and

practice. Through analyzing the positioning clusters, EFL teacher

educators can also examine how the ﬁeld placements' contexts and

PSTs’ professional agency intersect to contribute to their profes-

sional identity construction formation. That said, teacher educators

can design more coherent and stimulating student teaching expe-

riences for PSTs.

Third, this research inspires school-based mentors, university

supervisors, and EFL teacher education researchers to facilitate

PSTs' professional learning in teaching practicums. By extrapolating

EFL PSTs' metaphorical identities and reﬂective essays, we gain a

more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of their professional

identity formation and professional learning results. To create more

coherent and stimulating student teaching experiences, EFL PSTs

should identify the metaphors that underlie their role perceptions,

pedagogical obligations, warranted assertibility, and actualized

instructional strategies (Gholami & Husu, 2010). In this way, ﬁrst,

we can not only examine PSTs' various types of identities (e.g., ideal

identity, actual identity, ought identity, and feared identity)

(Markus & Nurius, 1986) but also the multi-level and multi-

dimensional nature (cognitive, emotional, and motivational) of

teacher professional learning (Korthagen, 2017). Moreover, we can

better facilitate EFL PSTs’ academic socialization and smooth tran-

sition to demanding workplaces. When PSTs transition from uni-

versity settings to ﬁeld placements, they usually encounter various

types of boundaries, accompanied by “ separation, fragmentation,

disconnection, and misunderstanding” (Wenger, 2003, p. 85). Such

tensions represent both social antagonism (i.e., opposing

G. Zhu and M. Chen Teaching and Teacher Education 117 (2022) 103734

professional identities) (Jorgensen & Phillips, 2002) and productive

friction (dissonance experienced by PSTs that leads to more so-

phisticated practice) (Ward, Nolen, & Horn, 2011) among different

identities. For the cohort of these PSTs who experienced meta-

positioning and (re-positioning/third position, the modes of

antagonism and productive friction demonstrate how the PSTs

negotiated their newer I-positions by rationalizing newer role

perceptions and the corresponding pedagogies (e.g., S16, S21, and

S32).

Limitations and future research directions

Three limitations exist in this research. First, the authors did not

probe into the distinctions of “ deep metaphors” and “surface

metaphors,” as coined by Sch

€

on (1979). According to Sch

€

on (1979),

generative metaphor is a metaphor that accounts for ‘centrally

important features of the story’ (p. 267). However, deeply

embedded in language, generative metaphors often limit our per-

ceptions of issues and methods to resolve problems (Vadeboncoeur

& Torres, 2003). Surface or explicit metaphors provide us with clues

to unveil the deep generative metaphor and might generate ‘new

perceptions, explanations and inventions’ (Sch

€

on, 1979, p. 259). For

future research direction, the authors will frame how the EFL PSTs

elucidate the contradictions and tensions of their beliefs along the

learning-to-teach process by incorporating “deep metaphors” and

“surface metaphors.”

Second, the authors did not collect the written documents on

EFL PSTs' teaching reﬂections from the school-based mentors and

the university supervisors. If we collect the narratives from the two

stakeholders stated above, we can not only enrich the data trust-

worthiness but also further examine the EFL PSTs' practicum re-

ﬂections from multiple perspectives. For the next research step, the

researchers will collect written summaries on how the mentor

teachers and university supervisors evaluate the EFL PSTs’ reﬂec-

tion levels from their respective angles.

Third, the authors can not over-generalize the results from the

33 participants in one typical university-based teacher education

program in Mainland China. The current sample of the participans

in this study is medium-sized. It is prudent to relate the ﬁndings in

this context to another one. Since teacher reﬂection, metaphor, and

I-position frequently interact with a host of variables, such as cul-

ture and multi-layered contexts (Zhu et al., 2022), we therefore

need to signal the warning about the generalizability of this study

ﬁndings. In the future research direction, we need more larger

sample of preservice teachers who come from different contexts to

examine its generability.

Funding information

This research was jointly supported by the National Key Project

of the 13th Five-year Plan of Educational Science “Research on the

policy system of improving the status of teachers in the new era”

(AFA2000007), China and the Fundamental Research Funds for the

Central Universities “Innovative research on teacher professional

learning and evaluation” (2021QKT012) at East China Normal

University.

Declaration of competing interest

The author declares no conﬂict of interest in this article.

Acknowledgment

The authors report no conﬂict of interest regarding the

authorship. The data are available when requested. This research

has been approved by the Institutional Review Board of East China

Normal University.

Appendices

Metaphor creating instruction

Could you please describe your I-position perception via meta-

phors at the beginning (end) of the teaching practicum? Please also

illustrate the chosen metaphors in relation to your teaching prac-

ticum experiences.

Interview protocol

1)How did you assume your professional identities at the start

of the teaching practicum?

2)How did you perceive the change of your professional iden-

tities compared with that at the interception of your student

teaching?

3) Could you please explain your instructional reﬂection level

alongside the written metaphor you composed?

4) What do you think about the opportunities and the challenges

during the teaching practicums?

5) How did your school-based mentors and supervisors affect your

teaching reﬂection?

