BILINGUAL TEACHERS’ IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN THEIR NARRATIVES STORIES UNHEARD AND UNSPOKEN: A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education – Doctor of Philosophy By Eunjung Jin 2020 ABSTRACT BILINGUAL TEACHERS’ IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN THEIR NARRATIVES STORIES UNHEARD AND UNSPOKEN: By Eunjung Jin This study investigates the stories of bilingual teachers who have multiple selves, seeing themselves as teacher, immigrant, female, mother, non-native speaker. How these teachers identify and develop their identities through narrative construction, positioning and metaphoric presentation is central to this study. The purpose of this study is to explore tensions between multiple conflicting identities of bilingual teachers with a focus on emotions and to examine the ways in which bilingual teachers construct their professional identities through creation of metaphor in relation to their beliefs, assumptions, thoughts, practice, and contexts. This study examines tensions emerged through identity construction and tension management focusing on bilingual teachers’ emotional complexity. Unfolding how bilingual teachers’ construct their professional identities in their narrative I delineate the multiple selves presented in the narrative such as immigrant identity, teacher identity, acculturator identity, language learner identity, and discuss how the micro and macro contextual factors are relevant to the tensions of multiple selves; for example, the school curriculum and culture, teacher and policy expectation, and teacher’ learning experience. This study also explores how bilingual teacher’s self-created metaphors reveal their perceptions of selves in terms of roles, responsibilities, and beliefs and assumptions in teaching and learning. Metaphor serves as useful means to present abstract ideas and thoughts and such functions of metaphor is employed in understanding teachers’ perceptions of themselves. Through this research, not only do teachers’ metaphors reveal their perception of what teacher is in Korea but also the metaphors uncover individual sense of themselves. Copyright by EUNJUNG JIN 2020 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS So many people supported me with this journey that I find myself unable to express my thanks. First, I am grateful to my advisor and the chair of my dissertation committee, Dr. Lynn W. Paine. The support she provided through my graduate school career enabled me to process whole of my dissertation. Her warm encouragement helped me recover when I faltered, and her patience and understanding aided me overcome many difficulties in completing this dissertation. She guided me to think deeply about and improve the quality of my work. I learned much from her about how to write and conduct research as well as how to approach life and profession as a teacher, scholar, and mentor. I am also thankful to my amazing committee members, Drs. Lynn Fendler, Terry Flennaugh, Alyssa Dunn, for their generous contributions to my work. Their guidance and insight assisted me throughout this process and I am fortunate to have them as mentors. I express my deepest gratitude for my mother, Youn-ok, who has always been a big inspiration in my life. I deeply thank her for her sacrifices and love that encouraged me to reach this far. Finally, I thank God for his great love, only love that made this journey successful. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES......................................................................................................................viii LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………………..ix CHAPTER ONE…………………………………………………………………………………1 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………..1 CHAPTER TWO ………………………………………………………………………………..8 CONTEXT ……………………………………………………………………………………….8 Historical context of weness in Korea …………………………………………………... 8 Construction of otherness through media and policy …………………………………...12 Damuwha issues in the educational context …………………………………………….13 Bilingual education as government solution to resolve damunwha issues ……………...16 CHAPTER THREE ……………………………………………………………………………20 A TEACHING LIFE: HOW AND WHY THIS RESEARCH CAME TO BE………………….20 Portraits of participants…………………………………………………………………..20 Fumiko: Japanese teacher ……………………………………………………….22 Young-hee: Chinese teacher …………………………………………………….23 Hae-soon: Chinese teacher ………………………………………………………26 Mei-ling: Chinese teacher ……………………………………………………….27 Yujin: English and Tagalog teacher ……………………………………………..29 Data Collection and Analytic Process, Choices, and Strategies ………………………...30 Researcher Positionality …………………………………………………………40 CHAPTER FOUR ……………………………………………………………………………..42 BILINGUAL TEACHERS’ NARRATIVES: EMERGED TENSIONS AND CONSTRUCTING IDENTITIES ……………………………………………………………………………………42 Language Teacher Identity as Multiple and Conflicting ………………………………..42 Language Teacher Identity as Discontinuous and Social ……………………………….45 Inside and Outside School: Immigrant self vs teacher self ……………………………...49 Inside School: Korean language teacher vs acculturator ………………………………..52 Inside Classroom: Language teacher vs language learner ……………………………...56 Constructed images of teachers and Constructing identities in narrative ……………….59 “Teacher as professional”………………………………………………………..60 “Teacher as public servant” ……………………………………………………..64 “Teacher as top” …………………………………………………………………69 Discussion ……………………………………………………………………………….73 Defining identities constituting bilingual teachers’ multiple selves …………………….73 Immigrant identity ………………………………………………………………73 Teacher identity …………………………………………………………………73 Acculturator identity …………………………………………………………….74 . vi Language learner identity ……………………………………………………….74 Micro and Macro contexts: Being multiple selves as bilingual teachers ………………..75 Conclusion and Implications …………………………………………………………….80 CHAPTER FIVE ........................................................................................................................82 WHAT AM I? BILINGUAL TEACHERS’ METAPHORS AND THEIR IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION ……………………………………………………………………………...82 Theoretical Framework …………………………………………………………………82 Method ………………………………………………………………………………….86 Analysis: The Metaphors Teachers Constructed ………………………………………. 88 Fumiko: Teacher as onion ………………………………………………………88 Young-hee: Teacher as Thick Glass …………………………………………….90 Hae-soon: Teacher as Bridge ……………………………………………………92 Mei-ling: Teacher as Scarf ……………………………………………………...94 Yujin: Teacher as Jangdok ……………………………………………………....97 Discussion ……………………………………………………………………………….99 Look in: teachers’ perceptions of role, responsibility, and challenges ……….....99 Look Out: critical reflection on teaching and sociocultural environment ……..101 Conclusion and Implications …………………………………………………………...104 CHAPTER SIX ……………………………………………………………………………….106 CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………………………………..106 What I learned about the bilingual teachers ……………………………………………106 Why the present study is meaningful …………………………………………………..108 REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………………………..112 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1. Types of Multicultural Education Class……………………………………………...18 Table 2.2. Overview of participants ……………………………………………………………..19 Table 4.1. Teacher as professional. ……………………………………………………………...60 Table 4.2. Teacher as public servant. …………………………………………………………....64 Table 4.3. Teacher as top………………………………………………………………………. .69 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 5.1. Metaphors as a continuum of critical attitude ……………………………………..102   ix CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION I am afraid of January coming, the season of renewing a contract every year, not knowing whether to move or stay or where to go to work with or for whom … But what I am most afraid of is that I might have to leave my students without saying good-bye… Nobody even tells me why it has to happen and nobody will hear good-bye from me. (Hae-soon, January, 5, 2015) Hae-soon’s eloquence is, indeed, a sad soliloquy. And it speaks for many. She is a certified bilingual teacher, lawfully categorized as a non-regular employee under the Korean school system. The position of bilingual teacher is relatively new in Korea, created in 2006 under the multicultural education policy, with the purpose of supporting the increasing population of immigrant students. Hae-soon is also an immigrant from China, bilingual in Korean and Chinese. Her position, as she correctly describes it, is non-tenure track: every January she and other bilingual teachers in Korea are required to renew their one-year contracts. But in this aspect, the re-appointment decision depends not on their previous year’s teaching performance feedback, but on the school’s needs. These needs are a mix of elements including demand from immigrant students and parents, various schools’ curricula, and/or school leaders’ personal philosophies. In short, in their bilingual-teacher professional lives they suffer instability and vulnerability. And logic dictates, of course, that such instability and vulnerability then floods into their private lives and the lives of their immediate families. 1 These challenges faced by Korea’s bilingual teachers like Hae-soon reflect issues about marginalized people, in this case non-native teachers, whose voices have not been heard in the context of education. And this is not limited to Korea. For example, since the Bilingual Education Act (BEA), Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, opponents of bilingual education in the US argue that bilingual education is ineffective in narrowing the academic achievement gap between students who are native-speakers of English, and students with diverse linguistic backgrounds (Ovando, 2003). However, ample research indicates that if the optimal learning conditions are provided - adequate resources, staffing programs and qualified personnel, and a proper testing system - bilingual education would produce better results (Banks & Banks, 2009; Kubota, 2009; Cummins, 2010). Aggravating this debate is that in many global contexts, the quality of bilingual teachers has been called into question, and in some instances blamed as a major factor in the failure of bilingual education (Striticus & Garcia, 2005) Concerns over bilingual teachers’ competence are closely related to their knowledge and teaching skill, and what they had the opportunity to learn through their teacher preparation. Central to these issues are questions about non-native-speaker teachers in language teaching, including those who teach ESL, EFL, and TESOL. Such questioning of groups of teachers reminds us that there are “hegemonic relations between non-native speaker and native speaker teachers” (Varghese et al., year, p.5), and non-native-speaker teachers have experienced marginalization in many contexts worldwide. In fact, reports from countries as diverse as USA, Poland, Japan, China, and Australia suggest many bilingual teachers experience similar issues that question their professionality; this attitude negatively impinges on their lives and sense of self (Kong & Yang, 2015). 