1 23The Asia-Pacific EducationResearcher ISSN 0119-5646 Asia-Pacific Edu ResDOI 10.1007/s40299-020-00510-4Transitioning from Pre-service to Novice:A Study on Macau EFL Teachers’ IdentityChangeLianjiang Jiang, Kaihao Yuan & ShulinYu

1 23Your article is protected by copyright andall rights are held exclusively by De La SalleUniversity. This e-offprint is for personaluse only and shall not be self-archivedin electronic repositories. If you wish toself-archive your article, please use theaccepted manuscript version for posting onyour own website. You may further depositthe accepted manuscript version in anyrepository, provided it is only made publiclyavailable 12 months after official publicationor later and provided acknowledgement isgiven to the original source of publicationand a link is inserted to the published articleon Springer's website. The link must beaccompanied by the following text: "The finalpublication is available at link.springer.com”.

REGULAR ARTICLETransitioning from Pre-service to Novice: A Study on Macau EFLTeachers’ Identity ChangeLianjiang Jiang1,2 • Kaihao Yuan3 • Shulin Yu1 De La Salle University 2020Abstract While it has been well noted that novice EFLteachers are subject to identity change when transitioningfrom pre-service to novice stage, the nuanced process ofsuch change remains underexplored. Based on data gath-ered from four novice EFL teachers in Macau, this paperexamines such process using the constructs of imaginedidentities and the social representation theory. Findingsfrom a qualitative interpretive analysis revealed four dis-tinctive trajectories of identity shifts, i.e., renegotiation,evolution, establishment, and sustainment. These findingssuggest that novice EFL teachers’ identity shift is not alinear transformation from imagined identities formed inthe pre-service stage to practiced identities in the novicestage, but a dynamic process mediated by personal beliefs,prior learning experiences, teaching practice, and theinstitutional exam-oriented culture. These findings call forattention to the resilient power of imagined identities andthe role of affiliating with imagined communities in noviceteachers’ construction of practiced identities and to hownovice EFL teachers’ identity transition can be betterscaffolded.Keywords Teacher identity  Teacher education EFL context  Imagined identityIntroductionIt has been well noted that many novice EFL teachers,known as those with ‘‘less than three years’ full-timeteaching experience’’ (Trent 2016, p. 316), undergo sig-nificant shifts in identity when transitioning from teachereducation programs to the early stages of their profession.Nevertheless, the nuanced process of such identity shiftsremains underexplored. While there is no lack of studiesexploring student teachers’ identity development (Friesenand Besley 2013) or novice teachers’ identity construction(Trent 2016), these studies tend to focus on the ‘‘formationof professional identities’’ within certain stages rather thanthe ‘‘transformation of professional identities’’ across dif-ferent stages (Xu 2013, p. 79). Although Xu (2013) offeredan exceptional study on novice EFL teachers’ identitychange, his study revealed identity shifts in mainly cog-nitive terms and it remains unclear how the cognitivetransformation is mediated by sociocultural realities andcircumstances. Due to the unavoidable reality shocks,novice teachers’ contextualized experiences in schools arelikely to challenge and change the initial identities, if any,they have developed during the pre-service stage. Suchchallenges and changes would not only shape the devel-opment of teachers’ professional identities but also haveimplications for enhancing teacher effectiveness and pre-venting teacher attrition (Trent 2017). It is thus of signifi-cant importance to examine the identity change of teacherswhen moving from being a student teacher into their firstyear of professional teaching.& Shulin YuShulinYu@um.edu.moLianjiang Jiangjianglianjiang@gmail.comKaihao Yuankhyuan@stu.edu.cn1Faculty of Education, University of Macau, Av.daUniversidade, Taipa, Macau, China2School of Foreign Languages, Jimei University, Xiamen,China3English Language Center, College of Liberal Arts, ShantouUniversity, Shantou, China123Asia-Pacific Edu Reshttps://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-020-00510-4Author's personal copy

This study, situated in Macau, an EFL context that isunder-represented in the literature, reports on a multiple-case study of four novice teachers on their identity changewhen they transitioned from pre-service training to the firstyear of teaching in secondary schools. With detailed nar-ratives of these teachers’ identity shifts, this study con-tributes not only to the global discussions on how noviceteachers can be better supported in their transitionalexperiences for long-term effectiveness in teaching but alsoto our understanding of what it takes for novice teachers tothrive with rigorous identities in their profession.Novice EFL Teachers’ Identity in Transition:A Conceptual FrameworkThere is no clear-cut definition of teacher identity (Beau-champ and Thomas 2009). Aligning with current researchstudies that refuse to take identity as singular and fixed(e.g., Friesen and Besley 2013; Trent 2016), this studyfollows the post-modern paradigm and conceptualizesteachers’ professional identity as an on-going, dynamicprocess of construction. From this perspective, the identi-ties that pre-service teachers envisage about themselves intheir education programs are provisional and transitional,subject to change and challenges when they are exposed toclassroom dynamics, school environments, and policyrequirements (Hong et al. 2018).Several studies have explored the evolving nature ofteacher identity through the lens of ‘‘identity in discourse’’(Trent 2016), ‘‘identity shifts in the boundary space’’(Beauchamp and Thomas 2011), and ‘‘identity change asboundary experiences related to discontinuity’’ (Meskeret al. 2018). These studies show that identity change is aninteractive process of negotiation between the individualand the situated contexts (Lantolf 2000; Norton 2013). Arange of factors that contribute to EFL teachers’ identitychange has been identified, including individual factors,such as agency, prior experience (Tao and Gao 2017),personal beliefs about teaching and learning, and interac-tions between individual’s multiple identities (Tsui 2007),as well as contextual factors arising from school environ-ments (Hong et al. 2018), policy demands (Trent 2016),and educational and cultural backgrounds (Miller 2007).For example, Trent (2016) noted