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Teaching and Teacher Education 117 (2022) 103734
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Teaching and Teacher Education
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / t a t e Research paper
Positioning preservice teachers’ reﬂections and I-positions in the
context of teaching practicum: A dialogical-self theory approach Gang Zhu a, *, Mingyang Chen b
a Institute of International and Comparative Education, East China Normal University, China
b College of Marxism, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai, China h i g h l i g h t s
Preservice teachers’ reﬂections and metaphorical professional identities were examined..
Preservice teachers enacted multiple I-positions in the practicum context.
Preservice teachers' I-positions encompass various positioning strategies.
Metaphors act as powerful cognitive framework in understanding preservice teachers' professional identities. a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history:
This paper reports on changes in preservice teachers' reﬂections and metaphorical professional identities Received 21 April 2021
during the teaching practicums in China using dialogical-self and positioning theories. Drawing upon 66 Received in revised form
written metaphorical accounts, reﬂective journal entries, and three rounds of semi-structured group 4 March 2022
interviews, this study identiﬁed that the participants continually enacted their multiple I-positions, Accepted 10 April 2022
which encompass four trajectories: (1) promoter position (conﬁrmation/consolidation of I-positions), (2) Available online 31 May 2022
meta-position (elaboration and expansiveness of I-positions), (3) re-positioning and third position
(contradiction and disequilibrium of I-positions), and (4) reﬂexive positioning (stability and minor Keywords:
change of I-positions). Additionally, this study conﬁrms that metaphors act as powerful cognitive Reﬂection Metaphor
frameworks in gaining in-depth insights into preservice teachers' dynamic and evolving professional Professional identity
identities in learning-to-teach settings. Implications for facilitating preservice teachers’ metaphorical Positioning theory
professional identity (trans)formation and reﬂection in the teaching practicum context are discussed. Dialogical-self theory
© 2022 Published by Elsevier Ltd. 1. Introduction
facilitating PSTs’ socialization and smooth transition to teaching
(Zhu & Zhu, 2018, Deng, Zhu, Li, Xu, Rutter, & Rivera, 2018;
Teaching practicum experiences (i.e., student teaching) are
Grudnoff, 2011). As a result, PSTs tender to lack essential knowledge
widely recognized in providing preservice teachers (thereafter
and skills exposed to the stimulating learning-to-teach environ-
PSTs) authentic opportunities to experiment with innovative
ments conducive to reﬂection (Zhu et al., 2020a; Koc, 2012). Stu- pedagogical approaches and take on new responsibilities
dent teaching is full of dilemmas, whereby PSTs need to justify
(Anderson & Stillman, 2013; Ulvik, Helleve, & Smith, 2018;
different teaching conceptions and conﬂicting ideologies (Ding &
Valencia, Martin, Place, & Grossman, 2009). Researchers have Wang, 2018). PSTs consciously or unconsciously develop
widely acknowledged the merits of teaching practicums in initial
competing views of teaching after the teaching practicums, for
teacher education programs (e.g., Zhu, 2017; Zhu, Mena, & Johnson,
instance, a more “realistic” view of learning and teaching (Lamote &
2020a; Busher, Gündüz, Cakmak, & Lawson, 2015; Çakmak & Engels, 2010).
Gunduz 2018). However, researchers also empirically demonstrate
In the context of L2 teaching practicums, 1 it is understandable
that practicum experiences are not always instrumental in
1 L2 means a person's second language, or L2, is a language that is not the native
language (ﬁrst language or L1) of the speaker, but is learned later (usually as a * Corresponding author.
foreign language). In this research context, L2 refers to the English as the foreign
E-mail addresses: gzhu@iice.ecnu.edu.cn (G. Zhu), 419269615@qq.com (M. Chen). language (EFL).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2022.103734
0742-051X/© 2022 Published by Elsevier Ltd. G. Zhu and M. Chen
Teaching and Teacher Education 117 (2022) 103734
that most PSTs will encounter many challenges resulting from ﬁrst-
understood as “the discursive construction of personal stories that
time teaching, such as the hierarchical power relationship between
[maktre] a person's actions intelligible and relatively determinate
mentor teachers PSTs (Zhu & Zhu, 2018) and the conceptual,
as social act and within which members of the conversation have
pedagogical, institutional, and ethical dilemmas arising as they
speciﬁc locations” (Harre & Van Langenhove, 1999, p. 395). Posi-
transition from university to classroom teaching (Zhu, 2017; Zhu &
tioning theorists contend that people situate themselves either
Zhu, 2018). Yuan and Lee (2014) found that much attention has
interactively or reﬂexively within episodes of discursive conversa-
been focused on the “content” (i.e., what) of teachers' cognitions
tions (Davies & Harre, 1990). Successful positioning is usually
and beliefs, whereas the “process” (i.e., how) of teachers' percep-
achieved when a congruence exists among the constituents of the
tions and identities are underexplored in L2 teacher education.
triadda position taken or assigned, the speech acts used to perform
Reﬂection, as a constituent element of teachers' professional
it, and the storylines used to substantiate it (James, 2015). Harr e
development, has been widely examined by Dewey (1933/1993),
and Van Langenhove (1999) proposed several types of positioning Sch€
on (1987), Zeichner (2010), and Farrell (2016) more recently. In
trajectories below (see Table 1) (see Table 2).
the case of L2 teacher practicums, PSTs are encouraged to contin-
Drawing upon the ontological narratives, S/reide (2006)
ually reﬂect upon their dynamic professional identities and peda-
posited that PSTs' identity can be constructed and understood
gogical approaches (Zhu, 2017; Zhu et al., 2022). Given the pivotal
through positioning and negotiation. PSTs elucidate their re-
role of teaching practicum to PSTs’ professional knowledge and
ﬂections and professional identity through narrative discourses
competency development, a study on how English as a foreign
(CITE). Speciﬁcally, teachers' narrative positioning is operated by
language (thereafter EFL) PSTs reveal their reﬂections and navigate
recognizing the available positions (positive positioning) or by
their emergent professional identities will deepen our nuanced
distancing from the available subject positions (negative posi-
understandings of the coherence and disconnection regarding
tioning) (Kayı-Aydar, 2019). Kayi-Aydar (2015) found that both
multiple I-positions from a dynamic perspective. 2 To achieve this
relational and oppositional positioning (re)form teachers’ identi-
research goal, the authors endeavor to unpack how the EFL PSTs
ties, although sometimes in contradictory modules. Sometimes,
construct the paired metaphors encapsulating their teaching re-
PSTs have to choose diametrically competing discourses to
ﬂections throughout the teaching practicums. In this way, we can
construct identities across different contexts (Mosvold & Bjuland,
gain a more sophisticated perception of the change in teaching
2016). With that said, positioning theory provides a readily avail-
reﬂections throughout the student-teaching period.
able space for PSTs to share their multiple and dynamic identities
In 2018, the China ofﬁcially propogatess the core-competency
associated with their teaching reﬂections (Glazier, 2009).
curriculum reform characterized by key competencies, characters,
and values that students demonstrate when they apply knowledge 2.2. Dialogical-self theory
and skills to cope with authentic situations. Meanwhile, PSTs'
practice and professional identity have been viewed as new
By synthesizing the scholarly genealogy of American pragma-
approach to their professional development. Yet, little is known
tism and Russian dialogism, dialogical-self theory (hereafter, DST)
about how teaching practicum experiences mediates EFL PSTs' re-
assumes that self is always situated in the dynamic process of (re)
ﬂections and their professional identity construction patterns
constructing different I-positions across the dynamic social milieus
within this new policy landscape. Meanwhile, no speciﬁc research
(Hermans, 2003; Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010). Derived
examines the vicissitude of EFL PSTs' professional identity amidst
from the DST, I-position assumes that there is multiplicity in a self,
the teaching practicum via metaphor. To ﬁll out this research gap,
which is occupied by various narrative I-positions. This multiplicity
the authors endeavor to identify how the EFL PSTs' reﬂections and
leads to a complex, dynamic, and narratively-structured self
professional identities change throughout the course of the
(Hermans, 2001a; 2001b). In this vein, I-position refers to speciﬁc
teaching practicum period. Particulary, the authors aim to identify