2 Korea has its own context of bilingual education. The Korean-specific context of bilingual education involves bilingual teachers’ multiple positions: bilingual teachers in Korea are immigrant, mostly females, married to Koran men, and mothers of multicultural children. As non-native speakers of Korean, bilingual teachers are those who enact the country’s multicultural education policy by teaching language and culture to immigrant students and native Korean students through three different types of courses: bilingual classes, multicultural education classes, and foreign language classes. With these multiple selves, bilingual teachers have experienced marginalization in terms of salary, treatment, and relationship in the school setting. Living in a highly-ethnocentric society which has an historical and cultural background of constructing strong we-ness and other-ness, these bilingual teachers experience various forms of exclusion inside and outside school settings. They live in what Park (1928) call a “marginal men’s situation” in which they internalize various Korean social and cultural values yet still remain within society’s margins. Suspended between multiple cultural realities, bilingual teachers struggle to establish their professional identities. The concept of “marginal men” may be valuable in recognizing the ways in which such people are relegated to the margins. Yet that concept treats them as passive. In contrast, while I recognize that Korea’s bilingual teachers are marginalized, I view them as active agents, constructing their professional identities in response to (and/or incited by) the Korean contexts. Hae-soon, meanwhile, feels grateful that the Korean education system allows her to hold the teaching job that is a socially and culturally privileged position in Korea. She believes her presence as immigrant, with different accent and background, lets her be inspiring and motivating to native Korean students and also immigrant students. She is competent in teaching and feels proud of her teaching fundamental knowledge necessary for native Korean students to 3 understand others and for immigrant students to be good and well-behaved citizens. She chooses to define her teacher role as being an acculturator by actively engaging in the process of identity construction. As described here, in this research bilingual teachers show a range of emotions and sentiments toward being teachers, and my interests lie in their identity construction in relation to those diverse emotions, beliefs, and experiences. For preliminary research in 2012, I met five bilingual teachers, Fumiko, Mei-ling, Young-hee, Hae-soon, and Yujin. Since then, multiple interview sessions and informal conversations have enabled us to build rapport that encouraged them to open their minds and tell their stories. By listening, I was able to understand their perspectives on what being a teacher is and who they are as bilingual teachers. Due to the diverse nature of teacher identity—multiple, conflicting, discontinuous, and social--ample research has been conducted centering on the dynamics of identity construction (Clarke, 2008; Varghese et al., 2005; Akkerman & Meijer, 2011). Little research, however, has examined the Korean-specific contextual factors revealed in teachers’ narratives, identifying the ways in which bilingual teachers actively exercise their agency in constructing their own identities. This research highlights the human diversity among bilingual teachers in order to make these teachers less a generic category and more individual humans with their own commitments and professional identities. With this in mind, I conducted this research particularly focusing on the tensions between conflicting identities and metaphoric presentation of professional identities in relation to beliefs and experiences. This research aims at exploring how bilingual teachers understand themselves as teachers by participating in discursive practices in Korean education settings. I explore that with the following comprehensive questions: 4 1. How do multiple and conflicting identities of bilingual teachers create tensions in their own narratives and how are tensions managed by bilingual teachers? How are bilingual teachers’ emotions induced by tensions? 2. How do bilingual teachers construct their professional identities through creation of metaphor? How do they discuss and have insight into whom they are in relation to their beliefs, assumptions, thoughts, practice, and contexts through metaphoric language? This study begins from a place of inquiry, as I aim to understand bilingual teachers in Korea as active agents in the dynamic context of a national bilingual education policy. Using a narrative inquiry method, I asked teachers to share their stories. In interpreting their experience, the teachers actively constitute themselves in their narratives, and do so with startling and memorable originality. I expect that this study will expand the knowledge of marginalization of teachers who are actively constructing their identities while making sense of their surroundings in multicultural education contexts. My interest in bilingual teachers’ identities in Korea is because I have come to share a position similar to those of bilingual teachers by my living in the US as a Korean, teaching US students the values of diversity and multiculturalism, while being positioned and positioning myself as an outsider. In this global society, “all of us are men on the move and on the make, and all of us by transcending the cultural bounds of our narrower society become to some extent marginal men” (Wirth, 1964), pp. 39-40). Having lived in my highly ethnocentric society and experienced a strong sense of belonging there, I experienced dramatic change by moving to the US to study. There, deeply immersed in the US discourse of bilingualism and multiculturalism, I constantly came to question my identity as someone who teaches in a US context. Like 5 immigrant bilingual teachers in Korea, I also am a “marginal man” , as I have internalized the values of US society and often questioned who I am as a teacher while actively responding to my surroundings. I have struggled to make sense of my position in the US, where the dominant language and culture are different from mine in ways that sometimes produce significant barriers. While I was interested in Korea’s multicultural education policy and aware that a category of teachers— so called “bilingual teachers”— were instrumental to its enactment, it was not until I reflected on my own experience as a marginalized international teacher in a US context that I began to ask new questions of the Korean policy and those charged with implementing it. I became increasingly interested in the individual teachers, how they were positioned, and how they positioned themselves. By sharing a position somewhat similar to those of bilingual teachers in Korea, I have realized that marginalization no longer is exclusive to the US. It can occur in any society worldwide. The study of marginalization of teachers needs global and comparative perspective. In this research, with a focus on the specific contexts of marginalization in Korea, I will emphasize the individuality of bilingual teachers as human beings who have their own commitments and professional identities, and who have their own stories through which they construct their own professional identities. I hope this research reveals those stories that never have been spoken and never heard. In this research, I would like to highlight the humanity of bilingual teachers so that they can become more visible to each other, to other Korean educators, and to educators in the global society. In Chapter 2, I elaborate the contextual information of Korean education and society in relation to the national bilingual education policy. In Chapter 3, I offer portraits of five participants of bilingual teachers, so as to provide readers with background to help them 6 understand individual teachers and their narratives. I then expand on my methodological choices in collecting, working and making sense of their stories. In Chapter 4, I address my first research question regarding tensions that emerge through identity construction and tension management, focusing on bilingual teachers’ emotional complexity. The chapter’s first part examines bilingual teachers’ sense of selves and tensions between these with a focus on various emotions presented in narratives. The latter part analyzes how bilingual teachers construct their professional identities in their narratives and explores the possible contextual factors that affect the process. In Chapter 5, I address the second question in relation to metaphoric presentation of self in narrative. I explore how bilingual teachers’ self-created metaphors reveal their perceptions of selves in terms of roles, responsibilities, and beliefs and assumptions in teaching and learning. Chapter 6 offers some summary and reflection on what this study helps us understand. 7 CHAPTER TWO CONTEXT In this chapter, I provide more background to the Korean context in which these teachers work. I first explore the longstanding history of ethnocentrism—what is refered to as “we-ness” and its corresponding “otherness”-- that shapes Korea today. I then outline the educational implications which eventually led to the creation of the multicultural educational policy, specific courses created through it, and the category of teachers created by and charged with carrying out this policy. Historical context of weness in Korea Korean students are taught to be proud of being members of Danil Minjok (literally, one- blood ethnicity) with more than 5000 years of history in Hanbando (the Korean peninsula). The concept of Danil Minjok is based on Dangoon Shinwha, a mythical folktale that explains that the Son of Heaven descended to earth to rule Hanbando with the ethos of Hongik Ingan (good for all mankind). Current Koreans living in Hanbando are described as descendants of this son of heaven who should have ethnic and national pride as Danil Minjok. The term Danil Minjok has existed since BC1000. Around that time, diverse ethnic groups moved from Eurasia to live in Hanbando. They constructed a collective nativistic identity which distinguished them from other ethnic groups who lived outside Hanbando; the term was explicitly exclusionary. The contemporary concept of Danil Minjok along with its associated idea of “pure” are actually products of Korean modernization from the 19th century (Olneck, 2011). During this modernization period, Enlightenment leaders employed the earlier concept of Danil Minjok as 8 ideology of national unity in order to demolish the existing caste system and critique the class system that was a barrier to the construction of a shared ethnic community. The point here is that the idea has early roots - i.e., from 1000BC - that already was about creating distinction between "Koreans" and other ethnic groups residing elsewhere. But that Danil Minjok later was exploited - i.e., in the 19th century - to build a kind of national unity that had egalitarian ideals. From 1910 to 1945, Koreans were under Japanese colonization. During this period they experienced denial of their language, history, and culture via a manipulative ideology