that the initial discourseof ‘‘learning as enjoyment’’ in defining pre-service EFLteachers’ identity was replaced by a discourse of ‘‘exami-nation’’ in practice. Such change appeared as part of thereality shocks which further led to early career EFLteachers’ identity conflicts, frustration, and self-doubt(Kelchtermans and Ballet 2002).Researchers (e.g., Hamiloglu 2013; Xu 2013) have alsoproposed to examine novice teachers’ identity changethrough two major constructs: imagined identity andpracticed identity, with the former stems from imaginationand the latter from engagement with community of practicein real-world situations. The notion of imagined identitywas introduced to language education research by Nortonet al. (Kanno and Norton 2003; Norton 2001). Drawing onAnderson’s (1991) concept of imagined community andWenger’s (1998) theorizing of imagination in definingidentities, Norton (2013) suggested that imagined identitiesrefer to identities that individuals constructed in theirimaginations about the relationships between themselvesand other people and things that they nonetheless have nodirect access to or interactions with. In other words, forstudent teachers, they could define who they are as teachersnot only by who they are in reality but also by whom theyimagine themselves to be. This is because ‘‘humans arecapable of connecting with communities that lie beyond thelocal and immediate and that investment in such imaginedcommunities strongly influences identity construction andengagement in learning’’ (Kanno and Norton 2003, p. 247).The construct of investment highlights the role of agency inpromoting positive identity changes (Norton 2013). On theother hand, practiced identity refers to identity nurturedthrough participating in the social processes of concretepractices (Lampert 2010). Rather than drawing on people’simagination, practiced identity relies on concrete teachingpractice in the real world. For this reason, it is normallyunavailable to pre-service teachers (Farrell 2009). Based onthe distinction between imagined and practiced identities,previous research (e.g., Hamiloglu 2013) has assumed thatfor novice teachers, they may start their teaching withimagined identities, which are then transformed intopracticed identities. Such a linear trajectory from theimagined to the practiced, however, seems to reduce thecomplexity of identity change.To further specify the respective features of imaginedand practiced identities when examining novice teachers’identity change, Xu (2013) resorted to social representationtheory (Moscovici 2000), which has been widely used insocial, cultural, and political psychology studies to exam-ine people’s social attitudes, behaviors, and thoughts.Moscovici’s theory (2000) focused on conventionalizingpeople’s collective behaviors (or the events they encounterwithin a certain social context) and categorizing individu-als into various representations in order to understand theirsocial cognition patterns. As a whole, social representa-tions are systems of values, beliefs, and practices that areshared among the members of groups and then constitutethe social realities of different professional groups andcommunities in society. Such a perspective has been usedto exploring individual’s identities since it can providehelpful references to understand individuals’ complexsystems of ideas and practice within their social worldL. Jiang et al.123Author's personal copy

(Hong and Chiu 2001). According to Moscovici’s (2000)social representation theory, one’s professional identity canbe further classified as based on rules, cues, exemplars, andschema. These categories offer important heuristic tools toexamine identity change. Specifically, rule-based identitiesare limited by institutional regulations and laws that stip-ulate what teachers should/should not do. Cue-basedidentities are enabled by cues or distinctive features ofsome particular social roles. For instance, when a teacherregards him/herself as an expert/authority, such an identityis likely to be cue based because the features of being anexpert/authority may be manifested by feeling an obligedneed to offering answers/solutions to students who are indoubt. Exemplar-based identities rely on representativeexamples or role models. When a student teacher tries toalign him/herself with his/her previous teacher who has seta good example for him/her to follow, such alignment oftenreflects exemplar-based identities. Schema-based identity‘‘embeds a series of social cognitions and behaviors inresponse to a dynamic context or situation’’ (Xu 2013,p. 80). For instance, being a teacher in a specific teachingculture (e.g., exam/grade-oriented) is usually associatedwith a series of mental status and physical actions specificto that context. Situated in a mainland Chinese context, Xu(2013) observed that for novice EFL teachers, their imag-ined identities formed in the pre-service stage were eithercue based or exemplar based, and these identities wouldtransform into practiced identities, which were rule basedor schema based in the novice stage. Despite the illumi-nating findings, Xu (2013) examined the individual cog-nitive processes of identity transformation, with how ‘‘theindividual is mainly embedded in and formed by socialstructures’’ (Höijer 2011, p. 4) to be further explored. InXu’s (2013) own words, it remains unclear how the ‘‘pat-terns of identity change in cognitive terms’’ could be‘‘more closely linked with the sociocultural mediatingfactors’’ (p. 85).Overall, previous research (Hamiloglu 2013; Xu 2013)on identity shifts mainly took identity as a cognitive con-struct and seemed to presume a linear trajectory of identityshift from the imagined to the practiced, with imaginedidentity acting necessarily as a starting point for the con-struction of practiced identities. Given the complexity ofnovice teachers’ identity in transition, the transformation ofteacher identities could be manifested in much morenuanced ways. It also remains unclear whether and howimagination would have any role to play during noviceteachers’ construction of practiced identities. To addressthe research gaps, the current study argues that identitychange is not only a cognitive and psychological processbut also a sociocultural process of meaning negotiationbetween the individual and the wider educational contexts(Landtolf 2000; Norton 2013). Such socioculturalorientation aligns well with the theory of social represen-tation, which considers different features (i.e., cue, rule,exemplar, and schema) of identity as ‘‘different types ofcollective cognitions, common sense or thought systems ofsocieties or groups of people’’ (Höijer 2011, p. 4). Thesefeatures have strengths in revealing how social thinkingabout teacher identity is formed, how such thinking shapessocial behaviors (e.g., investing in imagined communities),and why (Hong and Chiu 2001). For these reasons, thecurrent study explores novice EFL teachers’ identity intransition with reference to the concepts of imaginedidentities and communities (Norton 2001) and the socialrepresentation theory (Moscrovici 2000). Specifically, thepresent study extends previous research by exploring theprofessional identity change of four novice EFL teachers inMacau with the following research questions:(1) In the pre-service stage, what kinds of teacher did thestudent teachers imagine themselves to be?