Considering the essential role of language teacher educators in shaping the views and practices of future generations of language teachers, the limited attention that has been given to how these educators construct their professional identities is surprising. This article reports the results of a qualitative study that contributes to addressing this gap in knowledge by exploring how three experienced language teacher educators construct their professional identities in Hong Kong. Drawing upon elements of career construction theory, the study used in-depth interviews to investigate the responses of these educators to the complex and challenging demands they encounter in research, teaching, and institutional service throughout the pursuit of their professional identities construction goals. Results suggest that the three educators value career adaption and operationalize adaptability as the willingness to both constrain their concerns and accept the necessity for compromises and trade-offs. Implications for leaders of higher education institutions concerned with supporting language teacher educators' identities construction are discussed. Suggestions for future research are also considered. Copyright © 2024 TESOL International Association.

This paper reports the results of a qualitative study that used in-depth interviews to understand the experiences and perceptions of six pre-service teachers as they engaged in microteaching at a tertiary institution in Hong Kong. Using a framework grounded in dialogism and positioning theory, the study describes the ways in which different discourses offer, as well as deny, positions to the pre-service teachers as they planned and implemented microlessons. The results suggest that competition between these discourses to position pre-service teachers can result in microteaching being associated with negative emotional experiences, such as disappointment, isolation, and frustration. This emotional dissonance is shown to lead some preservice teachers to question the efficacy of microteaching. The paper therefore argues that it is imperative for teacher educators to support pre-service teachers’ engagement in microteaching by revealing the presence of these discourses and by exploring how the latter can exercise agency by accepting, resisting, or rejecting the positions made available to them during their microteaching experience. Suggestions for future research are also considered. Copyright © 2023 Edith Cowan University. All rights reserved.

This study examines in-service teachers’ attitudes and teacher self-efficacy in implementing inclusive practices in Hong Kong classrooms. The predictors of teachers’ attitudes and teacher self-efficacy for inclusive practices were also investigated. Participants of the study comprised 1110 primary and secondary in-service teachers. Results reveal that Hong Kong in-service teachers had slightly positive attitudes towards inclusion. Teacher self-efficacy for inclusive practices was moderate and had a positive impact on teachers’ attitudes. Prior experience in teaching students with disabilities, confidence in teaching students with disabilities, level of training, years of teaching experience, self-efficacy in inclusive instruction and collaboration were significant predictors of teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education. Knowledge of legislation and policies, confidence in teaching students with disabilities and teachers’ beliefs and their feelings were determined as the significant predictors of teacher self-efficacy. Recommendations and the limitations of the findings are discussed in light of these results. Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

In today's increasingly diverse educational landscapes, the professional lives of first language (L1) teachers are undergoing significant transformations. This chapter explores the concept of ‘transprofessional identity’ as it pertains to the changing self-definition of L1 Chinese language teachers in increasingly multilingual, multicultural school settings. While prior research extensively examined the translingual identity of second language (L2) teachers in multilingual contexts, the unique transprofessional experiences of L1 teachers have been overlooked. This research fills this gap by analyzing the narratives of two L1 Chinese language teachers' professional trajectories. Ms. Au, a long-standing L1 teacher in a Hong Kong public school, faced the challenge of instructing South Asian ethnic minority students due to demographic shifts; Mr. Bao transitioned from teaching L1 to local Hong Kong students to L2 to multicultural learners in an international school. This chapter delves into the complexities of their transprofessional identity negotiation, encompassing pedagogical approaches, student diversity, and evolving institutional contexts. The analysis reveals the multifaceted, boundary-crossing negotiations undertaken by the two teachers. This chapter challenges the conventional notion of language teacher professionalism, which rigidly segregates L1 and L2 teaching as distinct subject areas. Copyright © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Sin Manw Sophia Lam, John Chi-Kin Lee and Chung Mou Si; individual chapters, the contributors.

This chapter reports the struggles of one group of ethnic minority early career teachers (EMECTs) to construct their personal and professional identities in Hong Kong. Although all early career teachers will, at times, encounter tensions as they struggle to construct, sustain, and advance their preferred teacher identities, EMECTs, because they are part of a group that lives within particular and possibly pejorative societal discourses about ethnic minority populations in Hong Kong, face additional challenges to construct their teacher identities. Nevertheless, the voices of these teachers have hitherto been largely absent from the literature. This chapter addresses this gap in current knowledge by using a narrative short story approach to explore these voices. Grounded in Bakhtin’s framework, the narratives reported in this chapter reveal discursive tensions in which EMECTs’ desire to construct their professional identities comes into tension with their identification by others as members of ethnic groups within Hong Kong. Results underscore the role of relations of power, as discourses compete to define what it means to be an EMECT in Hong Kong. Implications for supporting the identity construction efforts of these teachers are discussed and suggestions for future research are considered. © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Zia Tajeddin and Bedrettin Yazan; individual chapters, the contributors.