of racial inferiority (Kang, 2010). On the one hand, the Japanese used schooling to produce colonized racism, which in turn led the Korean people to internalize colonialism and racism. Japanization was interpreted as modernization and enlightenment among elites in Korea. After liberation, Americanization became the new image of modernization and enlightment. At the same time, in the first half of the 20th century, independent activists attempted to spread the concept of Danil Minjok, emphasizing ethnic community based on blood relations, as a form of resistance against outsiders who invaded Korean territory. After the Korean war, Danil Minjok was yet again employed for political purposes, this time with the goal of encouraging national sentiment to try to avoid the division of Korea into South and North. In the Cold War period, nationalism with an emphasis on ethnic homogeneity was a crucial ideology for social cohesion and solidarity in Korea. To promote Korea to powerful nation-state status, Korean elites relied on “nationalism, anti-communism, market capitalism and pro-Americanism” (Park, 2006, p. 228). Yeom & Ginsburg (2007) argue that the way Korea has educated their people with an emphasis on national mono-culture is similar to neo-conservatives’ educational agenda in the United States. In Korea, there has been “dual ethnic bias based on ethnic exclusivism” (Kang, 2010, p. 289). That is, Korean people look up to or feel connected to people from advanced 9 countries, while being antagonistic to ethnic minorities from underdeveloped countries. They experience discrimination against themselves as ethnic minorities by White colonialists in global contexts, but at the same time, they refuse to be seen as people with darker skin such as people from Southeast Asia, Africa, or Latin America. What is called “white complex” among the Korean people is deeply rooted in the history of colonized modernity and racism. Thus, Korea has, over waves of different political, social and economic moments, drawn on a language of purported homogeneity as a way of marking itself off from other communities. This, coupled with the internalized racism, leads to the strongly held and asymmetrical views of cultural, ethnic or linguistic difference. In the 21st century, a growing number of scholars and eventually policy voices have begun to challenge the traditions that value monocultural (and exclusionary, nativistic) national narratives. Kang & Hong (2008) argue that Korean society should overcome ethnic bias based on ethnocentrism through decolonization of thinking, and focus instead on the coexistence of all different kinds of cultures and ethnic minorities. These calls have taken on greater relevance as the country’s population has shifted. With economic growth, the Korean labor market has relied on a number of foreign migrant workers who (as of 2018) comprise 2.5% of the whole Korean population. The growing diversity of the population is not without major problems. For example, despite the foreign worker employment policy that protects their basic human rights, including medical insurance and minimum wage, there are increasing cases of basic human rights violations against foreign migrant workers, such as wages below the legal minimum, compulsory labor overtime, frequent industrial accidents without insurance coverage, intermediate exploitation by agencies, as well as violence in workplaces (Grant & Ham, 2013). 10 Economic growth in Korea has transformed the structure of the population and marriage customs. Due to the increasing number of educated women who choose to remain single and an uneven birth ratio between genders due to a preference for boys, the numbers of single men in Korea is growing, especially in agricultural villages. This is viewed as a social problem. To cope with this, local governments encouraged international marriage for men living in rural communities and provided financial support to marriage agencies1 that facilitate these. Consequently the percentage of married couples in which there is an immigrant female rose from 1.2% in 1990 to 13.6% in 2005 (National Statistical Office, 2007). Most of these immigrant brides are from Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam (30%), China (26.1%), Thailand (6.6%), Cambodia (5%), and the Philippines (4.1%). These women tend to be young, ranging in age from 16 to late-20s (National Statistical Office, 2015). With average age differences of 11.5 years between Korean husbands and immigrant wives, and cultural and language barriers, immigrant brides have suffered domestic violence from their husbands (and husband’s relatives), sexual abuse, and forced divorce with passport seizure (Grant & Ham, 2013). In response to such extreme dehumanization of foreign brides, the Korean government in 2006 established the Support Plan for Multicultural Families, which intended to support foreign brides to be assimilated successfully in Korean society, creating programs for teaching the Korean language, traditional cuisine, customs, and culture to help foreign brides assimilate. However, despite institutional and governmental efforts, there still have been many cases of dehumanization and discrimination against ethnic minorities living in Korea. 1 Since 1990s, there has been an increasing number of commercialized international marriage agencies gaining profits from mediating international marriage in Korea and countries around it. Countries with international marriage agencies in operation under strict regulation by law include China,Vietnam, the Philippines, and Cambodia (Seol, 2006).                                                                                                                     11 Construction of otherness through media and policy With increasing numbers of immigrants, the term ‘damunwha’ has become a buzzword in Korean society. Directly translated, it means ‘multi-culture.’ Various kinds of damunwha policies and media programs have become consumed by Korean society in the form of “philanthropic colonialism”(Miller, 1969, p.72) whereby the image of a benevolent (and multicultural) Korean society is constructed by taking advantage of/using vulnerable, minoritized communities and positioning them as recipients and consumers of Korean culture (Kim et al., 2018). According to Kim et al. (2018), damunwha is portrayed in two ways: 1) describing multicultural families as either at-risk or culturally deficit, or 2) showcasing merciful acts or charitable opportunities in a way to overcome the social and cultural deficits of ethnic minorities. Kim et al. (2018) analyzed news articles with the word damunwha in the heading, and findings of their study indicate that in the Korean media, multicultural families are described as susceptible to domestic violence, socially and economically marginal, culturally deficit, and vulnerable to crime, which necessitates special care, including free medical services, financial support, and appropriate cultural immersion programs. This image of Korean society constructs as binaries the benevolent and noble Korean society and the dependent other. The biased image of others is as follows: foreign laborers as fathers suffering dire conditions in industry; foreign women constructed as wives and as people who need to develop cultural competence to adapt to Korean society; and damunwha children to be global talent to play certain roles in the global market. Minority cultures are presented for the Korean populations to experience difference; that is, creation of minority cultures as minoritized creates or reifies difference. By othering non- Koreans, Korean society develops an oppositional binary between dominant and minority populations. 12 After 2006, additional policies for multicultural families were created to address many damunwha issues, including dehumanization in the workplace and in family life. However, they are based on the assumption of the intrinsic cultural deficit of ethnic minorities and focus on facilitating cultural assimilation, such as Korean language acquisition programs and a one-on- one tutoring system for damunwha children. The series of laws centering around the process of naturalization for migrant women and the unfair treatment of migrant populations has been criticized by many scholars. Kim (2014) defines state projects that emphasize migrant women’s roles as biological and cultural producers of Koreans as “ethnicized maternal citizenship” (p. 10) and criticizes the way the Korean government facilitates the institutional assimilation of migrant women as relegating them to be “gendered dependents and ethnic others” (p.11). Children from damunwha families continue to confront challenges in school, such as bullying, ostracism, and discrimination. Critics challenge the top-down approach’s relying on laws or policies to resolve damunwha issues. They argue that students get to understand only the surface level of ideas, and that this approach is inadequate to create a space for them to become active agents in challenging injustices. Damuwha issues in the educational context In 2007, the Korean education system’s emphasis on Danil Minjok based on “bloodism” was criticized by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the umbrella organization of the UN. CERD said the emphasis of ethnic homogeneity in education would create the main obstacle to children’s recognizing the importance of harmonized life with others in global society. The organization advised the Korean government to educate people to understand and embrace multicultural phenomena happening in Korea with a proper conception. 13 During the left-leaning Roh Moo-Hyun Administration (2003-2008), which aimed for a fair society under the banner of ‘equal opportunities to all,’ including minorities such as females, children, ethnic minorities, and the disabled, diverse policies were established for the purpose of tackling damunwha issues. The concepts of damunwha education at that time were adopted mostly from the US and referred to the US literature from Banks, Bennett, Grant & Sleeter, and Hursh. For example, in the initial stage of adoption, multiple topics -- the purpose of multicultural education (Banks, 2008), multiculturalism (Bennett, 2003), critical multicultural education (Sleeter, 1996), and multicultural issues in schools and management (Hursh, 1995) -- are covered, all relying heavily on US references . Domestic research on multicultural education is criticized in that it has not been theoretically profound enough to ask questions such as ‘What is the purpose of multicultural education in Korea?’ or ‘What is the proper paradigm of multicultural education for the Korean context?’