(2) How did their imagined identities, if any, changewhen transitioning from the pre-service to the novicestage?MethodologyResearch ContextThis study was conducted in Macau, a special adminis-tration region in China and a former Portuguese colonywell known for its gaming industry. While Portuguese andChinese are official languages, English is gaining increas-ing importance under the influence of globalization. Toprepare qualified EFL teachers for local primary and sec-ondary schools, two local universities offer EFL teachertraining programs, with one university offers a four-yearbachelor education program in primary and secondaryEnglish education. Within the bachelor program, pre-ser-vice teachers should spend at least 8 weeks in an allocatedsecondary/primary school for teaching practicum under thesupervisions of one university supervisor and one schoolmentor. After the practicum, the pre-service EFL teacherscould enter their teaching career after being certified by theMacau Education and Youth Affair Bureau.ParticipantsParticipants were recruited through purposive sampling(Patton 2002). We sent an invitation email to the graduatesof a local English education program. Four participants(Diane, Judy, Vera, and Mark, all pseudonyms) respondedto this invitation and agreed to participate on an informedand voluntary basis. All the four participants were born andTransitioning from Pre-service to Novice: A Study on...123Author's personal copy

educated in Macau, with Cantonese as their first language.They had an over 16-year EFL learning experience, startingfrom primary year one to their graduation from university.They were outgoing and from working class families, withan upper-intermediate English proficiency. Except for theteaching in practicum, they had no prior formal teachingexperiences in schools. The demographic information ofthe four participants is displayed in Table 1.As displayed in Table 1, the four participants diversifiedin their gender, teaching level, and positions. Two (i.e.,Diane and Vera) had experiences on working as a classteacher during their early career stage. It should be notedthat Mark and Diane left their teaching positions for furtherMaster’s studies in English-related subjects after the firstand second years of teaching, respectively. Yet we did notexclude them from this study because we considered theircareer shift a form of novice teachers’ active pursuit ofpersonal development, which may have been inspired bytheir imagined identities in novice stage. Another form ofcareer shift, i.e., shifting schools, was also observed in thecase of Judy, who shifted to teach in another secondaryschool at the beginning of her third year in teaching. Thesedifferences in the four participants’ experiences increasedthe diversity and richness of the data sources for the presentstudy.Data Collection and AnalysisWhen the participants agreed to participate in this study,they were at the end of first-year teaching. They were firstinvited to an individual in-depth and semi-structuredinterview. Each individual interview comprised four pha-ses: In the first phase, the participants were invited to talkabout their motivation to join the teacher education pro-gram. Interview questions included the following: ‘‘Whydid you choose the program?’’ ‘‘Did you intend to be ateacher in the beginning?’’ The second phase focused ontheir learning experiences during the teacher educationprogram, and the third phase invited the participants tocomment on their practicum. Central questions includedthe following: ‘‘Anything of special concerns to you?’’‘‘Are there any changes to your feeling of being a tea-cher?’’ ‘‘What factors have influenced you as a teacher?’’In the fourth phase, the participants were invited to com-ment on their first-year teaching experience with questions:‘‘How are you getting along with your colleague/school?’’‘‘Did you plan to continue to work in the school?’’ Then tounderstand potential changes in the participants’ perceptionof themselves as teachers, the four participants were invitedfor a second in-depth interview at the end of their second-year teaching. The interview questions included the fol-lowing: ‘‘How is everything in this year?’’ ‘‘Were there anychanges in your plan to teaching and why?’’ ‘‘What factorshas influenced your teaching in this year and are there anychanges?’’ For Mark and Diane who quitted teaching formaster study in the second and third years, respectively,they were interviewed by emails so as to understand howtheir decisions were influenced by their practices and howtheir plans for study affected their practices and teacheridentity. All the interviews were conducted in Chinese witha certain amount of code-switching initiated by the par-ticipants out of their habitual use of languages. Each face-to-face interview lasted 60 to 90 min and all were audio-taped. These recordings were then transcribed verbatim andthen sent back to the participants for accuracy check.We also invited the four participants to submit a per-sonal reflection on their learning to teach during the teachereducation program, including the practicum, and theiractual teaching in schools. These reflections supplementedthe participants’ comments in interviews. Judy, Diane, andVera also shared with us the journals which recorded indetails their teaching and feelings during their practicumand teaching in schools. These materials allowed us totriangulate what we learned about their identities frominterviews with their first-person narratives in reflections.As we are researchers based on the teacher educationprogram where the participants graduated from, our emicperspective also allowed us to understand the participants’journals and reflections in contexts.Table 1 Demographic informationName Gender School medium Teaching level Teaching positions in different teaching yearsDiane Female Chinese Form 1&2Form 1&2Subject Teacher (1st year)Class & Subject Teacher (2nd year)Judy Female Chinese Form 1to3Form 1to3Form 1&2Subject Teacher (1st year)Subject Teacher (2nd year)Subject Teacher (3rd year)Vera Female Chinese Form 3&4Form 1&4Class & Subject Teacher(1st year)Subject Teacher (2nd year)Mark Male English Form 2&3 Subject Teacher (1st year)L. Jiang et al.123Author's personal copy