voices that can be understood as narrative positions of a multi-
the trajectories of EFL PSTs’ multiple I-positions and their meta-
faceted self (Hermans, 1996). Speciﬁcally, there are two kinds of I-
phoric professional identities in the learning-to-teach settings from
positions: those linked to the “internal” and those to the “external”
the perspective of dialogical-self theory. Moreover, the authors
domain of the self (Hermans, 2001a, p. 252). I-positions within the
purported to examine the affordances and constraints of student
internal domain of the self are located inside of a person (e.g., “I as
teaching experiences by examining the metaphors EFL PSTs
hardworking,” “I as reﬂective”); whereas I-positions within the illustrate.
external domain of the self are located outside of the person (e.g.,
my faculty advisor, my school-based mentor, my students), but are 2. Theoretical backdrop
really part of the self (Grimell, 2018). The composition of these I-
positions therefore constantly creates the position repertoire of the 2.1. Positioning theory
self (Hermans, 2001a), depending upon a broad array of contextual
factors, such as circumstances and interactions. The decentralizing
As one variant of the broader Vygotskian sociocultural theory,
and centralizing movements of positions in the self contributes to a
positioning theory is mainly concerned with the multiple positions
dynamic process of positioning and re-positioning between I-po-
either assumed by or attributed to individuals through narrative
sitions (Hermans & Dimaggio, 2007). These I-positions, both discourses (Harr
e, Moghaddam, Cairnie, Rothbart, & Sabat, 2009;
internally and externally, continually intertwine with different
Moghaddam & Harre, 2010, pp. 1
historical, cultural, and institutional relationships (Hermans,
e215). Position refers to a “cluster
of rights and duties that limits the repertoire of possible social acts
2001a, 2001b; Leijen & Kullasepp, 2013). Meanwhile, I-positions
available to a person or person-like entity (such as a corporation) as
are both continuous (integrating the roles and positions to the
so positioned” (Moghaddam, Harre, & Lee, 2008, p. 294). Through a
coherent I-positions) and discontinuous (the discrepancy or
poststructuralism lens, positions are multiple, changing, dynamic,
contradiction between personal and professional selves) simulta-
ﬂuid, and therefore situation-speciﬁc. Relatedly, positioning can be
neously (Hermans, 2012a; 2012b). DST includes several main con-
cepts, which are elaborated below (Gube, 2017; Hermans & Gieser, 2011). 2
DST has been applied in multiple disciplines, such as educa-
I-position refers to the various identities constructed among the different his-
torical, cultural, and institutional relationships.
tional consulting, global citizenship, and adolescent development. 2 G. Zhu and M. Chen
Teaching and Teacher Education 117 (2022) 103734 Table 1 The main types of positioning. Category Deﬁnition Moral and personal positioning
Moral positioning is a fairly ﬁxed position in which one stands because of his/her perceived role. Associated with that role are
particular behaviors and norms.
Personal positioning is what makes one's moral position more dynamic. Within one's particular moral position, one might act or
speak a certain way given one's personal characteristics or attributes, for example.
Reﬂexive positioning and interactive Reﬂexive positioning, which is sometimes called self-positioning, means individuals position themselves through all kinds of positioning
discourses. Reﬂexive positioning is not necessarily like a consistent autobiography without contradictions; individuals' positioning
is more like the fragments of a lived autobiography.
Interactive positioning refers to the process that individuals position others. It occurs when the stories a person tells position another person. First, second and third order
First order positioning is the way persons locate themselves and others'in the conversational space. In other words, ﬁrst order positioning
positioning frames how we act and interact with one another in conversation.
Second order positioning occurs when the ﬁrst order positioning is not taken for granted by one of the persons involved in the discussion’.
Third order positioning happens outside the actual conversation and likely leads to no change in either the ﬁrst order position or the
moral position of the initiator. Intentional positioning and
Intentional positioning means individuals purposely locate their roles and responsibilities through discourses. There are four types of repositioning
intentional positioning: (1) deliberate self-positioning; (2) forced self-positioning; (3) deliberate positioning of others; and (4) forced positioning of others.
Repositioning means individuals claim a right or a duty to adjust what an actor has taken to be the ﬁrst order positioning that is
dominating the unfolding of events. Table 2 The main concepts in DST. Term Conception Internal relations
Internal relations refer to a strand of international positions (e.g. I am a preservice teacher, I like teaching). External relations
External relations refer to voices related to oneself but not necessarily lead to self-characterization (e.g., my mentor teacher is knowledgeable and helpful.) Internal-external
Internal-external relations refer to the intermingling of internal and external positions which lead to self-characterization (e.g., my placement relations
supervisor thinks that I need to more often reﬂect on my teaching practice.) Third position
Third position means a mediator between two conﬂicting positions (e.g., the professional identity tension between progressive and traditional teacher). Meta-position
Meta-position is a second or a higher level of self-reﬂection, which permits a certain distance from one or more other internal and external
positions. (e.g., the challenges from the teaching practicums make me more resilient as a beginning teacher.) Promoter position
Promoter position implies the temporal nature of the process of positioning and repositioning, which gives order and direction in the development of position repertoire.
In teacher education, DST has been deployed to examine teachers'
knowledge, relationships with the students and their cooperating
dialogical identity construction and to bridge PSTs' personal and
teachers (Zhu et al., 2022; Qin et al., 2021). In another study, we
professional identities (Zhu et al., 2020a; Grimmett, 2016; Meijers
mainly adopted transformative learning and third space theories to
& Hermans, 2017). The rationale for adopting DST in this study is
examine the professional learning experiences of Chinese student
that PSTs’ professional identities are both continuous and discon-
teachers during their teaching practicums. Five major themes
tinuous as the teaching practicums progress. Meanwhile, PSTs
emerged regarding the participants’ professional learning experi-
continually internally and externally (re)position themselves
ences: (1) the disorienting dilemmas, (2) reﬂections and explora-
against different frames of reference, such as mentor teachers,
tions of assumptions, (3) gaining conﬁdence in a new role, (4)
university supervisors, and peer groups (Bullough & Draper, 2004).
behaviour changes, and (5) integration of new perspectives.
The rationale for utilizing the positioning theory and the DST is
Moreover, third space helped the participants negotiate a series of
two-fold. First, teacher identity remains a continuous discursive
binaries undesirable in teacher education, such as episteme and
positioning, which encompasses but not limited to negotiation,
phronesis, stability and evolution of their professional identities
integration, and shifting between different self I-positions (Arvaja, (Qin et al., 2021).
2016; Vetter, Hartman, & Reynolds, 2016). The interactions be-
However, this study is the ﬁrst to examine how PSTs elucidate
tween different selves and contexts contribute to different posi-
their teaching practicum reﬂections and I-positions in the context
tions, speech acts, and storylines, cumulatively resulting in new
of core-competency curriculum reform from the positioning and
positioning (Trent, 2012). Second, in the teaching practicum
dialogical-self theory perspectives. Positioning theory attest to the
context, PSTs narrate their educational beliefs, responsibilities,
multiple and dynamic nature of teacher identity (i.e., agentic
rights, practice, and identity perception in both implicit and explicit
identity and dynamically evolving) (Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop,
approach (Zhu et al., 2020a). The repertoire of these narratives
2004; Cobb, Harlow, & Clark, 2018). Meanwhile, dialogical-self
implies the (mis)match between the various I-positions and the
theory resonates with the dialogical, discontinuous and social
multiple contexts (Vanassche & Kelchtermans, 2014). As man-
essence of teacher identity (sub-identities and the interactions
ifested, narrating teacher identity essentially involves constantly
between person and context) (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011; Beijaard
positioning the dialogical self and the work context.
et al., 2004). As indicated, the positioning theory and the