(Eden & Kang, 2016) The Korean context is, as suggested earlier, both unique and dynamic. As of 2018, the total number of students attending schools in Korea is 5,633,725. That number has decreased by 18,000 per year over the past five years due to the low birth rate, whereas the number of damunwha students has increased by 10,000 every year. At the time of this writing damunwha students comprise 2.2 % of the total number of students in Korean education. At the elementary level, one out of ten is a damunwha student. That ratio is expected to increase (Ministry of Education, 2018). Immigrant children, children born in Korea from international marriages, refugees, and seateomin (North Korean defectors) are categorized as damunwha students. The damunwha population is unevenly distributed; schools in small cities or farming and fishing villages tend to have more damunwha students than do big cities. In addition, schools in 14 manufacturing areas in big cities also have relatively large number of damunwha students due to the relatively large number of immigrant workers. Damunwha students in school face two major challenges: i) low academic achievement and ii) wangtta (ostracism) by peers. Many scholars see the reasons behind their underachievement as slow progress in language development since some migrant mothers’ Korean language proficiencies are not conducive to their children’s Korean language acquisition (Kang, 2010; Whang 2018; Chang, 2017) According to research (Sul et al., 2003), 37% of damunwha students experience ostracism. 46% of damunwha students respond that they are ostracized by peers since their mothers are foreign, 40% for no particular reason, and 33.3% due to communication difficulties.2 Damunwha parents are aware of this situation and 52.9% of mothers respond in the survey that they worry about the potential discrimination against their children due to their multicultural background (Lee et al., p. 123, 2008). Foreign mothers do not want their children to be recognized as different or to feel different about themselves simply because of their family backgrounds. This is why they sometimes try not to expose their cultural or national backgrounds. Since the Educational Support Plan for Multicultural Families (ESPMF) began in 2006, there have been many after-school programs designed to resolve the issues for damunwha students. The consequences, however, indicate that separate programs for damunwha students attach a stigma of ‘difference.’ The school drop-out rate (9.4% in elementary level, 17.2% in secondary level) among damunwha students, is in fact, five times higher than that of native Korean students (Korean Educational Development Institute, 2011).                                                                                                                 2 The survey asks damunwha students reasons why they think they are group-excluded and multiple selections are allowed. 15 Although diverse educational support programs exist for damunwha students, there is a lack of teacher education programs for pre-service teachers and a lack of professional development opportunities for in-service teachers in relation to multicultural education. According to Mo (2009), only 23% of secondary teacher education institutions offer courses in multicultural education in Korea. Native Korean teachers face practical challenges in teaching these damunwha students without proper support from the Korean government. Regarding teachers’ perceptions of multicultural education, Kang and Kim (2016) conducted survey research with 318 social studies teachers. Their findings indicate that native Korean teachers can be categorized as falling into one of three groups: conservatives, centrists, and multicultural educators. Conservatives are those emphasizing the assimilation policy and considering multicultural education as unnecessary. Multicultural educators are those who value the diversity in Korean society and emphasize anti-racist pedagogy. And centrists are those who decline to take a stance regarding either of assimilation or diversity, and are rather indifferent. The survey study by Kang and Kim (2016) reports 41.6% of native Korean teachers are categorized as conservatives and 23.6% as multicultural educators. Despite the danger of generalization, it can be said that teacher education for multicultural sensitivity and multicultural competence should be provided. My study starts from the assumption that multicultural education is needed for all, yet I am critical of the current multicultural policy. Bilingual education as government solution to resolve damunwha issues That the number of immigrant students was increasimg, and that a distinct achievement gap between them and native Korean students existed, has of course been noticed by many. Lack of Korean language proficiency was argued to be the main cause of academic difficulty among 16 immigrant students (Won & Jang, 2018). In response, in 2006, the multicultural education policy was established for the purpose of providing bilingual education services for immigrant students. Among the specific implementation tasks of the new policy was the creation of a new category of teacher: the bilingual teacher. It was expected that this teacher would be an immigrant or foreign teacher able to teach one or more of the three new courses created by the policy (bilingual classes, multicultural education classes, and foreign language classes). Since the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education in 2009 initiated a bilingual teachers training program for the purpose of taking advantage of immigrant females’ bilingual abilities and overall intercultural experience for multicultural education, several issues have arisen. These include lack of financial support, conflict among stakeholders, and lack of in-depth discussion on the roles and core competence of the bilingual teachers (Won& Jang, 2018). While there has been study of these policy dimensions, little research has been conducted which focuses on this group of non-native speaker teachers –the bilingual teachers--who are the actual enactors of the multicultural and bilingual education curriculum. Several types of serious issues confront Korea’s bilingual teachers. First, due to their coming through a different certification track, these language teachers are marginalized in terms of salary, treatment, and relationship to or in the school setting. Second, the profession of bilingual teachers, especially this group of non-native-speaker teachers in Korea, is questioned because of different processes in teacher education, including a relatively-short period of teacher preparation, and lack of professional development offered by the government. Finally, the unappreciated position of bilingual teachers inevitably brings instability and vulnerability to their lives. Given these multiple aspects, stresses, and facets of the position of bilingual teachers and 17 the language-teaching environment, an identity study of bilingual teachers can produce a more meaningful outcome through analysis of individual teachers’ voices in their stories. This present study examines how bilingual teachers author their stories of being teachers, with appropriate focus on their marginalized status in the Korean multicultural education context. The five bilingual teachers who volunteered to participate in this study teach the government- prescribed multicultural education curricula comprising three types of classes: multicultural education class, foreign language class, and bilingual education class. These can be opened or canceled according to demand from students and parents. As Table 1 below indicates, the multicultural education class targets native Korean students in a regular school curriculum designed to incorporate multicultural values in various subject areas, usually social studies and literacy classes. The foreign language class is an afterschool program teaching the native language of a bilingual teacher if this is in demand from native Korean students. The bilingual class is for immigrant students taught in an after-school program. Table 2.1. Types of Multicultural Education Class. Types of classes Bilingual class (BC) Multicultural Education class (ME) Foreign Language class (FL) Target Purpose Time Immigrant students Immigrant students & Native Korean students Native Korean Students To learn their home language To learn different cultures To learn a foreign language After school During regular class After school Types of Curriculum After school program (if a demand) Regular school curriculum After school program (if a demand) 18 The five bilingual teachers who volunteered to be part of my study bring varied backgrounds, including their ages, nationalities, Korean language proficiencies, and teaching periods. Table 2.2. provides an overview of these: Table 2.2. Overview of participants Young-hee Hae-soon Fumiko 40s Female Japan Japanese, Korean Mei-ling 30s Female China Chinese (Mandarin), Korean 40s Female China Chinese (Mandarin), Korean Japanese 40s Female China Chinese (Mandarin), Korean Yujin 40s Female Philippines Tagalog, English, Korean 11 7 16 9 20 Advanced with accent Intermediate with strong accent ME, FL ME, FL Native Native Advanced with accent KSL (Korean as Second Language) ME, BL ME, BL 6 5 6 5 6 Age Gender Nationality Languages Residence period in Korea (in years) Korean language proficiency Courses responsible for teaching Years of teaching experience in Korea In the next chapter, I provide portraits of each teacher participant in this research-- Fumiko, Mei-ling, Young-hee, Hae-soon, and Yujin-- and I explain my methodological choices. 19 CHAPTER THREE A TEACHING LIFE: HOW AND WHY THIS RESEARCH CAME TO BE This dissertation explores teachers’ identities and identity development through narrative. Five teachers and their lives are at the center of this study. My own role—as researcher listening to and analyzing their stories—is also important. Here I begin by sharing portraits of each of the teachers I came to learn from. After these introductions, I explain my methodological choices in collecting, working with, and making sense of their stories. Portraits of participants This study focuses on bilingual teachers’ professional identity development in narrative, and examines how bilingual teachers author their stories of being teachers. Beginning with preliminary research, I have built relationships with five teachers over three years. Preliminary research was conducted based on multiple sessions of interview for the purpose of understanding how teachers make sense of the Korean multicultural education policy in terms of their roles and responsibilities. Since first meeting each teacher for interviews in 2012, the connection and rapport built up over many years has given me a favorable position from which to elicit their stories which reflect their true feelings. The five bilingual teachers participating in this study are bilingual immigrants, each of whom has resided in Korea more than a decade. They can be described as second-career teachers because they have had diverse working experiences other than teaching before and after coming to Korea. In this section, I offer short vignettes about each teacher as useful references to fuller understanding. 