A qualitative interpretive paradigm (Miles et al. 2014)informed the data analysis. Open coding was first con-ducted. The transcripts, reflections, and journals were readand re-read multiple times, and words/phrases relating tothe participants’ identity experiences were coded withcategories. For instance, the code ‘‘negative practicum’’was used to label the comment ‘‘My mentor ruined myteaching practicum.’’ After, open coding was a retroductive(Ragin 1994) coding process shifting between a prioricodes based on our conceptual framework and the relevantliterature, and the categories that emerged from the opencoding process. In this step, larger overarching labels thatconnected the codes, consistent with the literature andconceptual framework, were identified. Factors that influ-enced identity shifts were also identified after a recursivecomparing process. Some examples of the categories andsubcategories were as follows:Imagined Identities Knowledge-oriented teaching, stu-dents’ friend, etc.Practiced Identities Babysitter, learning facilitator, etc.Contextual Factors Educational context, schoolrequirements, etc.Internal Factors Educational background, personalexperience and expectation, etc.In the third round of analysis, the categories weremerged and reorganized within each case. Then a cross-case analysis was conducted to see whether the four par-ticipants’ identity changes had similarities or differences(Merriam 1988). To enhance the trustworthiness of theanalysis, the authors first coded the data independently andthen shared their coding through discussions. After dis-cussions, all coders reached an agreement on the definitionsand classifications of imagined and practiced identitieswith their various features and potential factors. Relevantdata excerpts to be reported in this study were then trans-lated into English and back translated by a certifiedtranslator.FindingsThis section begins with the findings revealing the fourparticipants’ identities in the pre-service stage, followed byfour subsections illustrating the identity change of the fournovice EFL teachers, respectively.Identity in the Pre-service StageThe four participants differed in their visions of what kindof EFL teachers they wished to be before graduation.Among the four participants, three of them had clearimagined identities, while the other indicated a rathervague understanding about her professional identity.Specifically, Judy imagined herself to be an EFL teacherthat focused on knowledge rather than on exams:I want to be a good English teacher who doesn’tfocus on students’ test scores but on whether theyhave learnt the knowledge that will benefit them inthe future. I also care about their efforts to learn theknowledge.This excerpt shows that Judy had a knowledge-orientedidentity for being an English teacher. She attached greatimportance to knowledge and students’ awareness of it inEnglish teaching. Obviously, ‘‘I want to be an English tea-cher who …’’ should be part of her imagined identities.Furthermore, her imagined identity of being a knowledge-oriented teacher was cue based, since ‘‘doesn’t focus on testscores’’ and ‘‘care about their [students’] efforts to learn theknowledge’’ were differentiating features of a ‘‘good Englishteacher’’ in her cognition. When queried about why aknowledge orientation was important, Judy replied:Researcher: why do you feel knowledge is moreimportant?Judy: I know in Macau students and parents areconcerned about exams. Yet passing exams with ahigh score does not really mean that students hadlearned the knowledge. I knew this when I was astudent. So, I think teachers should take knowledgerather than exam score as teaching goals.(Judy-1st interview)This suggests that Judy’s knowledge-oriented identitystemmed from her personal beliefs as an EFL learner andher apparent dissatisfaction with the exam-oriented mind-set among Macau parents and students. Moreover, noviceEFL teachers’ imagined identities in the pre-service stagemay also stem from their prior learning experiences. Thiswas evident in the cases of Vera and Mark:The teaching and learning atmosphere in my primaryschool was lively. My primary English teacher oftendivided us into groups to play various games duringEnglish lessons. I really enjoyed those English les-sons at that time. So, I want to be an English teacherlike them who can teach English in a happy way.(Vera-1st interview)When I was in one language center, one of theEnglish instructors told me that a teacher should bestudents’ friend outside the classroom while beingtheir teacher in class. This is my expectation aboutbeing a teacher.(Mark-1st interview)In Vera’s case, she was deeply impressed by her pre-vious English teachers’ teaching style and this contributedTransitioning from Pre-service to Novice: A Study on...123Author's personal copy

to her construction of an imagined identity as an edutain-ment teacher who can teach through joyful activities andgames. Clearly inspired by her previous teachers, Vera’simagined identity should be an exemplar-based one. Sim-ilarly, Mark’s imagination of himself as both teacher andfriend to his students could be attributed to his previousexperience of learning in a language center (Journal entry-Mark). His imagined identity was also exemplar based as itwas inspired by one of the language instructors there.The other participant, Diane, however, did not manifestclearly an identifiable imagined identity about being EFLteachers in the pre-service stage:To be frank, I began my teacher education programwithout a strong wish to be an English teacher. I wasin this program because I didn’t get admitted intoanother program, which was my first choice…I haveno idea what sort of teachers I could be. I want towait and see what would happen when I become areal teacher.(Diane-1st interview)It appears that Diane’s failure to construct a clearimagined identity about being a teacher was due to herinitial motivation to join the English education program,which was her second choice. Her vague imagined identityin the pre-service stage may also be attributed to herunpleasant practicum experience, which led to furtherdoubts and confusions in her identity construction:I had unpleasant memories in my teaching practicum.My mentor wasn’t willing to communicate with meand I could feel a distance between us…After thepracticum I even started to think whether I should bea teacher or not? Am I suitable for this profession?