Cross‐border pre‐service teachers in Hong Kong: ‘to be or not to be integrated, that is the problem’

Abstract

This study uses discourse theory to explore the teaching identities of a group of mainland Chinese pre‐service teachers of English in a teacher education institute in Hong Kong. Exploring how the teaching identities are discursively constructed, the study reaches two conclusions. First, that the pre‐service teachers negotiate their own positions within multiple positionings from peers, students on the teaching practicum and the broader enterprise of professional language teaching in Hong Kong; and second, that they discursively construct their teaching identity as English language teachers with particular linguistic and cultural backgrounds to gain legitimacy. The study extends understandings of the interconnected relations of discourse and identity in such contexts.

Keywords:

• teaching identity
• discourse
• difference
• cross‐border pre‐service teachers
• Chinese students

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and Professor Andy Kirkpatrick for their constructive feedback on earlier versions of the manuscript. I am grateful to Professor Peter Gilroy for his editorial support. I would also like to thank the Research Centre into Language Education and Acquisition in Multilingual Societies (RCLEAMS), Hong Kong Institute of Education, for its generous funding and support for the project.