Background: Preschool teachers’ well-being is positively associated with their students’ development and learning outcomes. Developing a positive psychological intervention that can foster preschool teachers’ well-being would be essential.Purpose: This study examined the effects of an intervention based on the PERMA (i.e., positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment) model on well-being outcomes among preschool teachers in Hong Kong.Method: We recruited 116 preschool teachers (Mage = 34.14 years, SD = 10.17, range = 21–59; female = 98.51%). Participants were randomly assigned to the intervention (n = 51; received four online workshops that cultivated the PERMA dimensions in 4 weeks) and waitlist control group (n = 65; only received the workshops after the data collection). Participants completed a survey that measured the PERMA dimensions of well-being at baseline 4- and 8-week follow-up occasions. MANCOVA and ANCOVA, controlling for gender, age, and teaching experience, were employed to examine the intervention effects.Results: A significant time x group interaction effect was found in the MANCOVA, Wilks’ Lambda F(10,102) = 2.19, p = .02, η2 = .18. The results of ANCOVA revealed that participants in the intervention group scored significantly higher on engagement, relationship, and accomplishment (η2 = .02 to .05, p < .05) than those in the control condition across time.Conclusion(s): Our findings highlighted the effects of PERMA-based interventions to promote mental health of preschool teachers. Teachers are encouraged to engage in positive psychological activities (e.g., positive reappraisal and self-compassion) to cultivate their well-being. Copyright © 2023 ICBM.

Earlier work has been well-documented how emotional of teaching connecting with professionalism and affected by moral purpose of teachers, cultures, and contexts (Day & Qing, 2009; O’ Connor, 2008). However, there is a missing link to explore how teachers interpret emotional experiences from ethical dilemmas encountered at work. Using social constructivist perspective, this study argues that emotional experiences are conditioned by the contexts in which social interactions with students, parents and other colleagues take place (Lasky, 2005; Oplatka & Arar, 2019). This qualitative study attempts to understand kindergarten teachers’ emotional experiences by analyzing how they perceive and navigate the ethical dilemmas in work. An interpretive approach is applied with interview data collected from twelve Hong Kong kindergarten teachers. Data are analyzed inductively based on descriptions of critical incident cases reported. Researchers interpreted, coded, and grouped data into themes. The interview quotes exhibit that teachers’ emotions are contextually bounded. The dilemmatic experiences stemmed from teachers can be characterized into three ethical considerations: Role of empathy and care, culture of reciprocal trust, and dispositions related to cultural responsiveness. The discussion will contribute to the depictions of emotional experience, especially teachers are facing multiple challenges in working with different stakeholders. It also gives us some insights into how teachers develop ethical judgment for dealing with the situations given in such critical incident cases. Copyright © 2023 ISA, International Sociological Association.

Since the public release of ChatGPT in November 2022, generative AI tools—capable of creating human-like content such as audio, code, images, text, simulations, 3D objects, and videos—have gained significant attention. While the impact of these tools on language teaching and learning has been widely speculated, the perspective of language teacher educators concerning their influence on initial language teacher education (ILTE) remains unexplored. This study investigates how teacher educators, who play a crucial role in adapting ILTE to technological advancements, perceive the effects of generative AI tools on ILTE. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with thirteen English language teacher educators from all four Hong Kong government-funded universities offering ILTE. Findings reveal that participants believe generative AI tools will substantially affect the ILTE curriculum, instruction, and assessment. However, most participants believed they lacked the confidence and competence to address the implications of generative AI tools effectively. This study highlights the need for further research and training to support teacher educators in adapting ILTE to the emerging influence of generative AI. Copyright © 2024 The Authors.

This paper captures the group dynamics underpinning preservice teacher identity formation to understand how childhood schooling and teacher education shape the teaching metaphors teachers construct of intercultural education. We propose a theory of identity grafting (IG) for a precise framing of the diverse ways teachers identify with intercultural education vis-à-vis other pre-established aspects of their teacher identities. Studying their IGs helped us connect the preservice teachers’ experiences with the experiences of other teachers that had emerged in global literature. We draw insights from our efforts to co-construct with preservice teachers their professional development in facilitating intercultural education. Adapting the activities based on their responses, we co-constructed with each other during the workshop teacher identities with a sense of connectedness between intercultural education and other pedagogical forms. We observed preservice teachers as we facilitated their discussions, employing ethnographic approaches to immerse ourselves in the interactions of the workshop participants. The findings revealed that preservice teachers had become more mindful of the implications of their intercultural education practices after having reflective dialogues with each other. However, although the teachers successfully integrated each other's views about intercultural education practices, this could not be sustained when they attempted to contextualize these efforts. The teachers could not reconcile their disparate childhood experiences with cultural diversity as students graduating from schools with differing academic performance rankings (school banding). Therefore, they struggled to connect their experiences with other pedagogical forms that they had previously encountered. Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The present study examined the association between pre-service teachers’ mindfulness and critical thinking dispositions, as indexed by engagement, cognitive maturity, and innovativeness in critical thinking. A total of 72 Chinese pre-service teachers were recruited from Hong Kong to complete an online questionnaire cross-sectionally. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that mindfulness was differentially associated with critical thinking dispositions. As important dimensions of mindfulness, mindful presence was positively associated with engagement in critical thinking, whereas mindful acceptance was positively associated with cognitive maturity in the regression models. However, neither mindful presence nor mindful acceptance was related to innovativeness in critical thinking. As a covariate, gender was not related to dimensions of mindfulness and critical thinking dispositions. The present findings inform the literature on the relation between pre-service teachers’ mindfulness and critical thinking dispositions, particularly in the Chinese context. As a major implication, policymakers should be made aware of the importance of strengthening pre-service teachers’ mindfulness, such that they could have a greater disposition to teach critically as they enter the workforce. Copyright © 2024 The Author(s).