(Diane-1st interview)It seems that Diane’s confusion over her imaginedidentity as an EFL teacher before her novice stage wasrelated to her mentor, who acted as a negative example forher. As a result, her negative practicum experience furtheralienated her from becoming an English teacher. Fortu-nately, Diane stated that she did not want to give up andshe had to give herself one more try on teaching professionafter four-year hardworking on her degree (Reflection-Diane).Overall, not all the participants were able to embark ontheir novice stage with clearly identifiable imagined iden-tities. For those who were able to construct cue-based andexemplar-based imagined identities, such construction wasclearly mediated by their prior learning beliefs and positivelearning experiences. Yet for those who did not start theirpre-service stage with a clear vision of becoming a teacher,their construction of imagined identities may be furtherblocked when they encountered negative teacher/mentorexamples. Thus, it appears that pre-service teachers’ con-struction of imagined identities was shaped not only bytheir personal beliefs but also by the learning/practicumexperiences in their sociocultural contexts.Identity Change in the Novice StageJudy: I am More like a FacilitatorJudy, who valued the importance of English knowledgewith an imagined identity as a knowledge-oriented teacher,took on a rather different identity when she encounteredpassive learners in her initial classroom experiences:The biggest challenge for me was the students’ poorexam results. I used to be an active learner. So, as ateacher I didn’t suppose that I should prepare themfor exams. I think they can review the materials andprepare by themselves. However, they never did soand they got very bad results in exams. The principaland other administrative leaders may then doubt myability as a new teacher. So, I had to spend a lot oftime teaching for mandated exams. I never expectthat I need to educate students like a baby-sitter.(Judy-1st interview)It became clear that Judy’s cue-based imagined identityof knowledge-oriented teacher had changed into a schema-based identity of babysitter in practice, through which shehad to prepare students for exams in an institution wherestudents were passive learners. Such a cognitive schemastemmed from the exam-oriented school culture and forcedher to change her teaching methods in order to preparestudents for mandated exams. Eventually, she felt intoler-able and transferred to teach in another secondary schoolwhere students were more active and autonomous. In thisnew school, Judy managed to take on an identity as alearning facilitator of students’ knowledge acquisition:In my previous school, the students weren’t moti-vated and I needed to prepare everything for theirexams. It was almost impossible to facilitate theirlearning of more important knowledge. Now, I ammore like a facilitator in this school. My students,especially those in the advanced class, are aware ofwhat they want to learn. I just need to tell them tolearn the knowledge and guide them to become self-leaners. This is closer to what I want to be as a tea-cher. I want to be such a teacher for life here.(Judy-2nd interview)In the social environment of her new school, Judymanaged to take on a learning facilitator identity, whichturned out to be closer to what she had imagined to be as anL. Jiang et al.123Author's personal copy

ideal EFL teacher, that is, a knowledge-oriented teacher.Thereby, it seems that in Judy’s case, her experience ofidentity change was a trajectory of searching for an identitythat was close to her imagined identity formed in the pre-service stage. In other words, Judy’s identity change in thenovice stage was indeed mediated by her imagined iden-tities, which appeared to fall apart in the beginning due tothe exam-oriented pressure from school leaders but wasthen reconstructed when Judy joined a new school.Vera: I have to Follow the Routines in this SchoolThe idea that Vera had cherished about was to be anedutainment teacher who can teach English in a joyful way.However, in her narration about her first year in teaching,‘‘stressful’’ became a common theme:I used to believe that an English teacher should teachEnglish in a joyful way so that students can enjoytheir learning. After entering into real teaching, I feltso stressful because I had no time to refine myteaching in an amusing way to students. My job waslike a system of many trivial parts and I need tomanage every part of it because there are alwaysdeadlines ahead of me.(Vera-1st Interview)It became clear that the difficulty for Vera to enact herimagined identity in practice was due to the institutionalimposition of additional duties on her. In addition to teachEnglish as a subject teacher, she was also assigned to be aclass teacher and this meant that she had to handle extraadministrative workload, which left her almost no time foran edutainment way to English teaching. Moreover, Verawas also desperate about the implicit conflict between herefforts to inculcate her students’ interest to learn Englishand the schools’ rigid rules on students’ examperformance:My initial hope was that my students could makesome progress and they can enjoy learning English.Some of them really achieved that. However, myhope was inconsistent with the school’s requirements.For example, one student improved his score from 35to 55. I, myself, could tell his improvement andefforts on learning English. However, he was stillmarked as ‘‘failed’’ according to the rules… It seemsunrealistic to be an edutainment teacher and I have tofollow the routines in this school.(Vera-1st Interview)Different from Judy who reconstructed her imaginedidentities, Vera’s identity in practice was defined more byinstitutional rules, which prescribed a ‘‘success’’ model forVera’s students, regardless of their efforts and enjoymentin English learning if they failed to reach the mandatedstandards. This recognition in Vera’s social cognition ofbeing a novice teacher had placed Vera in a dilemma whenshe noted an inconsistency between her envisaged ways ofteaching and the schools’ requirements. In the end, influ-enced by the institutional rules, it turned out that herimagined identity of being an edutainment teacher hadbeen renegotiated as an identity of being a routine per-former in her school.Mark: I Learned the ‘‘Dark’’ Side of BeingStudents’ FriendMark used to believe that an EFL teacher has to take ondual roles in teaching, that is, to be both students’ teacherand friend. When he became a teacher in an all-boy school,he managed to enact his imagined identity in practice andfound it ‘‘helpful’’ in building up rapports with students inthe initial stage of teaching:Because I became very close friends to them, it wasmuch easier for them to listen to me. Whenever Iwant them be quiet, what I need to do is showingthem my ‘‘stink face’’. They would say: ‘‘oh, Mark isupset, let’s be quiet.’’ I think this is a very usefulmethod.(Mark-1st interview)Different from Judy and Vera, Mark seemed to enjoy asmooth transition as he managed to enact what he hadimagined about being an EFL teacher in practice. Yet astime went by and after more interactions with his studentsin specific classroom contexts, Mark gradually recognizedthat taking on the dual role of being both teacher and friendto students was indeed a ‘‘double-edge sword’’:I gradually learned the dark side of being students’friend. As I was a close friend to them, they wouldbring many irrelevant topics to my class, includingsome daily life miscellaneous affairs. Sometimes Ithought I really didn’t want to know them! Evenclose friends should have some certain distance,right? The difficulty is how to strike a balancebetween being a teacher and a friend at the sametime, I think.(Mark-1st interview)Mark’s previous exemplar-based imagined identity hadbeen concretized and contextualized when he had moreinteractions with his students in practice. Through suchinteractions he reaped a deeper understanding of what itmeans to take on a dual identity (both teacher and friend)as an EFL teacher. Such understanding is manifested in hisreference to the importance of keeping certain distancebetween friends in social life. While this indicates that hisTransitioning from Pre-service to Novice: A Study on...123Author's personal copy

identity change may have evolved from exemplar basedinto schema based in cognitive terms, it should be notedthat such change was mediated by his experiences of dif-ficulties to dealing with student relations in teaching. Insearch of answers for his dilemma, that is, how to keep abalance in the dual role that he aspired to be, Mark appliedfor a Master’s study at an oversea university and he statedthat he would resume teaching when he had acquired moreknowledge after his further study (2ndinterview email).Thus, it seems safe to conclude that Mark’s hope for betterknowledge on teacher–student relations and interactionshad become a positive and powerful resource for his pro-fessional identity construction, though it is also possiblethat Mark might have affiliated himself with teaching atother sectors and such affiliation may also be the reason forhis pursuit of further studies.Diane: I had Learned to be a Responsible EducatorDiane was the only teacher who entered the teaching pro-fession without a clear imagined identity of what kind ofteachers to be. With a wait-and-see attitude, she plungedinto her novice stage of teaching, through which shegradually realized the meaning of being a ‘‘responsible’’teacher in practice:When I was a university student, my identity was justa student. But now I could tell that I had changed alot. When I became a full-time teacher and stood infront of a class of students, I told myself: ‘‘Wow!What a big responsibility!’’ From that moment, Iknow I couldn’t treat myself like a kid anymore. Thisis the first feeling that I had about being a teacher. Forme, it’s like growing up from a kid to an adult.(Diane- 1st interview)Diane’s cognition of becoming a responsible teacher toher students came into being when she became a realclassroom teacher. This identity was further concretized inher daily practice:I know there would be huge differences betweenwell-prepared lessons and those not well-preparedones. I spent a lot of time on preparing my lessons. Idid feel tired but I told myself I had to be reallyresponsible for my students. I tried my best to prepareand deliver lessons. This is what responsibility reallymeans, I think.(Diane- 1st interview)By contextualizing the meaning of being a responsibleteacher into the social practices of lesson planning andpreparation, Diane’s identity turned out to be schemabased. In her second year of teaching, Diane’s schema-based identity as a responsible teacher was furtherextended when she took on an additional role of being aclass teacher:In the second year, I was also a class teacher. Thatmeans in addition to their English learning, I alsoneed to pay attention to students’ mental health andbehaviors. This gave me a new sense of responsibil-ity. Apart from English teaching, I am also respon-sible for students’ development into an all-roundperson. What a heavy but glorious responsibility! Ithink I’m on my way to become a fully grown upteacher.(Diane-2nd interview)The opportunity to be a class teacher not only affirmedDiane’s identity as a responsible teacher but also extendedit into a responsible educator for students’ subject learningand all-round development. This schema of being a teacherin Diane’s case was more related to her understanding ofwhat is important in becoming a teacher in her schoolrather than to any top-to-down institutional impositions. Itwas Diane’s understanding that drove her on her way tobecome a ‘‘fully grown up’’ teacher, which appears to beDiane’s imagined and ideal identity that she upheld. It alsoforegrounds the importance of her personal willingness toundertake institutional roles and to further assimilate suchroles into her imagination of what it means to be aresponsible EFL teacher in her contexts.DiscussionSituated in Macau, this study set out to investigate EFLteachers’ identity change when transitioning from pre-ser-vice to novice in their professional experiences. Drawingon the concepts of imagined and practiced identities(Norton 2001) and the social representation theory (Mo-scrovici 2000), this study contributes to the literature byrevealing four patterns of identity change: renegotiation,evolution, establishment, and sustainment. Renegotiationrefers to a change within which imagined identities formedin the pre-service stage are then renegotiated into newidentities in the novice stage. This pattern was manifestedby Vera, whose cue-based imagined identity of being anedutainment teacher was then renegotiated into a rule-based identity of being a routine performer in practice. Thiscase lends further empirical supports to previous study onhow pre-service teachers’ imagined identities would fallapart when it comes to rule-governed practices in schools,especially those of a strong accountability culture (e.g.,Hamiloglu 2013; Xu 2013). It also illustrates how thesociocultural communities that teachers participate inwould constitute a contextual factor may limit teachers’renegotiation of their imagined identities (Trent 2016).L. Jiang et al.123Author's personal copy