In previous studies, we explored the evolution of Chinese EFL
dialogical-self theory, alongside written metaphors, contribute to
student teachers' self-generated metaphors about teaching before
new perspectives in analyzing PSTs’ reﬂections and professional
and after their teaching practicum, such as their professional
identities in the teaching practicum context. 3 G. Zhu and M. Chen
Teaching and Teacher Education 117 (2022) 103734 3. Literature review
for us to examine how EFL PSTs negotiate their self-identities and
reﬂective practices throughout the practicum experience (Zhu &
3.1. Reﬂection in teacher education Zhu, 2018; Zhu et al., 2020).
Reﬂection has been persistently advocated in teacher education
3.3. The relationship between reﬂection, metaphor, and professional
ever since the seminal work by Dewey (1933; 1993) and Sch€ on identity
(1987). Being reﬂective is a deliberate philosophical and ethical
code of conduct that weighs underlying, sometimes conﬂicting,
Researchers have long recognized the intimate relationship
educational beliefs, and daily practices (Larrivee, 2000; 2008).
between metaphors, reﬂection, and teacher identity construction
Drawing upon van Manen's (1977) early hierarchical representation
(Zhu & Zhu, 2018; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Larrivee, 2000, 2008;
of three-level reﬂection, technical, practical, and critical, Larrivee
Thomas & Beauchamp, 2011). Thomas and Beauchamp (2011)
(2008) further conceptualized teaching reﬂection as a continuum
found that new teachers' metaphors related to professional iden-
and systematically categorized it into four levels: pre-reﬂection,
tity construction demonstrate readiness for the role and a focus on
surface reﬂection, pedagogical reﬂection, and critical reﬂection.
students. However, the professional identity construction process is
Through the constructivist accounts of teacher knowledge, Toom,
gradual, complex, and often problematic. In this case, teachers have
Husu, and Patrikainen (2015) found that PSTs can reﬂect beyond
the opportunity to reﬂect on their professional identity construc-
solely practical issues on teaching, articulate multiple concerns
tion trajectory, including the nature of English language teaching
about practice in an integrative manner, and learn both from theory
and the resulting EFL teacher roles when they create metaphorical
and practice. Relatedly, Stenberg, Rajala, and Hilppo (2016)
discourses. In EFL teacher education, the metaphors PSTs use can
conceptualized reﬂection as critical deliberation of classroom
inform language teacher educators to effectively understand the
practice in relation to theory-practice dialogue. Meanwhile, they
beneﬁts and challenges associated with PSTs' professional identity
found that theory-practice dialogue can be strengthened by
construction (Zhu et al., 2022). In her review article, Izadinia (2013)
structuring teaching practicums, which improve student teachers'
conceptualized PSTs' professional identities as “perceptions of their
reﬂection from descriptive level to argumentation and contribution
cognitive knowledge, sense of agency, self-awareness, voice, con-
(Stenberg et al., 2016). Despite its increasing importance in teacher
ﬁdence, and relationship with colleagues, pupils, and parents, as
education, there is still a lack of agreement regarding how to
shaped by their educational contexts, prior experiences, and
conduct reﬂection in teaching (e.g., Foong, Binti, & Nolan, 2018;
learning communities” (p. 708). However, no speciﬁc research
Singh, Rowan, & Allen, 2019). Further, many studies lacked theo-
dealing with PSTs’ reﬂections amid the teaching practicum using
retical and empirical support to further investigate reﬂection in
the lenses of dialogical-self and positioning theories.
teacher education (Marcos, Sanchez, & Tillema, 2011; Marcos &
For this study, we conceptualized EFL PSTs' metaphorical pro- Tillema, 2006).
fessional identity as their implicit and explicit assumptions on their
roles, responsibilities, and repertoires of pedagogies as second
language teachers expressed through metaphors. In light of its
3.2. Metaphor in teacher education
expansive nature, metaphors elucidated by PSTs, acting as media-
tional tools (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006), can capture their professional
Metaphor is “understanding and experiencing one kind of thing
identity development trajectory from the beginning to the end of
in terms of another” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 5). In the teacher
the teaching practicums. On the other hand, EFL PSTs’ dynamic
education arena, many view metaphors as effective mediums of professional identities constantly evolve across different
reﬂection (Saban, Kocbeker, & Saban, 2007). Since metaphors are landscapes.
individual, idiosyncratic, and context-speciﬁc, they act as powerful
lenses in understanding student teachers' tactic referential systems
and serve as “ﬁlters” through which inservice teachers can clarify 4. This inquiry
their teaching practices (Lynch & Fisher-Ari, 2017; Saban, 2006).
Metaphor has been considered as a teacher identity archetype and
The following overarching research questions guided this study:
offers “useful windows into teachers’ professional thinking and
cognition” (Saban, 2006, p. 301). Alsup (2006) views the metaphor
1)How did the EFL PSTs position their reﬂections on their teaching
as “a powerful form for identity creation and a catalyst for personal practicum experiences? growth” (p. 10).
2)How did the EFL PSTs position their metaphorical professional
Moreover, scholars noted that metaphors serve as “vehicles for
identities through the dialogical-self theory during the teaching
reﬂection and consciousness raising among educators” (de practicums?
Guerrero & Villamil, 2002, p. 95). Metaphors generated by PSTs
grant their narrative authority and provide an avenue for deliber-
ation on their roles, responsibilities, and pedagogies (Alger, 2009; 5. Contexts and participants
Zhu & Zhu, 2018; Lynch & Fisher-Ari, 2017; Saban, 2006). Martinez,
Sauleda, and Huber (2001) categorized teaching metaphors into
This multiple-case study (Flyvbjerg, 2006) was situated in a
three dimensions: behaviorist/empiricist, cognitivist/construc-
four-year university-based EFL teacher education program in Zhe-
tivist, and situative/socio-historical metaphors, which were sup-
jiang Province in mainland China. For the ﬁrst two years, the PSTs
ported by Leavy, McSorley, and Bot e’s (2007) study. Watson and
mainly enrolled in a series of foundational courses on English
Wilcox (2000) suggested that preservice teacher reﬂection should
literature, applied linguistic knowledge, and language teaching
move beyond mere experience compilations towards a deeper
methods. During the third year, the PSTs participated in video-
understanding of their multiple meanings. To aid in this processs,
recorded micro-teaching sessions and short-term internships.
researchers should deeply probe into the change in PSTs' dynamic
Amid their ﬁnal year, the PSTs spent one-semester (four months) in
reﬂections through multiple data representations. Accordingly, the
a multitude of public middle and high schools in Zhejiang Province.
integration of teacher reﬂection and metaphors provide an impetus
Their primary responsibility was to apprentice their EFL teaching 4 G. Zhu and M. Chen
Teaching and Teacher Education 117 (2022) 103734
under the tutelage of one school-based mentor (usually an expe-
study, we become family with the cultural background of the par-
rienced EFL school teacher) and one university supervisor (nor-
ticipants. All the participants come from the homogenous com-
mally a university-based EFL teacher educator) simultaneously.
munities as the researchers of this study. Meanwhile, we pay
There are two reasons for focusing on the EFL PSTs' reﬂections
special attention to the participants’ personal beliefs during the
and I-positions in the context of teaching practicum. First, China is
data collection and analysis periods, which have intimate bearing
going through the core competency curriculum reform since 2017,
with their metaphoric narratives and the accompanying reﬂections.
which foregrounds the essential competencies, characters, and
values that students demonstrate when they cope with complex
situations. In this new educational policy landscape, EFL PSTs have 7. Data analysis
to teach according to the newly-redesigned curriculum standards.
However, little is known about EFL PSTs' reﬂections and I-positions
The authors iteratively analyzed the written metaphors, the
in the practicum contexs. Second, the research conducted by the
supporting written reﬂections, and the interview transcripts, which
authors indicate that EFL PSTs (re)positioned their professional
entailed four steps: 1) Naming/labeling: The authors ﬁrst coded the
identities before and after their student teaching period (Zhu et al.,
linguistic metaphors based on underlying philosophical orienta-
2022). It is therefore necessary to explore their reﬂections and
tions and supporting statements. 2) Sorting (clariﬁcation and
multiple I-position throughout the teaching practicum period.
elimination): The authors distilled the major themes and the
