Originating in Europe in the 1970s, foreign language learner autonomy has become influential as an educational goal in many parts of the world, including ‘Confucian-heritage’ societies such as mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. More recently, it has been well recognised that the development of language learner autonomy depends largely on language teacher autonomy. Despite the ample literature on the interrelationship between language teachers’ autonomy and their students’ autonomy, there has been, to date, very little published empirical research on the complex interaction between autonomy in language learning and autonomy in language teaching, for the same individual, over a prolonged period of time. This research seeks to examine the nature and kinds of transition from learner to teacher autonomy in the development of the same individual moving from a language learner context to a language teacher context. Following an interpretative-qualitative research tradition, the study investigates and compares the learning-teaching experiences of English learners-teachers, spanning their pre-service teacher education and their initial years in school teaching, in mainland Chinese socio-institutional contexts. The research will contribute new knowledge to the long-term development of language learner and teacher autonomy and will generate insights into pre-service and in-service language teacher education. Copyright © 2018 Asia TEFL.

Novice teachers are often eager to embark on their journey in the teaching profession after years of teacher education, ready to actualize their educational ideals. Some head towards a smooth start while others encounter a wide range of constraints during their initial years of teaching. Drawing on narrative interviews with a number of novice English teachers in Shenzhen and Hong Kong for at least one academic year and other data sources such as their EFL learning autobiographies and school documents, this paper examines and compares (1) the opportunities and constraints these teachers face in their initial years of teaching and (2) their responses to the perceived opportunities and constraints in their attempts to take control of their teaching, in two different socio-cultural and educational contexts of Shenzhen and Hong Kong. This paper highlights how possibilities for and constraints on teacher autonomy are mediated by teacher agency, teacher identity and teacher beliefs. It also sheds light on how novice teachers can be afforded more opportunities in their struggle to become autonomous practitioners. Copyright © 2016 華中科技大學外國語學院.

Novice teachers often undergo an identity shift from learner to teacher. Along this process, their instructional beliefs change considerably which in turn affect their teacher identity formation. Drawing on data collected mainly through interviews with three novice English teachers for more than one year, the present study examines their first-year teaching experience in Hong Kong secondary schools, focusing on changes of their English teaching beliefs and the impact of these changes on their identity construction. Findings reveal that while the teachers’ initial teaching beliefs were largely shaped in their prior school learning and learning-to-teach experience, these beliefs changed and were reshaped a great deal when encountering various contextual realities, and these changes further influenced their views on their teacher identity establishment, unfortunately in a more negative than positive direction. The study sheds light on the importance of institutional support in affording opportunities for novice teachers’ workplace learning and professional development. Copyright © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.