20 Each of the five bilingual teachers—Fumiko, Young-hee, Mei-ling, Hae-soon, Yujin— has a diverse national, linguistic, cultural, religious, and educational background. At the same time, all share similarities in their immigrant status, length of teaching, age, and gender. They are female immigrants, married, with children (except Fumiko) attending local Korean schools. All are in their mid-30s to mid-40s, living in Seoul, Korea. After six months of intensive preparation from Seoul National University of Education, they became certified bilingual education teachers. They teach three courses for multicultural education3 --the “multicultural education class” targeting native Korean and immigrant students, the “bilingual class” for immigrant students, the “foreign language class” designed for native Korean students. My descriptions of the teachers are based on both their own explanations about themselves and my observations of them, including their attitudes, language choices, gestures, etc. With detailed explanation I informed the teachers of my research, and the participants showed immediate interest, not so much about my research but more about me, mainly that I was from outside of the Korean education system and willing to listen to their voices. The five to six sessions of interviews were conducted after and before their classes. Although I presented an interview protocol to the teachers when I received their consent to participate, the interviews were free-flowing conversation and I asked many questions not written into that protocol. In this dissertation I use pseudonyms to protect their privacy. Those pseudonyms are common names in each country the teachers were from. (I had asked them to let me know common names in their countries, they provided options, then I chose.)                                                                                                                 3 Multicultural education class (다문화수업 damunwha class) comprises three different types -- Multicultural education class (다문화수업 damunwha class) , bilingual class (이중언어수업 (ijung-eunuh class), and foreign language class (외국어수업 wekukuh class). Multicultural education class is designed to teach the core value of diversity and multicultural sensitivity; bilingual class to teach Korean through students’ native language; foreign language class to teach native language of the bilingual teacher – e.g., Chinese, Japanese, English, etc. 21 Fumiko: Japanese teacher I came to know Fumiko through the leader of her class, Sung-ja, from the Seoul University of Education. Sung-ja was elected as a class leader by her classmates in 2012 and I emailed her asking if she could involve me in any kind of meetings or gatherings of bilingual teachers so that I could get contact with them. When introducing Fumiko to my preliminary research over two hours in the first meeting, she showed much interest and was eager to help. She wanted “true voices published outside.” Before our first conversation, through email, I informed her of my research. The first meeting happened in Fumiko’s school. She asked some questions regarding the schedule of meetings, details of research, suchlike. One aspect she wanted to make sure about was my plans for visiting and observing her class; she did not want my presence to bother other classes of Korean teachers. However, she was not much worried about students’ reactions to my presence in the classroom. She briefly informed me of her schedule and teaching plan and I spent an entire day with her, including break time and lunch time. I was able to be part of her life as teacher while visiting her school, and we built rapport in such a short time that we were able to have deep conversation. Fumiko became interested in Korean language and history when she met Korean undergraduate students in Japan. She decided to come to Korea as an exchange student and learned the Korean language and culture while staying in Korea. Staying in Korea learning culture and language, she met her future husband, a Korean. She decided to settle in Korea 11 years ago to marry him. Her Korean language proficiency is similar to that of native Korean speakers. She is in her mid-40s and is an assiduous worker, preparing her classes with various hand-made teaching aids. The school at which she works is in a relatively affluent area and has 22 no demand for a bilingual class for immigrant students. According to her, Japanese immigrant parents tend to hide their children’s background for fear of ‘wangtta 왕따’ (ostracization). She mainly teaches a multicultural education class for both native Korean and immigrant students, and a foreign language class teaching Japanese to native Korean adults4 in the local community. She seems to have a fine relationship with other Korean teachers and, according to her, on multiple occasions she was invited to Korean teachers’ classes as a professional teacher who can teach multicultural education sessions with multicultural background and sensitivity. Fumiko is highly critical of the Korean education system, and enthusiastically shared her views with me by comparing and contrasting the Japanese and Korean education systems. Her language is straightforward. She seemed to enjoy the interview sessions and tried to deliver many thoughts and opinions regarding Korean teachers, students, and the school system. She shared her view on school as a ‘place to be harmonized’. In one of the interviews, Fumiko told me she “wanted to be a normal teacher without disappointing other professionals while being a good co-worker, and good employee.” What she means by ‘normal teacher’ in her remark therefore is being a good teacher. Since she has a clear definition of being a good teacher— professional, hard-working, diligent, useful worker— she wanted to become one. Young-hee: Chinese teacher I also was able to reach out to Young-hee, thanks to Sung-ja, the leader of her class from Seoul National University of Education. Young-hee seemed a bit distant in the first meeting when I explained my project to her. She asked no questions about the project, nor did she show much interest in it. She seems introverted, so building rapport with her required some time, but                                                                                                                 4 Multicultural education-related classes can be flexible in response to demand; whether classes are opened is determined at principals’ discretion. 23 once she became accustomed to my presence in her classroom, she gradually warmed to the situation and shared her stories. Through conversation in the multiple meetings, she grew increasingly sympathetic and became enthusiastic about sharing her thoughts and experience as a student, teacher, immigrant, and parent. Young-hee, a mother of two, moved to Korea 16 years ago after marrying a Korean she met in Japan. Her parents are ethnic Koreans living in China, and she attended the local school for ethnic Koreans in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, China, where she learned both the Korean and Chinese languages. In fact, she is trilingual, being fluent also in Japanese. She spent 6 years in Japan as a secretary for a Chinese company placed in Japan. She decided to go abroad for a job in Japan because her family members and some friends resided in Japan. Her job required her to speak Japanese fluently, so she already was able to speak Japanese before moving there. She did not plan to move to Korea until she met her husband in Japan. She became a naturalized Korean citizen as soon as she moved to Korea, and did not think it necessary to tell their children about her origin. She later confided me that, because she does not want their children to know their mother was not from Korea, she has never spoken to them in Chinese. She told me that it was ‘natural’ that no one would want to want to reveal their origin if they are from China.5 Her school is one of only few which offer the KSL (Korean as Second Language) program. In it, in collaboration with a native Korean teacher she teaches Korean to immigrant students. Young-hee is the only such participant working at a school that has the KSL program. 5 This shows one aspect of Korean society where people from seemingly under-developed countries, especially from Asia or/with darker skin pigment, are discriminated against. The noticeable discrimination began in the 1990s as the number of foreign workers was increasing, mostly from East Asian countries. They were labeled as a group of ‘3rd world workers,’ ‘low-paid manpower,’ ‘Asian workers,’ etc.                                                                                                                   24 Unlike the bilingual class, which is included in an after-school program, KSL class is part of the regular school curriculum, monitored by government, and monitoring results must be reported regularly. The curriculum being strict, she is afforded little flexibility to change, adapt, or add to it. However, she does have her own classroom which, together with her co-teacher, she has decorated. The room is well equipped with books about Korean language learning written in Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Russian. I was able to observe how she collaborated with her Korean partner teacher to teach the KSL class. She took roles of interpreter and assistant when she thought students needed her help. Her Korean language proficiency was native-like and communication with her students was facilitated mostly in Korean. Since Young-hee was able to obtain information about the children’s backgrounds officially through school files or unofficially from her co-teacher, she has chances to know well the personal stories, issues, and struggles of immigrant students and their families. In the interview, I realized that Young-hee tended to project her being a mother onto her teaching. For example, she often expressed feeling angry toward mothers of some of the immigrant students who were emotionally suffering; she believed the students’ difficulties were due to a lack of attachment with their indifferent mothers. She once told me ‘teaching is collaboration with parents and teachers but the mothers are indifferent to what the children’s lives are like in school… they easily excuse themselves that they do not know the Korean language…but if they try, and try to teach their children Korean culture, and show their children that they are paying attention to their children’s learning, the children would notice it,’ thus blaming the immigrant mothers’ failure to take care of their children’s academic and emotional sufferings. 