Overall, 33 EFL PSTs, who ﬁnished their teaching practicums,
plotlines derived from the written metaphors and the written
agreed to participate in this research. The participants mirror the
narratives. Meanwhile, the authors also recorded the frequency of
typical gender composition of the EFL teacher workforce in China
the keywords repeatedly surfaced in the metaphors and the cor-
with seven male and twenty-six female. Moreover, eleven partici-
responding narratives. 3) Categorizing: The authors positioned the
pants student-taught in public middle schools and twenty-two in
commonly-shared metaphors into one group and further devel-
public high schools. The authors received Institutional Review
oped a subheading. Following this line, the authors identiﬁed the
Board (IRB) approval from a research university in the U.S. and
patterns of professional identity construction trajectories. 4)
protected all the participants’ private information according to the
Analyzing data: The authors analyzed the connotations and en- ethical protocol.
tailments of the metaphors embedded within one similar category.
In this way, the authors systemically examined the affordances and
constraints of the teaching practicums that contribute to the par- 6. Data collection
ticipants’ differing reﬂections (Saban et al., 2007) and multiple I- positions.
The authors collected multiple forms of data via written meta-
The data analysis procedure was informed by DST and posi-
phors, reﬂective journal writings, and semi-structured group in-
tioning theory. The paired metaphors that the participants
terviews. First, the second author, the director of the EFL teacher
composed according to the instruction (See the metaphor creating
education program in this study, distributed the metaphorical
instruction in the appendix) were analyzed and placed into one of
professional identity written instructions (See the appendices, the
the metaphor dimensions by Martinez and colleagues (2001). For
metaphor creating instruction) to the EFL PSTs and collected 66
instance, when teachers created metaphors, such as “trainer” and
written metaphors at the beginning and end of the teaching
“knowledge transmitter,” they are prone to fall into the behaviorist/
practicums, respectively. Second, journal writing, as a method of
empiricist metaphor dimension (Martinez et al., 2001). Teachers
discovery and reﬂective analysis, has long been championed as an
within this category hold the belief that students are empty vessels
effective tool for reﬂection (Craig, Zou, & Poimbeauf, 2015).
that need to be ﬁlled up with knowledge as pre-packaged infor-
Considering the instrumentality of journal writing, the second
mation chunks externally transferred to students (Martinez et al.,
author collected 66 reﬂective narratives from 33 EFL PSTs who
2001). Metaphors, such as “road guide” and “a hard-working
ﬁnished their teaching practicums from Fall 2017 to Spring 2018.
sculptor,” more accord with the cognitivist/constructivist orienta-
Subsequently, the authors translated all the written metaphors and
tion (Martinez et al., 2001), and “butterﬂy” and “sunshine in the
the accompanying reﬂections into English.
garden” with the situative/socio-historical metaphor dimension
The authors conducted three rounds of semi-structured group
(Martinez et al., 2001). Teachers within this dimension assume that
interviews (10, 12, and 13 participants each time) to generate
the learning process is a mutual meaning-construction process,
another data layer. The authors meticulously crafted the interview
which involves the dialectic interactions among the learners,
protocol (see the appendices) and then asked the participants curricula, and milieus.
open-ended questions in an encouraging environment (Seidman,
Throughout data analysis, we coded the metaphors, written
2013). The use of Mandarin, the interviewees' mother language of
reﬂections, and interview transcripts iteratively and recursively to
all the interviewees, could make the participants feel more at ease
increase the study's trustworthiness (Marshall & Rossman, 2014).
to provide rich and authentic information. Each interview round
Then we met to discuss the categories and themes in the constant
centered on the participants’ instructional reﬂections and their
comparative approach (Guba, 1979). The constant comparative
professional identity perceptions in the teaching practicums.
method entails a three stages of unitizing, categorizing, and the-
Representative interview questions included: “How did you
matizing (Guba, 1979). In case of disagreement, we reviewed the
perceive the change of your professional identities compared with
texts, negotiated the interpretation, and double-checked the
that at the interception of your student teaching?” The authors
trustworthiness of the coding process to increase the project's
audio-recorded the whole group interviews and then transcribed
inter-reliability rate. We also triangulated the different data sources
them verbatim immediately following.
to increase the data analysis reliability. Additionally, we conducted
The existing research demonstrates that preservice teachers'
follow-up interviews (via emails and telephone calls) to clarify the
personal beliefs and culture greatly inﬂuence their metaphor
interpretation confusions, answer the new questions, enrich
adoption and professional identity construction (Zhu et al., 2022).
intriguing topics that arise and categorize recurring themes
Accordingly, as both researchers and teacher educators in this
generated in the initial interviews. In this way, we resolved the 5 G. Zhu and M. Chen
Teaching and Teacher Education 117 (2022) 103734
discrepancies that occurred over the course of the metaphor
analysis through member-checking and peer debrieﬁng until we
S10 assumed that she became “a young eagle in a hot air
reached a higher-level of abstraction and consensus.
balloon” after the two-month English teaching. For this profes-
sional identity conﬁrmation, S10 explicated that she accumulated 8. Findings
more practical experiences, and the teaching practicum acted as “a
hot air balloon” that took her to a new world.
Through constant comparative analysis of the multiple data
sources, the authors constructed four dialogical-self trajectories
8.2. Meta-position: elaboration and expansiveness of professional
among which the participating EFL PSTs engaged their multiple-I identity
positions throughout the teaching practicums: (1) promoter posi-
tion (conﬁrmation/consolidation of dialogical self), (2) meta-
Meta-position (theme 2), also known as a superordinate posi-
position (elaboration and expansiveness of dialogical self), (3) re-
tion, entails that the self moves above itself and takes a “helicopter
positioning and third position (contradiction and disequilibrium
view” (Hermans, 2012a; 2012b). Meta position permits a certain
of dialogical self), and (4) reﬂexive positioning (stability and minor
distance from one or more other positions (Hermans & Hermans-
change of I positions) (see Table 3). These four typologies of
Konopka, 2010). Meta-position suggests that the EFL PSTs sharp-
metaphorical professional identity positioning mainly involve the
ened or expanded their sophisticated understandings about their
EFL PSTs' role perceptions, responsibilities, and language peda-
professional identities compared with their initial professional
gogies. Further, the dynamics of the metaphors speaks to the full
identity perceptions. Within this category, ten participants narrated
complexities and uncertainties of EFL teachers’ dialogical selves
that they further developed their professional identities, which
amid the ﬁeld placements. In this section, the authors depicted the
encompasses their perceptions on EFL teachers' roles, teaching
four modes of professional identity positioning from the perspec-
beliefs, pedagogical approaches, and how to build the professional
tive of DST with the corresponding narratives.
relationships within the ﬁeld placement communities (see Table 5).
For instance, S5 initially thought that students are “the sun and the
8.1. Promoter position: conﬁrmation and consolidation of the
barometer for teachers’ instructional activities.” Later, S5 described dialogical self
herself as “an elementary school student,” realizing that only when
teachers change their professional identities as “an elementary
Promoter positions can add value, create a sense of direction,
school student” will they develop their authentic curiosity and
and stimulate individuals’ further development. Meanwhile, pro-
make the classroom atmosphere more engaging.
moter positioning is open towards the future and has the potential
Furthermore, regarding expansive understanding about teach-
to generate new positions (Meijers & Hermans, 2017). Promoter
ers' roles, S11 found that, apart from classroom teaching routines,
positions imply that the EFL PSTs found consistency between their
he had to arrange students' seats in the classroom, organize class-
prior roles and newly emergent role perceptions at the beginning
room activities, and settle down the disputes among the students.
and end of the student teaching periods. Promoter positions have
In a similar vein, S24 admitted that he had changed from “a cocoon”
