Indonesian Pre-Service Teachers’ Identities in a Microteaching Context: Learning to Teach English in an Indonesian Teacher Education Program

Authors

Dwi Riyanti, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
Loukia K. Sarroub, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

2016

Citation

Published in Transcultural Flows of English and Education in Asian Contexts, Edited by Tyler Andrew Barrett and Melissa Fellin (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016).

Comments

Copyright © 2016 by Lexington Books.

Abstract

In today’s globalized era, English has become one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. As a language of science and an international means of communication, English has attracted people around the world to learn and speak it. While the global role of English has been viewed in various different frameworks including “colonial celebratory” (Pennycook 2001, 59) and a form of imperialism (Phillipson 1992), English has become a global language because of the power that its speakers have (McKay 2002; Crysta11997). However, with English being a global language, it is no longer solely the property of native speakers of English. As it is used among nonnative English speakers as a lingua franca, it is not a surprise that English is being appropriated linguistically and culturally (Pennycook 2007).

Borrowing Tsing’s (2005) idea of friction, English language teaching in non-English-speaking countries can be viewed as a site wherein different cultures collide. Canagarajah’s (1993) ethnographic work on Sri Lankan classrooms, for example, indicates apparent contradictions among native Sri Lankan students whose reactions to textbooks hint at the idea that globalization does not mean homogenization. This can also be the case in other English language teaching contexts, including non-English-speaking countries that prepare teachers to become teachers of English. The different contexts of English language teaching can inevitably affect how prospective English teachers are trained and how they identify themselves within the English-speaking world.

The purpose of this chapter is to better understand how pre-service EFL teachers in an Indonesian context, particularly in Kalimantan Island, develop their identities as EFL teachers in an Indonesian university teacher education program. Drawing on Gee’s (2014b) ideas of identities in Discourse, which are manifested in speech and behavior, and identity as the social positioning of self and others (Bucholtz and Hall 2005; Harre and Langenhove 1991), we explore how pre-service teachers use social languages in teaching their peers. Additionally, Fetterman’s (2010) idea about what constitutes culture frames the investigation of identity development in this exploratory study, focusing our attention on the observable behaviors and cultural knowledge of a group of pre-service English teachers during their interactions with their peers within university classroom settings. At the time of the data collection, these English pre-service teachers were engaged in microteaching, a university-based teaching practicum, wherein they teach their peers as if their peers are middle or high school students.