Experiential continuity: how newly qualified teachers’ past international teaching experiences influence their current personal interpretative framework

Abstract

This two-year longitudinal study explores how an earlier international teaching experience influences the way six newly qualified teachers perceive their current teaching practice and professional self-understanding during personally significant experiences. The concept of an experiential continuum, a key concept in these findings, suggests that every experience reflects back on previous experiences and modifies later experiences. We identified 12 individual examples of personally significant experiences in which newly graduated teachers described how their previous international teaching experience informed their present teaching practice. Our study shows that experiential continuity identified during significant personal experiences in newly qualified teachers’ teaching practice influences them when interpreting: (1) professional beliefs regarding teaching knowledge; (2) moral questions regarding the teacher they want to be or become; and (3) their international teaching experience as a tool for placing new experiences in perspective. The study describes practical cases of how experiential continuity can help newly qualified teachers to understand why they make certain personal or moral interpretations in their teaching induction phase and what this means for the teacher they want to become.

Keywords:

• Experiential continuity
• professional self-understanding
• teacher beliefs
• significant personal experience
• newly qualified teachers