Re-entering my space: a narrative inquiry into teaching English as a foreign language in an imagined third space

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to reflect on my experience of teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in an inland Chinese university when I returned from Australia: I re-entered the space of EFL teaching, and experimented with a new model of teaching. In my experiment, I applied the concepts of third space and hybrid identity as a theoretical framework for teaching EFL. A personal narrative form is chosen to report and reflect on the experiment, as this is the form that directly expresses experience, allows for reflection on it, and is appropriate for studies of identity. Using anecdotes and reflection, I relate the observed responses of a cohort of Chinese EFL learners to this new EFL teaching model. From this account, reflections are drawn on the challenges that reform of traditional teacher-centred EFL methods in the Chinese cultural context brings to the learners, and by implication, the teacher, from the perspective of an insider (teacher) returning home from an outsider’s third space as a learner in another culture.

Keywords:

• Third space
• hybrid identity
• Chinese EFL learners
• EFL teaching and learning
• narrative

Acknowledgement

All names are changed to protect privacy. My thanks go to the two anonymous reviewers for constructive and critical comments on an earlier version of this article.