The second pattern evolution refers to a change of pre-viously exemplar-based imagined identities, which may be‘‘primitive’’ and ‘‘vague,’’ into positive schema-basedidentities in practice, which are of ‘‘more maturity andclarity’’ (Xu 2013, p. 85). This pattern of change wasobserved in Mark’s case in this study. As a result of hisengagement with his classroom contexts and his self-re-flective practice, Mark was able to develop more under-standing of what it means to enact his imagined identities(i.e., be both a teacher and a friend to his students) inpractice, with dilemmas and difficulties that led to hisdesire to learn more knowledge regarding teacher–studentrelations. While this finding reinforces the role of indi-vidual agency and reflective practice (Tao and Gao 2017)in novice teachers’ identity construction, this study furtheradds that novice teachers’ hope for an imagined future ofteaching with more balanced teacher–student relations canbecome a powerful source of professional identity con-struction. It should be noted that such hope stemmed fromthe practice of interacting with students.The patterns of establishment and sustainment, however,have been less reported in previous studies. Establishmentas a change is manifested by Diane, who started her novicestage without clearly identifiable imagined identities butthen gradually established her identity as a responsibleteacher after her engagement with practice in real class-rooms. This finding is significant in that it shows thatimagined identity may not necessarily be a starting pointfor novice EFL teachers’ identity construction. This pointis rarely reported in previous studies. Diane’s case furtherreveals that her failure to establish a distinctive imaginedidentity in her pre-service stage was partly due to hernegative experience in the practicum with her mentor, whoserved as a negative example for Diane. Moreover, Diane’sidentity as a responsible teacher was closely intertwinedwith her imagined identity as a ‘‘grown up’’ teacher, whichseems to emerge out of her engagement with teachingpractice in authentic classrooms. This finding is importantas it indicates that novice EFL teachers may start theirteaching profession without any particular views of beingteachers, but this does not mean that they cannot developimagined identities after their participation in the teachingpractice. More research, however, is needed on the emer-gent process of novice teachers’ imagined identities duringtheir authentic practices.The final pattern sustainment was evident in the case ofJudy, whose imagined identity as a knowledge-orientedteacher was first reduced to a babysitter identity, but wasthen reestablished and sustained when she managed tobecome a facilitator of students’ knowledge learning afterswitching to a new school. While this case echoes what hasbeen reported about the roles of external factors in relationto students and school environment in shaping noviceteachers’ identity construction (Mesker et al. 2018; Trent2016), an important point about this case lies in its illus-tration of the power of imagined identities in noviceteachers’ construction of practiced identities. In otherwords, Judy’s reconstruction of a learning facilitatoridentity is not only a result of her resistance to thebabysitter identity in her previous school but also an activeinvestment in her aspiration to be a knowledge-orientedteacher, an imagined identity she had formed in her pre-service stage, by affiliating herself with ideal schoolcommunities when working within hostile school condi-tions. Such investment was evident in her resisting theundesirable identities (such as babysitter) and switching toa new school where she desired to be a teacher for life.Based on this point, this study argues that teachers who areworking at an unfavorable condition can still imagine theirmembership into alternative teacher/school communitiesand it is investing in such imagination that mediated Judy’sprofessional identity construction.Overall, the four routes of identity shifts when transi-tioning from pre-service to novice constitute a significantcontribution of this study, which indicates that novice EFLteachers’ identity in transition is not a linear transformationfrom the imagined to the practiced, as what has beenusually reported in previous studies (e.g., Xu 2013). Whileit should be acknowledged that without practice, pre-ser-vice teachers’ imagined identities tend to be cue based andexemplar based, and these features could make imaginedidentities unreliable and subject to change in practice, theresilient role of imagined identities should not be neglec-ted. As manifested by this study, imagined identity is notnecessarily a beginning point for novice teachers’ identityconstruction as they could start their teaching professionwithout any clear imagination about what sort of teachersto be (as manifested in Diane’s case). Nor would imaginedidentity merely be disappeared in novice teachers’ practice,which may either foster new forms of imagined identitiesor be mediated by the imagined identities that the teachershold dear within their cognitive schema of what counts asvaluable in EFL teaching. There is thus a critical need torevisit the role of imagined identities in novice teachers’construction of practiced identities. Instead of takingimagined identities as merely something determined byrules or replaceable, it is also important not to lose sight ofthe factors that mediate teachers’ identity shifts. As man-ifested by this study, a negative practicum experience mayfail to establish a positive teacher identity in studentteachers (as what Diane had experienced). The exam-ori-ented institutional culture could also lead to renegotiationof teachers’ imagined identities (as demonstrated by Vera).These findings reinforce a need to take teacher identitychange as a sociocultural process mediated by both per-sonal and contextual factors (Norton 2013).Transitioning from Pre-service to Novice: A Study on...123Author's personal copy