25 Hae-soon: Chinese teacher Hae-soon and I first met in her classroom instead of the teachers’ office. She was very careful about not ‘causing a nuisance’ to other Korean teachers by making any noise. She was on the list that Sung-ja gave to me and when I contacted her at first she was hesitant to participate in my project. After a while, she emailed me she wanted to ‘help’ me even though she was not sure if her stories were able to be much help to my project. In the last meeting, however, she told me that the conversation with me, the time she spent thinking deeply about my questions, helped her reflect on her life as a teacher, immigrant, and mother. Hae-soon’s parents are ethnic Koreans living in China. She attended the local school for ethnic Koreans in China where she learned both Korean and Chinese. She moved to Korea with her daughter 9 years ago; later her mother moved to Korea and began to live with her. Her husband is also an ethnic Korean living in China and plans to move to Korea once his visa is approved. She is the only participant not married to a local Korean, which seems to influence her perspective as well as her life situation in Korea. Her origin, ethnic Korean from China, is called josunjok which delivers certain images of Koreans who are, according to Hae-soon, “Chinese who speak Korean very well and come to Korea to earn money and send it back to their family in China.” She lacked the chance to detach the label of josunjok through marriage to a Korean man, which gave her dynamic experiences in various jobs in Korea. According to her, to survive in Korea as a female immigrant who is the breadwinner of an immigrant family, very wise decisions are needed virtually every moment. Hae-soon mainly teaches multicultural education class and bilingual education class. In her school, located in a relatively impoverished district, no demand exists for a foreign language class. She visits a regular classroom to teach multicultural education, whereas her classroom is 26 for the bilingual education class; this means immigrant students come to her class when they are assigned to. The room is at the end of a corner on Floor 4 where discarded classroom items are gathered. Originally this was a warehouse storing books, furniture, and science experiment equipment. The room lacks a blackboard or screen, such as is equipped in other regular classrooms. It has two long desks in a row with about ten chairs and she usually teaches while sitting next to students. I was able to observe her teaching by sitting on a single chair at back of class. She told me that she was happy with the classroom location where she could have time on her own with her students without any interruption. She seemed to treasure very much such time with students in her own space. The curriculum is flexible according to immigrant students’ academic and linguistic development stage, and she catches well what students need and where they are at. Her relationship with them is sufficiently close to talk about daily happenings and what is on their minds. She knows each student’s close friends and their groups as well as their family problems, peer group issues, medical conditions, and relationships with Korean teachers. Students also tell her about other Korean teachers and their teaching and classes. Mei-ling: Chinese teacher Mei-ling is Han Chinese in her mid-30s. She moved to Korea seven years ago to marry a Korean she met in China. Since she had no chance to learn Korean before she moved to Korea, her Korean language proficiency is relatively weaker than that of other participants. She is very proud that her mother was a certified Art teacher in China, who retired recently after 35 years of teaching. She communicates very well with those around her, including native Korean teachers 27 and a mentor teacher. Her friendly and extroverted personality somehow connects to her sense of self as a teacher. She enjoys teaching Chinese to both children and adults. Wherever there is a request, she goes to Koreans and meets and teaches Chinese. Initially her Chinese-speaking background is useful to meet people in Korea since Koreans appreciate Chinese language as useful in the global market. And once she gets to know them, they become her friends. She is passionate about teaching Chinese, and would like to improve her teaching skills so she can meet her students’ expectations. Currently she teaches a foreign language class and a multicultural education class in the local elementary school, and she particularly enjoys teaching Chinese to Korean students in the foreign language class. She does not enjoy multicultural education class “because the curriculum does not specify standards, or have text books, I have to create all the materials from scratch” and she had to determine for herself what would be an appropriate curriculum, relying too much on her abilities. From the start, Mei-ling was most interested in my project since she wanted to study and research at a university. Before and after teaching, she asked my feelings and thoughts about her class, wanting to know how I, as a researcher, thought of them. She was very curious about my positions as researcher, teacher, and Korean, and how I thought about her teaching on the basis of those multiple positions. Fumiko seems to desire to know my thoughts on her teaching. To her, I am the first person not in the position of evaluating her, such as principal, Korean teachers, parents, or students. I am from outside the Korean education system and have experienced the US education system with its attitude of learning and listening. She expected me not to have any prejudice, and to be in a position of researcher. She expected I would still be Korean and by a Korean she wanted to be appreciated in terms of her professionality. 28 I was able to observe how she interacted with other students and teachers. It was clear to me, based on comments from her coworkers, that Mei-ling was one of the most popular teachers in her school. Everybody loved her, especially students who attended her class. She once told me she really wanted to be a ‘good teacher’ and now she wanted to know ‘what is a good teacher in Korea and how to become one?’ Yujin: English and Tagalog teacher Unlike other teachers, Yujin showed no hesitance in the first meeting, and conveyed an enthusiastic attitude as soon as we met. Although the others showed welcoming gestures in the first meeting, their rapport with me was built gradually and took some time. Yujin, on the other hand, immediately dropped her guard and led the conversation from the start. Since she had had teaching experience as an English private tutor before teaching in school, she exuded confidence in teaching. Before I asked, she explained every story regarding textbooks, students, parents, schools and districts, etc. She seemed to enjoy sharing experiences from her home country, the Philippines. Yujin speaks both English and Tagalog. She met her husband at a Unification Church (Tongil-kyo, 통일교)6 in the Philippines and 20 years ago they moved to Korea. When she became naturalized as a Korean citizen, a priest from her church named her Yujin, a very Korean name. At the church she has worked as an interpreter for immigrant members of the congregation, as well as for immigrant workers in need. She once was hired as a Visiting Teacher in a private educational institution to teach English to primary school children. The school district is well known for its large numbers of immigrants. The majority of                                                                                                                 6 Unification Church (Tongil-kyo, 통일교) was built by a Korean man, Sun-myoung Moon (문선명) in 1954, and encourages marriage within the denomination. As of 2015, it has about three million believers worldwide (Wikipedia) 29 children are from Ghana, having followed their missionary parents to Korea; other children are from diverse countries such as the Philippines, Russia, Vietnam, etc. Yujin only speaks English and Tagalog. In her bilingual class, she has twelve immigrant students, most Filipino. Most Ghanaians in the school are in upper grades and speak Korean well. Her bilingual class is fun and exciting since she adopts various activities. However, she voices concerns about the textbooks which, she says, are inappropriate for her students’ level of Korean language. Students seem to enjoy being in her class since they are permitted to speak freely their native language and English. Yujin is kind and responsive and maintains close relationships with students. Not only does she teach students, but also she leads parent-teacher conferences for immigrant parents, translates school letters, and prepares for multiple events leading immigrant students. She also responds to frequent requests from their parents. I noted she seemed very busy responding to parents’ text messages asking about their children, homework, school supplies, etc. She is proud of being a teacher and would like to earn a professional license in youth counseling. Data Collection and Analytic Process, Choices, and Strategies Over time, I came to know each of these teachers, relying both on interviews and observations of them in their teaching and in their daily work in their schools. Because my study seeks to understand these teachers’ identity development and positioning through their narratives, it was important for me to spend time with them to know them well, hear their stories, and have more contextual understanding of their school life to be able to make sense of stories they shared with me. As mentioned above, I have built relationships with my study’s participants since 2012 for the preliminary research. At that time, the main focus of the study was the newly formed multicultural education policy and teachers’ understanding and applying of it to their teaching 30 and learning. In my learning of the policy, I began to want to listen more to individual voices, and to study and learn more about their identity development. Understanding of our position and relationship was mutual. Each summer I visited Korea, meeting them in person each year from 2012 to 2015. These meetings were casual, without any specific purpose: I simply wanted to know what their lives are like as teacher, mother, wife, speaker of Korean language, however they position themselves in these multiple roles. In 2015, with each of the five, I conducted five to six sessions of in-depth interviews for six weeks. Each interview lasted 60 to 90 minutes every time I visited their schools once a week. I recorded each of the formal interviews, later transcribing them into Korean. Through interview data, I aimed at understanding their stories about experiences, memories, thoughts and beliefs, emotions they felt as they were being bilingual teachers in Korea. My focus was on how the participants actively author their stories while I was authoring my research story. I wrote observation notes and interview notes to back up the tape. In the course of formal interviews, participants and I sat face to face with my notebook opened between us. They were very aware their voices were being recorded. and the conversation flowed without many interruptions from my questions. During interviews I was willing to share my own stories when asked, and sometimes I started a conversation sharing my own experiences, as a way of lowering the emotional barrier. I realized that this research— teachers’ identity construction through their own narrative—is very much a mutual process in constructing stories and building a relationship between researcher and participant. I tried to be a good listener; for the majority of the time, the teachers talked and I reacted to their stories. I typed when I felt it really worth to remember for the next questions but for most of the time I tried to make eye contact with them without much typing. I wanted to communicate to the 31 teachers that I genuinely treasured time with them and their stories. Recorded interview data was transcribed and analyzed in Korean. In addition to formal interviewing, I also had much informal chance to talk with each teacher when I was at their schools for observations. I did not make a digital recording of these interactions, nor did I typically take notes during them, as I wanted to maintain a sense of normal interaction. I discuss these conversations in the description