some predominant characteristics: (1) they orchestrate and inte-
to “a butterﬂy” by integrating the cutting-edge theories that he
grate various I-positions; (2) they function as guards of the conti-
learned from the university coursework to his English classroom.
nuity of self; (3) they lead to innovators of the self (Meijers &
Regarding the importance of professional development, S3 speci-
Hermans, 2018). Speciﬁcally, six participants reinforced their pro-
ﬁed herself as “half a bucket of water” after the teaching practicum.
fessional identities after the teaching practicums (see Table 4). For
S3 derived this metaphor from the Chinese idiom customarily used
instance, S23 and S26 selected “care wheels” and “a lost lamb” to
to describe the teachers’ role: If a teacher wants to give a student a
specify the further realization of their professional identities.
glass of water (e.g., subject knowledge), he/she has to have a bucket
Similarly, S28 adopted “a beautiful Christmas tree” and “a Christ-
of water (e.g., newer knowledge on subjects, teaching, and
mas tree transplanted back to the earth” metaphors to describe the learning).
change in her professional identity at the beginning and end of the
teaching practicums, respectively. S28 conﬁrmed her student-
8.3. Re-positioning and third position: contradiction and
centered professional identity towards the end of the teaching
disequilibrium of the dialogical self practicum:
Nowadays, I more think from the students' perspectives …
The third theme, re-positioning, and third position mean that
Teachers should facilitate students' long-term intellectual and
the EFL PSTs formed new professional identity perceptions by
socio-emotional development. A teacher should work like a tree
rejecting or immensely modifying their prior professional identity
that provides shadow during the scorching summer and shelter
perceptions at the end of the student teaching. According to DST,
during the stormy weather. (Interview)
the third position emerges when conﬂict occurs between two Table 3
The typology of professional identity positioning. Category I-position change
The connotation of professional identity positioning mechanism Promoter position consolidation/
The EFL preservice teachers perceived a consistency between prior role and newly emergent role perceptions at the conﬁrmation
beginning and the end of the student teaching period. Meta-position Elaboration/
The EFL preservice teachers deepened or expanded their understandings about their professional identities compared with Expansiveness
their initial professional identity perceptions at the inception of the teaching practicum. Repositioning and Contradiction/
The EFL preservice teachers formed new professional identity perceptions by rejecting their beginning professional identity third position disequilibrium
perceptions at the start of the student teaching. Reﬂexive positioning Stability/minor
The EFL preservice teachers experienced no obvious professional identity changes from the beginning to the end of the change teaching practicums. 6 G. Zhu and M. Chen
Teaching and Teacher Education 117 (2022) 103734 Table 4
Promoter position: The summary of professional identity conﬁrmation/consolidation. No. Age Gender Placement Before After S10 23 Female Middle school
a clumsy bird with a string in its mouth on the cliff
a young eagle in a hot air balloon S14 22 Female Middle school a calf sponge S22 21 Male High school husband-Gazing stone statue a metallic tool husks rice S23 21 Female High school car wheels a car wheel with directions S26 22 Female High school a lost lamb a lamb who found the path S28 22 Female Middle school a beautiful Christmas tree
a Christmas tree transplanted back to the earth Table 5
Meta-position: The summary of professional identity elaboration/expansiveness. No. Age Gender Placement Before After S3 21 Male High school
A deer that just walked out of the forest Half a bucket of running water S5 25 Female Middle school Sunﬂowers in the sun An elementary school student S6 26 Female High school A frog in a well An eagle ﬂying in the sky S11 23 Male Middle school A gardener A permanent revolving gyro S17 23 Female High school Watering pot Double sided adhesive tape S20 22 Female High school Dry rice Beacon S24 23 Male Middle school A cocoon A butterﬂy S27 21 Female High school A colorful ﬂower A hidden love S30 21 Female High school
A yacht without the propelling power A well-decorated wagon S33 23 Female High school An Ant A climber on a cliff
positions. The third position can reconcile, lessen, and mitigate the
8.4. Reﬂexive positioning: stability and minor change of
contradiction in the original positions (Hermans, 2001a; 2001b; professional identity
2003). Since most PSTs have “naïve idealism” and over-simplistic
perceptions of teachers' roles before the teaching practicum, it is
The fourth theme, reﬂexive positioning, indicates that the EFL
unsurprising that 11 participants featured in this project encoun-
PSTs experienced no noticeable professional identity change from
tered different processes of contradiction/disequilibrium regarding
the beginning to the end of the teaching practicums evidenced by
professional identity reconstruction after the teaching practicums
the metaphors and corresponding written reﬂections. Through the
(See Table 6). The contradiction/disequilibrium practicum experi-
positioning theory lens, reﬂexive positioning means individuals
ence testiﬁes to beginning teachers’ professional identity tension or
position themselves through various discourses (Davies & Harre,
identity crisis (Meijer, De Graaf, & Meirink, 2011) reported by in-
1999). From DST perspective, reﬂexive positioning is more like
ternational researchers. These tensions often stem from the con-
integrating the fragments of a lived autobiography (Hermans,
ﬂicts between what types of teachers these beginning teachers
2003; 2012a). Due to the long-lasting inﬂuence of the existing
want to become and the constraints of the multiple practicum re-
educational philosophies, mentorships, and the politics of the
alities, which are always fraught with helplessness, maladjustment,
placement schools, some PSTs did not encounter apparent profes-
and reﬂections on their shortcomings.
sional identity transformation.
Following the existing ﬁndings, this study indicates that three
In this project, six participants showcased the comparative
aspects of professional identity contradiction/disequilibrium exist
stability of their professional identity construction (See Table 7). S8,
after the teaching practicum. First, some participants changed their
S19, and S25 chose almost the same metaphors to describe the
pedagogical orientations from behaviorist to constructivist after
change in their professional identity construction. More specif-
the student teaching (Leavy, McSorley, & Bote, 2007). Within this
ically, S19 admitted that it was her ﬁrst time to encounter students.
category, S4 showed that he more embraced the belief that “stu-
As expected, she was nervous and had no idea what to do. S19
dents are the masters of classroom learning” and worked as a
further stated that she had not shifted her professional identity
learning facilitator by empowering students’ interactive English
from a teacher education student to a full-ﬂedged teacher. She was
learning process. Second, the participants developed newer
more inclined to treat her cooperating teacher as her mentor rather
student-centered professional identity perceptions compared with
than an equal colleague. After two-months teaching, S19 wrote that
their initial traditional teacher-centered ones. For example, S16,
she had developed a strong sense of responsibility. However, S19
S21, and S32 all conﬁrmed that they reconstructed humanistic
still described herself as “a rookie,” and the primary reason was that
professional identities towards the end of the teaching practicums,
S19 found her weakness in teaching and classroom management.
suggesting more student-centered professional identities. More
As a novice teacher, S19 embraced the attitude that “The early bird
speciﬁcally, S21 adopted the “bird feeder” metaphor to elucidate catches the worm.”
her beginning identity (“A teacher should design, prepare, and
Similar to S19, S8 assumed herself as “a three medium-cooked
provide the English learning materials.“). Later, S21 shifted her
steak”dshe had the basic qualiﬁcation for teaching but was too
professional identity and reﬂected that:
naïve. S8 narrated that the three-year teacher education course-
work enabled her to forge the basic English teaching ability (i.e.,
… an English teacher should be a road guide … Learning should
how to design English class with clear objectives and vigor) and
essentially a process of discovery, and teachers should guide the
learn about the head-teachers’ responsibilities (i.e., work as the
students' discovery in the forest. In this way, I can cultivate
bridge between the head-teacher and the students). However, the
students' learning passion.” (Reﬂective journal entry)
placement school where S8 practiced her teaching emphasized
students' English test scores and high-school acceptance rates.
As manifested in the written metaphors, S21 shifted her pro-