ConclusionDifferent from previous studies that take teachers’ identitychange as a linear cognitive process from the imagined tothe practiced (Hamiloglu 2013; Xu 2013), this study notonly revealed four patterns of identity shifts (i.e., renego-tiation, evolution, establishment, and sustainment) but alsoshowed how these shifts were mediated by a range ofindividual factors, including personal beliefs, prior leaningexperiences, and teaching practice, and contextual factorsin relation to the institutional exam-oriented culture. Thisstudy is not without limitations as it involved a limitednumber of cases within one context and thus its findingsshould be interpreted with caution in different contexts.Future studies should also employ multiple methods of datacollection, such as observation for more longitudinal por-traits of novice EFL teachers’ identity change across var-ious contexts.Despite the limitations, this study yields severalimportant implications. First, while aligning with previousstudies that call for a need for novice teachers to under-stand teaching profession from a more realistic perspectiverather than purely based on their imaginations, this studycalls for attention to the positive role and the resilientpower of imagined identities in mediating novice teachers’construction of identities in practice. This means thatteachers’ hope and imagination for future should be insti-tutionally acknowledged and supported because they canbecome a positive resource for novice teachers’ identityconstruction (Norton 2013). Otherwise, merely imposingrule-based practiced identities on teachers may result inteacher attrition (as indicated by Judy’s leaving her firstschool). Second, for those novice teachers who begin theirteaching without any clearly identifiable imagined identi-ties (as in Diane’s case), there is no need for them to feelinferior to other teachers as they could still foster imaginedidentities that mediate their construction of practicedidentities. It should also be noted that the ability to upholdone’s imagined identities and communities may be animportance booster of teacher agency. This explains whysome teachers would resist institutional placements of rule-based practiced identity on them and then manage to sus-tain and reconstruct their aspired identities (as in Judy’scase). More research is needed on how novice EFLteachers’ ability to capitalize on their imagination andaspiration could be fostered for more effective and rigorousidentity constructions in authentic teaching practices.Funding The study is kindly supported by MYRG2018-00096-FED,University of Macau.ReferencesAnderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities: Reflections on the originand spread of nationalism (Rev ed.). London: Verso.Beauchamp, C., & Thomas, L. (2009). Understanding teacheridentity: An overview of issues in the literature and implicationsfor teacher education. Cambridge Journal of Education, 39(2),175–189.Beauchamp, C., & Thomas, L. (2011). New teachers’ identity shifts atthe boundary of teacher education and initial practice. Interna-tional Journal of Educational Research, 50, 6–13.Farrell, T. (2009). The novice teacher experience. In A. Burns & J.C. Richards (Eds.), The Cambridge guide to second languageteacher education (pp. 182–189). Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.Friesen, M. D., & Besley, S. C. (2013). Teacher identity developmentin the first year of teacher education: A developmental and socialpsychological perspective. Teaching and Teacher Education, 36,23–32.Hamiloglu, K. (2013). Turkish student teachers’ reflections on theirprofessional identity construction and reconstruction processduring the practicum. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University ofLeicester.Hoijer, B. (2011). Social representations theory: A new theory formedia research. Nordicom Review, 32(2), 3–16.Hong, J., Day, C., & Greene, B. (2018). The construction of earlycareer teachers’ identities: Coping or managing? TeacherDevelopment, 22(2), 249–266.Hong, Y., & Chiu, C. (2001). Toward a paradigm shift: From cross-cultural differences in social cognition to social cognitivemediation of cultural differences. Social Cognition, 19(3),181–196.Kanno, Y., & Norton, B. (2003). Imagined communities andeducational possibilities: Introduction. Journal of Language,Identity and Education, 2(4), 241–249.Kelchtermans, G., & Ballet, K. (2002). The micropolitics of teacherinduction. A narrative-biographical study on teacher socialisa-tion. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18(1), 105–120.Lampert, M. (2010). Learning teaching in, from, and for practice:What do we mean? Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1–2),21–34.Lantolf, J. P. (2000). Second language learning as a mediated process.Language Teaching, 33, 79–96.Merriam, S. B. (1988). Case study research in education: Aqualitative approach. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Mesker, P., Wassink, H., Akkerman, S., & Bakker, C. (2018). Studentteachers’ boundary experiences during an international teachinginternship. Cognet Education, 5, 1–16.Miles, M., Huberman, A., & Saldana, J. (2014). Qualitative dataanalysis (3rd ed.). London: Sage.Miller, S. M. (2007). English teacher learning for new times: Digitalvideo composing as multimodal literacy practice. EnglishEducation, 40(1), 61–83.Moscovici, S. (2000). Social representations: Explorations in socialpsychology. Cambridge: Polity Press.Norton, B. (2001). When is a teen magazine not a teen magazine?Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 45(4), 296–299.Norton, B. (2013). Identity and languge learning: Extending theconversation (2nd ed.). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods(3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Ragin, C. (1994). Constructing social research. Thousand Oaks, CA:Pine Forge.L. Jiang et al.123Author's personal copy

Tao, J., & Gao, X. S. (2017). Teacher agency and identitycommitment in curricular reform. Teaching and Teacher Edu-cation, 63, 346–355.Trent, J. (2016). The identity construction experiences of early careerEnglish language teachers in Hong Kong. Great expectations andpractical realities. Research Papers in Education, 31(3),316–336.Trent, J. (2017). Discourse, agency and teacher attrition: Exploringstories to leave by amongst former early career English languageteachers in Hong Kong. Research Papers in Education, 32(1),84–105.Tsui, A. B. M. (2007). Complexities of identity formation: A narrativeinquiry of an EFL teacher. TESOL Quarterly, 41(4), 657–680.Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, andidentity. London: Cambridge University Press.Xu, H. (2013). From the imagined to the practiced: A case study onnovice EFL teachers’ professional identity change in China.Teaching and Teacher Education, 31, 79–86.Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard tojurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.Transitioning from Pre-service to Novice: A Study on...123Author's personal copy