of my approach to observing the teachers, which follows. During observation, I acted differently inside from outside the classroom. In the classroom, introduced to students by the teacher as someone curious about what was happening in the classroom, I positioned myself as an observer who did not engage in teaching or learning. The students, however, sometimes showed interest in me and tried to converse with me, asking personal questions or often times asking for help on their tasks. Despite my effort to maintain distance from students, as time went by, I had some chance to chat with a few, especially those sitting in the back area where I mostly stayed. Initially I took notes and mostly stayed quiet. I wrote down as much I as could of what I saw and heard-- such as the title of class (examples: Let’s get to know Chinese lunar new year celebration; Formal language use in Japanese; How Korean people introduce themselves;, etc.), plus student attitudes; how teacher and students interacted with each other; how I felt; and, sometimes, the briefing after class, including my feedback on interaction dynamics between teacher and students, etc. I also paid attention to teachers’ attitudes as shown through their tone, their movements and gestures, their pacing, their teaching style, teaching materials, interaction pattern, etc., since I realized that with a limited amount of information on students, I should focus more on teachers to understand them better. I was able to notice that teachers sometimes acted differently from 32 what they communicated to me in interviews about how they thought they should act or had planned to act in classrooms. I captured the moments and used them to develop questions for interviews. This was most helpful in inspiring participants to see different sides of themselves as teachers. When pointed out, teachers’ responses about why they did not act the way they planned, varied. I noticed the pattern that some teachers digested my pointing-out very seriously, but some teachers did not. I was unsure whether the difference of reaction reflected their understanding of being a teacher, or of becoming a teacher, and I am interested in conducting further research to see the result of their attitude regarding how it affected their development of teacher identity. Outside the classroom, I remained with teachers, insofar as they were willing to share their time and space while I visited them once a week. During these informal moments while I accompanied them during a school visit, we kept talking about many topics, such as schools, teachers, students and, sometimes, highly personal concerns or experiences. I positioned myself as someone wanting to listen to their stories. As a former teacher in Korea, I felt I could understand their various stories and emotions relating to my experience, whether negative or positive, and could listen without judging them. I was able to build rapport by sharing also my own thoughts and stories. Over time they seemed to feel I was sincere and trustworthy enough for them to open up, a situation for which I was grateful as a researcher who wanted to listen to how they think and feel about themselves as teachers. I did not carry a notebook while with them outside the classroom, so I could create as natural an atmosphere as possible. This facilitated their sense they could chat with me absent any pressure. In the school’s teacher lounge, school cafeteria, restrooms, playground, returning from work, etc., I had casual chats with teachers not necessarily about being a teacher, but rather about their private interests such as outfits, children, marriage, holiday plans. I did not, therefore, use most of that information as data but considered 33 the conversation a chance to build rapport. Sometimes those conversations inspired me to create interview questions for the next meeting, or became icebreakers in later interviews. I worked with data in a series of moves; that is, transcribed, themes and identities in the data were identified, analyzed, transformed into stories, and translated to be presented in written form. This study primarily focuses on teachers’ identity as presented in narrative. Identity can be presented and constructed through telling stories; however, stories can be formed with various genres including narrative, explanation, argumentation, description, etc. For the definition of the term narrative I follow Lavov’s(1972) and Linde’s (1993) structural and linguistic criterion of the narrative —a narrative needs causality, evaluativeness, and repeatability. In my research, the narrative should be causally linked with smaller time scale. Narrative is a sub-unit of story (Lemke, 2000). My research attempts to capture the partial life story focusing on the time of being a teacher after moving to Korea. Another trait of narrative in my research includes evaluation, or the teller’s worldviews (Linde, 1993; Ochs & Capps, 2001). The aspect of one’s worldviews or moral stance can be developed and presented through narrative, through which identities are constructed interactionally. Due to the interactional and social trait of narrative, my moral stance or worldviews can be factors in discerning whether certain narrative is reportable. For example, if I think part of stories the teachers told violate my moral stance, the narrative may seem to me to be worth reporting. On the other hand, if the stories seem to be inconsistent with tellers’ beliefs, it is considered to be reportable. The other criterion making the narrative reportable is repeatability. Certain remarks are repeated by participants with emphasis of tones of voice, eye contact, or gesture. Although the non-narrative aspect of conversation cannot be captured in the written form of analysis, repeated words, expressions, opinions or thoughts presented in the narrative are chosen to be reported in ways that respect the teachers’ emphases. 34 In the initial data analysis, I transcribed all talks (amounting to around 49 hours of interview) into written text, which was very time consuming. I was aware that transcribing process involves researcher’s “selection and reduction” (Riessman, 1993, p.56) and I decided to follow Riesman’s suggestion so I began with rough transcription then went back to re- transcribing selected portions for the next level of analysis. In the process of transcribing, I experienced that key themes and codes emerged and the circumstances of interview were reenacted, providing clues about meaning that could relate to a theoretical framework. In the process of data coding, I searched for portions of statements that could provide answers to my research questions: 1. How multiple and conflicting identities of bilingual teachers create tensions in narrative and how teachers’ emotions induced by tensions emerged through tension management? 2. How bilingual teachers construct their professional identities through positioning themselves in their narratives? 3. How bilingual teachers understand themselves as teachers by creating metaphors? For instance, to answer the first question, I mainly focus on statements that implicitly or explicitly express teachers’ positive and negative emotions. I coded as negative statements expressing discomfort, frustration, unease, confusion, despair, discouragement, unrest, disturbance, hesitation, agitation, perturbation; I coded statements as positive when in them was an expression of pleasure, satisfaction, gratification, contentment, relaxation, stability, fulfillment. In the next stage, I coded the interviews again with “indigenous concepts” (Patton, 2002, p. 256) of multiple selves employed by bilingual teachers, such as teacher, mother, learner, immigrant, wife, female, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino. 35 The second coding process was related to the research question regarding multiple selves in constructing their narratives. For example, in working with my data, I would look at a passage in an interview, such as: 아이들이 나의 이중언어 수업에서 즐거워 하는 모습을 보면 보람됩니다 (It was rewarding to see my students enjoy my bilingual class.) Codes: Satisfaction (positive emotion) Positive (evaluation) Language teacher In the first round of analysis, the above passage can be coded as ‘satisfaction’. And in the next round of reading, I coded the passage again as ‘language teacher’ as the language teacher self is presented in the description of feeling satisfaction. As I looked across different narratives, I looked for various selves reflected in teachers’ stories across interviews. As the salience of a particular self stands out, I attempt to understand and define what it means in the broader context. For example, when it comes to immigrant identity, I noticed that it often involves negative emotions and I tried to understand why by situating the meaning of being immigrant in historical, social, and cultural context. In this process I looked at my field notes and the literature review. 1I am a good resource. My language and my cultural background are useful in 2schooling. Thanks to that, I was able to be appointed to a teacher job in school. 3Yet inside school I am still an immigrant. Quite often I feel I differ from the 4native Korean teachers. Outside school, sure, I accept I am an immigrant but at 36 5least I hope that they [native Korean teachers] treat me as equal. Native Korean 6teachers show very clear expectations of my class during designing the 7curriculum together: they want me to teach what they do not include in their 8lesson plans. They want me to teach parts of social studies that they cannot digest 9during their classes. Yet they still don’t seem to respect me as a teacher. Instead, 10they see me with the same eyes they see their immigrant students In the above excerpts from Fumiko, for example, the words ‘immigrant’ and ‘teacher’ or ‘teach’ are repeatedly presented and I codify them with immigrant self and teacher self. The expressions, “inside school I am still an immigrant” (line 3-4) and “quite often I feel I differ from the native Korean teacher”(line 4-5), show their negative emotions regarding immigrant self and the statement “yet they still don’t seem to respect me as a teacher”(line 9-10) expresses her discomfort on how she is treated by other native Korean teachers. With this interpretation, I look up in my field notes whether that describes any circumstances or events reflecting her statement, or search for literature that helps me better understand the situation. In storying the teachers’ narratives, I refer to the Lavove (1972)’s framework for more efficient use of the limited space of the paper. According to Labov, there are six elements of narrative (Kim, 2016, p. 201) as follows, 1. Abstract: a summary of the story and its points; 2. Orientation: providing a context such as place, time, and character to orient the reader; 3. Complicating Action: skeleton plot, or an event that causes a problem 37 4. Evaluation: evaluative comments on events, justification of its telling, or the meaning that the teller gives to an event; 5. Result or Resolution: resolution of the story or the conflict; and 6. Coda: bringing the narrator and listener back to the present. I reconstruct the narrative including the elements. to create a chronologically or thematically coherent narrative from multiple and scattered stories. The framework was useful as an analytical tool in creating boundaries of beginning and ending of stories, which oftentimes are unclear, or rearranging or reassembling the narratives in terms of research questions. Table 4 shows how a rough version of re-transcription of the story gets rearranged into a text which the readers can make sense of. Not all the six elements of narrative are presented. Following is the re-transcription version of story. ===================================================================== 1Uh…okay…I should put this way…(sigh) 2You have observed my teaching, and you can say, 3I am a good resource. 