Under that circumstance, S8 had to give up her communicative
fessional identity from a traditional teacher to a learning guide.
English instructional approach and cater to the test-oriented 7 G. Zhu and M. Chen
Teaching and Teacher Education 117 (2022) 103734 Table 6
Repositioning and third position: The summary of professional identity contradiction/disequilibrium. No. Age Gender Placement Before After S1 23 Female Middle school a lonely shepherd a hard-working sculptor S4 22 Male High school ants on a hot pan bamboo sprouts after the rain S7 23 Female High school an eagle a wild goose S9 25 Male High school sunshine and rain a gust of wind S12 21 Female High school
the little monk just down the hill
“white snow in sunny spring”-style worker S15 22 Male High school a parrot a dog with a collar S16 23 Female High school a trainer in a zoo sunshine in the garden S18 22 Female High school mimosa pudica sunﬂower S21 21 Female Middle school bird feeder a road guide S29 25 Female High school a shy sparrow a conﬁdent sun S32 21 Female High school a transfer student a student union president
teaching approachdmechanic English grammar practice and
different storylines trajectories (i.e., conﬁrmation/consolidation,
intensive test preparation activities. Consequently, S8 described
elaboration/expansiveness, contradiction/disequilibrium, and sta-
herself as “a ﬁve-medium cooked steak” after the teaching practice.
bility/minor change in this study) that either enable or restrict the
participants' professional identity construction and practice (Lee &
Schallert, 2016). At a deeper level, this research indicates that the 9. Discussion
participants’ identity positioning have intimate bearing with their
pedagogical reasoning, which underpins their informed profes-
This qualitative inquiry reveals that EFL PSTs' metaphorical
sional practice during the teaching practicum period (Kavanagh,
teaching reﬂections not only display the ﬁne-grained perceptions
Conrad, & Dagogo-Jack, 2020; Loughran, 2019). From the stand-
regarding “role one fulﬁlls or activities one engages in” (i.e., “the
point of pedagogical reasoning, the EFL PSTs weave the knowing
what”) but also the “multiple-I positions” they think about “the self
and doing in EFL teaching practicum, which both contribute to their
as a professional” (i.e., “the who”). This paper contributes to the
reﬂections and identity positioning.
newer scholarship on how EFL PSTs positioned their instructional
First, through the DST lens, each I-position represents a spatial-
reﬂections and the accompanying dialogical selves via the paired
relational act, which exists in the accounts of meta positions, third
metaphor narratives, written reﬂections, and interviews. A situated
positions, and promoter positions (Meijers & Hermans, 2017). The
and recursive analysis of the EFL teachers' agentive actions reveals
continuity and discontinuity of PSTs' professional identities corre-
that the participants became “identity brokers” by employing
spond to the promoter positions and counter-positioning of selves.
differing positioning strategies to consolidate, expand or recon-
Meijers and Hermans (2017) contend that I-positions will
struct their I-positions (Kayı-Aydar, 2019). These intentional posi-
encounter decentering (or centrifugal) movements when they are
tioning tools include promoter position, meta-position, re-
replete with fragmentation, disorganization, and contradictions. In
positioning, third position, and reﬂexive positioning, which
this study, the participants' re-positioning and third position lead
collectively help the participants demonstrate situated knowledge,
to the opposition of their professional identity construction as EFL
codes of practice, and establish multiple professional relationships
teachers. Oppositely, I-positions will come across centering
(Cobb et al., 2018). Echoing publications by Abednia (2012), Trent
movements (or centripetal) movement when they contain coher-
(2010; 2013), and Yuan and Mak (2018), we found EFL PSTs
ence and consistency (Meijers & Hermans, 2017). Related to this
changed from a linguistic and technical view to an educational view
research, the participants’ promoter position, meta-position, and
of second language education. As their reﬂections and metaphors
reﬂexive positioning contribute to the coherence of their profes-
entails communicative and constructivism-oriented EFL teaching
sional identity construction as EFL teachers (Raggatt, 2012). Overall,
narratives, the PSTs gradually transformed their professional
these two I-position movements complement one another to ﬁnd
identities, which further their pedagogical reasoning (Loughran,
an identity balance between change and discontinuity, on the one
2014) and professional socialization as teachers (Nazari & De
hand, and stability and coherence, on the other hand, in the
Costa, 2021). The participants’ knowing, doing, and being are all teaching context.
related to EFL teaching practice, which collectively polished their
Second, the vicissitude of the reﬂection level and the teaching
practical theories of teaching (Tiilikainen, Toom, Lepola, & Husu,
belief conﬁrm that metaphors can act as powerful windows in 2019).
examining student teachers' tactic referential systems and serve as
In this study, positioning the participants' dialogical-selves il-
“ﬁlters” through which teachers can clarify their teaching practices
luminates various explicit/implicit assumptions underpinning their
(Saban, 2006). This research showcases that the metaphor accounts
responsibilities and behaviors that constitute a particular act of
elucidated by the participants cogently provide a medium for
positioning, such as distancing and conﬁrming the multiple-I po-
reﬂection on their dialogical-self positioning. From the reﬂection
sitions (Vetter et al., 2016). The positioning also reveals the Table 7
Reﬂexive positioning: The summary of professional identity stability/minor change. No. Age Gender Placement Before After S2 22 Female High school a clumsy parrot
a parrot that speaks only a word S8 23 Female Middle school three-medium cooked steak ﬁve-medium cooked steak S13 22 Female Middle school a nestling a little bird ﬂying low S19 22 Female Middle school green hand rookie S25 22 Male High school a ﬁsh in a pond a ﬁsh in a river S31 22 Female High school a bird free of the cage a bird with home 8 G. Zhu and M. Chen
Teaching and Teacher Education 117 (2022) 103734
level speciﬁed by van Manen (1977), most of the participants
“practice turn,” which purports to foreground teachers' profes-
moved from technical reﬂection category to practical and critical
sional knowledge and practical experiences (Loughran, 2013; Reid,
reﬂection categories in student teaching. According to Larrivee
2011). In this scenario, this study has three implications for teacher
(2008), the majority of the participants shifted from pre-
education. First, this article shows that it is important to facilitate
reﬂection and surface reﬂection levels to pedagogical and critical
prospective teachers' reﬂections, especially pedagogical reasoning
reﬂection levels evidenced by their metaphors and narrative. Spe-
(Loughran, 2019) and negotiation of multiple professional identities
ciﬁcally, metaphor can be constructed not only as psychological
(Xu, 2013), in the teaching practicum settings. Articulating PSTs' I-
modeling experiences, which allow reiﬁcation of teachers' prior
positions through metaphors during the student teaching period
experiences, but also as a powerful analytical framework that leads
provide alternative avenues for school-based mentors and teacher
to new forms of conceptual knowledge (Zhu et al., 2022) and
educators to bring PSTs' tacit knowledge and beliefs into awareness.
practical theories of teaching. The metaphors vividly exhibit the
Reﬂections and metaphorical narratives adequately enable PSTs
instructional choices and reasons the participants adopt, which
practicalise theoretical knowledge in teaching. Speciﬁcally, the
further trigger the formation of their dispositions, ie., teachers'
participats in this study developed procedural (re-positioning/third
tendencies to face instructional situations with mindset inherent to
position in this study, S1, S12, S21, S32), reﬂective-adaptive (meta-
the practice of teaching (Tiilikainen et al., 2019, p. 125). Further-
position, reﬂexive position in this study, S3, S11, S24, S33), and
more, metaphors can reduce teachers’ complex educational phi-
reﬂective-theorizing (promoter position in this study, S10, S14, S22,
losophies and actions into a comprehensible image, thus entailing
S28) approaches to practicalizing contextual knowledge (Cheng,
practical knowledge about teachers in speciﬁc professional con-
Tang, & Cheng, 2012). The four positioning trajectories, including,
texts (Martinez, Sauleda, & Guenter, 2001).
meta-position, and reﬂexive positioning, explored the epistemic
Third, the dynamic change of the multiple I-positions contrib-
nature of teachers'practical knowledge. A close examination of
utes to a nuanced understanding of how EFL PSTs retain, modify, or
these reﬂective narratives via metaphors and positioning provided
regain their professional agency in the learning-to teach settings
in-depth analysis of the participants' practical argument in teach- (Heikkil€
a, Iiskala, & Mikkil€a-Erdmann, 2020). Essentially, identity
ing. Compared with conventional quantitative assessment on
positioning involves continually coordinating past, present, and
teaching practicums, reﬂective accounts through metaphors argu-
future selves with perspectival understandings about teaching (Lee
ably provide more information on PSTs' pedagogical reasoning and
& Schallert, 2016). Both conﬁrmation and distancing I-positions
professional learing in the context of teaching practicum.
lead to identity construction. This study also corresponds to
Second, positioning PSTs' multiple I-positions through DST, we
Brickhouse's (2001) assertation that “learning is not merely a
can readily identify the coherence and contradiction of their pro-
matter of acquiring knowledge, it is a matter of deciding what kind
fessional identity construction. EFL PSTs' professional identities
of person you are and want to be and engaging in those activities
normally change from the imagined to the practicised in teaching,
that make one part of the relevant communities” (p. 286). As
which entails the active socio-psychological process of meaning
Britzman (2003) contends, learning to teach (student teaching in
negotiation between the contextual factors and internal variables
this study) is always a process of becoming a person you aspire. This
(Xu, 2013). In this case, metaphors provide alternative mediational
reﬂection is consistent with Wenger's (1998) argument that
tools to explore PSTs' dynamic belief system and practice (Zhu et al.,
learning is not solely an accumulation of skills and information, but
2022). Viewed in this light, EFL teacher educators can better
a process of formationd“a formation of a certain personality or, on
identify the enablers and constraints associated with PSTs' profes-
the contrary, avoiding the formation of a certain personality” (p.
sional learning and identity construction in the teaching practicum
215). In this sense, there is a dynamic interplay between learning-
context, especially the deep-rooted schism between theory and
to-teach and professional identity construction.
practice. Through analyzing the positioning clusters, EFL teacher
Fourth, the four types of professional identity change in this
educators can also examine how the ﬁeld placements' contexts and
study further testify to the dual nature of “identity-in-practice” and
PSTs’ professional agency intersect to contribute to their profes-
“identity-in-discourse.” Varghese, Morgan, Johnston, and Johnson
sional identity construction formation. That said, teacher educators
(2005) posit that “identity-in-practice” is an action-oriented
can design more coherent and stimulating student teaching expe-
approach to understanding identity, underlining the need to riences for PSTs.
investigate identity formation as a social matter, which is achieved
Third, this research inspires school-based mentors, university
through concrete practices and tasks. Meanwhile, “identity-in-
supervisors, and EFL teacher education researchers to facilitate
discourse” encapsulates identities that are discursively constituted,
PSTs' professional learning in teaching practicums. By extrapolating
mainly through language (the written metaphors in this study).
EFL PSTs' metaphorical identities and reﬂective essays, we gain a
Consistent with the argument, the participants illustrated their
more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of their professional
professional identities both through their concrete reﬂective
identity formation and professional learning results. To create more
teaching practicum experiences and the written metaphors they
coherent and stimulating student teaching experiences, EFL PSTs
created. This study demonstrates that the participants' professional
should identify the metaphors that underlie their role perceptions,
identities have a dual focus: practice and discourse, and they
pedagogical obligations, warranted assertibility, and actualized
interact with each in a dynamic approach. Fairclough (2003) argues
instructional strategies (Gholami & Husu, 2010). In this way, ﬁrst,
that “what people commit themselves to in texts is an important
we can not only examine PSTs' various types of identities (e.g., ideal
part of how they identify themselves, the texturing of identity” (p.
identity, actual identity, ought identity, and feared identity)
164). Relating to this research, the participants both expressed their
(Markus & Nurius, 1986) but also the multi-level and multi-
action-oriented and discourse-oriented professional identities: the
dimensional nature (cognitive, emotional, and motivational) of
continuous process of legitimating, rationalizing, and modifying
teacher professional learning (Korthagen, 2017). Moreover, we can
their metaphorical perceptions on themselves regarding language
better facilitate EFL PSTs’ academic socialization and smooth tran-
teachers’ responsibilities, roles, and appropriate pedagogies.
sition to demanding workplaces. When PSTs transition from uni-
versity settings to ﬁeld placements, they usually encounter various Implications
types of boundaries, accompanied by “separation, fragmentation,
disconnection, and misunderstanding” (Wenger, 2003, p. 85). Such
Teacher education throughout the world is going through the tensions represent both social antagonism (i.e., opposing 9 G. Zhu and M. Chen
Teaching and Teacher Education 117 (2022) 103734
professional identities) (Jorgensen & Phillips, 2002) and productive
has been approved by the Institutional Review Board of East China
friction (dissonance experienced by PSTs that leads to more so- Normal University.
phisticated practice) (Ward, Nolen, & Horn, 2011) among different
identities. For the cohort of these PSTs who experienced meta- Appendices
positioning and (re-positioning/third position, the modes of
antagonism and productive friction demonstrate how the PSTs Metaphor creating instruction
negotiated their newer I-positions by rationalizing newer role
perceptions and the corresponding pedagogies (e.g., S16, S21, and
Could you please describe your I-position perception via meta- S32).
phors at the beginning (end) of the teaching practicum? Please also
illustrate the chosen metaphors in relation to your teaching prac-
Limitations and future research directions ticum experiences.
Three limitations exist in this research. First, the authors did not Interview protocol
probe into the distinctions of “deep metaphors” and “surface
metaphors,” as coined by Sch€on (1979). According to Sch€on (1979),
1)How did you assume your professional identities at the start
generative metaphor is a metaphor that accounts for ‘centrally of the teaching practicum?
important features of the story’ (p. 267). However, deeply
2)How did you perceive the change of your professional iden-
embedded in language, generative metaphors often limit our per-
tities compared with that at the interception of your student
ceptions of issues and methods to resolve problems (Vadeboncoeur teaching?
& Torres, 2003). Surface or explicit metaphors provide us with clues
3) Could you please explain your instructional reﬂection level
to unveil the deep generative metaphor and might generate ‘new
alongside the written metaphor you composed?
perceptions, explanations and inventions’ (Sch€on, 1979, p. 259). For
4) What do you think about the opportunities and the challenges
future research direction, the authors will frame how the EFL PSTs
during the teaching practicums?
elucidate the contradictions and tensions of their beliefs along the
5) How did your school-based mentors and supervisors affect your
learning-to-teach process by incorporating “deep metaphors” and teaching reﬂection? “surface metaphors.”
Second, the authors did not collect the written documents on References
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Document Outline

Positioning preservice teachers’ reflections and I-positions in the context of teaching practicum: A dialogical-self theory ...
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Theoretical backdrop
  - 2.1. Positioning theory
  - 2.2. Dialogical-self theory
- 3. Literature review
  - 3.1. Reflection in teacher education
  - 3.2. Metaphor in teacher education
  - 3.3. The relationship between reflection, metaphor, and professional identity
- 4. This inquiry
- 5. Contexts and participants
- 6. Data collection
- 7. Data analysis
- 8. Findings
  - 8.1. Promoter position: confirmation and consolidation of the dialogical self
  - 8.2. Meta-position: elaboration and expansiveness of professional identity
  - 8.3. Re-positioning and third position: contradiction and disequilibrium of the dialogical self
  - 8.4. Reflexive positioning: stability and minor change of professional identity
- 9. Discussion
- Implications
- Limitations and future research directions
- Funding information
- Declaration of competing interest
- Acknowledgment
- Appendices
  - Metaphor creating instruction
  - Interview protocol
- References

Positioning preservice teachers’ reﬂections and I-positions in thecontext of teaching practicum: A dialogical-se lf theory approach

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