4My language and my cultural background are useful in schooling. 5Thanks to that, I was able to be appointed to a teacher job in school. 6And it is personal feeling but very….often I fell that… 7inside school I am still an immigrant. 8Quite often I feel I differ from the native Korean teachers. 9I got used to this feeling…and…but 10Outside school, sure, I accept I am an immigrant but 11in the school, I have expectation that 12at least I hope that they treat me as equal. 13Native Korean teachers asked me quite often if I can do their favor 14with very clear expectations of my class during designing the curriculum together 15and I cannot say no, you know, I have never said, 16I don't think I can say know, 17they want me to teach what they do not include in their lesson plans. 18And for example...uhm 38 19They want me to teach parts of social studies that they cannot digest 20during their classes. 21Sure why not, I can and I should 22Yet they still don’t seem to respect me as a teacher. 23Instead, they see me with the same eyes they see their immigrant students Core narrative of story Abstract 3I am a good resource. 4My language and my cultural background are useful in schooling. 5Thanks to that, I was able to be appointed to a teacher job in school. 7(Yet) inside school I am still an immigrant. 8Quite often I feel I differ from the native Korean teachers. Complicating action 10Outside school, sure, I accept I am an immigrant but 12at least I hope that they [native Korean teachers] treat me as equal. 14[Native Korean teachers show] very clear expectations of my class during designing the curriculum together: 17they want me to teach what they do not include in their lesson plans. 19They want me to teach parts of social studies that they cannot digest during their classes. Result 22Yet they still don’t seem to respect me as a teacher. 23Instead, they see me with the same eyes they see their immigrant students. ===================================================================== The interview was conducted in Korean, and the data was analyzed in Korean. The translation into English was the last process of data treatment and it was quite challenging as a researcher whose first language was not English. In the translation process, I attempted to locate any part that is “lost” or “found” (Juzwik, 2006, p. 18). If some part lost nuance of meaning, I added an expatiating line and, to be clear about narrative causality, I added conjunctions ‘and,’ ‘but,’ ‘so,’ ‘thus,’ ‘because,’ ‘since,’ ‘as’ etc. The translation was not conducted by multiple researchers for strong reliability. With that limitation in mind, I asked for a native-English 39 speaker to review the final version of translation to see if there is any awkward expression with which native-English speaking readers would feel uncomfortable. Researcher Positionality Narrative inquiry is a process of mutual construction of research relationship in which voices of both participant/s and researcher/s are heard (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). From the very start of data collection, in reaching out to participants, I was aware that building relationships with them was critical to the success of this research, and that their willingness to join the research was crucial. Based on the public list of schools having multicultural education curricula, I contacted schools and recruited volunteers to join this research. In the initial approach phase, nobody volunteered, since the teacher group was defensive and distrusted researchers. A reason for their distrust was their already having had so many survey participation experiences designed by government, by teacher education, by individual researchers, etc., which did not lead to any changes they could see, so they have come to feel that researchers are not interested in their voices. I contacted the teacher group representative7, to explain my research in the initial stage of the research. As I contacted and explained my research multiple times, one of them responded to me, expressing interest in the research since it was based on outsiders’ input and actual experiences, rather than on Koreans’. From that moment, I realized that my outsider position could play an important role in the entire process, and that in writing the narrative, my voices could be “plurivocal” (Barnieh, 1989, p. 38) in that I was speaking as a researcher, native Korean, female, teacher, research participant, and outsider. Of course, I realized I must be conscious of which voice is dominant in which part of writing. As Connelly and Clandinin (1990) point out, in                                                                                                                 7 The teacher group representative was elected position by the members who took the bilingual teacher certification program together and the contacts of the representatives are open to the public. 40 telling the research story one must be, and I also have been, very careful to find a place for each participant’s voice, including my own. As an outsider, I tried to have a fair, accurate, unbiased view on representing each narrative of teacher participants. However, I realize I also can make the thread of narrative work out well in an entirely-honest “narrative smoothing” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990, p. 10) which can lead to certain stories untold or overemphasized. Since this research is inspired by the multicultural education policy initiated with particular purposes targeting a certain group, I wanted to learn the political and social meaning of it that impacts various relevant people, especially bilingual teachers who are purposefully recruited and trained by the government to enact the policy. Through preliminary research, I realized that teachers play critical roles in enacting the policy with their own beliefs and practices, and noticed that individual teacher’s voices are naturally expressed and presented. I, therefore, wanted to listen to their voices. I care that each of their voices is heard. These bilingual teachers are the only ones who enact multicultural education policy. They teach multicultural education classes, they enact multicultural education curriculum, they meet and care about immigrant parents and students, they are very much aware what the policy was aiming at and which role they are expected to play. Through their stories told in this study, their multiple identities are revealed, constructed, developed, and the complexity of teacher identity is identified, explored, explained, and learned. In this research, I explore bilingual teachers’ identity which is multiple, conflicting, discontinuous, and social (Clarke, 2008; Varghese, 2006; Varghese et al., 2005; Akkerman & Meiher, 2011) with a focus on the emotions and tensions between identities which emerged and are presented through narrative construction. 41 CHAPTER FOUR BILINGUAL TEACHERS’ NARRATIVES: EMERGED TENSIONS AND CONSTRUCTING IDENTITIES Among the many studies of teacher identity, the concept of identity has evolved. The reason, however, for the difficulty in conceptualizing identity is that “identity is not a visual object existing externally, but is a sense of being, close to a metacognition residing in and controlling the self” (Han, 2016, p. 550). Currently, the approach to understanding teacher identity pays more attention to teachers’ perspectives of who they are as teachers or how they envision themselves as teachers. In a holistic approach which has more interest in what it means to be a teacher, teachers become agents to construct the meaning of who and what the teacher is. Taking this approach, this study sought to understand in Korea how a group of bilingual teachers’ multiple and conflicting selves create tensions, and how the tensions are resolved in the process of developing their professional identities. To explore this, I draw on a narrative analytic frame and pay attention to the multiple, conflicting and discontinuous social nature of teacher identities. Language Teacher Identity as Multiple and Conflicting In recent research on language teacher development, several recurring characterizations of language teacher identity have emerged—multiple, fluid, conflicting, constructed, negotiated, etc. (Clarke, 2005; Varghese, 2006). In terms of multiplicity of identity, bilingual teacher identity is constituted by multiple sub-identities relating to different contexts and relationships. More important, the notion of sub-identities is described in various ways relative to professional roles and social and personal positions. Farrell (2011) described English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher identity as comprising multiple roles: manager, acculturator, professional. Trent (2012) 42 distinguished the language teacher’s position as a real teacher and traditional teacher according to native English-speaker teachers’ perceptions. Traditional teachers are defined by native- speaking English teachers (NETs) as teachers who teach in an old-fashioned, exam-based, memorization-driven way, whereas real teachers teach with a communication-oriented approach. Recent literature goes beyond traditional explanation of language teacher identity that emphasizes structurally-deterministic factors such as race, ethnicity and gender in language- teacher identity formation, and focuses more on individual agency in identifying the teacher’s role and position. For example, Farrell (2011) suggested that ESL teacher identity reflects individual teachers’ interpretations of their roles within different settings. Sub-identities described by ESL teachers are varied and are identified in terms of teachers’ perceptions of their roles such as vendor, entertainer, juggler, motivator, socializer, social worker, caregiver, collaborator, learner, etc. Farrell used the term “individually created roles” to indicate roles defined by individual teachers, which is distinguished from “ready-made roles” (2011). In the same vein, in his study Trent (2011) emphasized teachers’ individual agency in determining the position of language teacher self. NETs position themselves as patient, flexible, open, and friendly, which are distinguished from positions determined by other local teachers who think NETs’ teaching is “not real teaching,” “a waste of time,” or “nonsense” (p. 114). In this literature the common premise that speaks of the multiplicity of language teacher identity is that multiple identities conflict as teachers face tensions or dilemmas in the workplace. In her study, Tsui (2007) showed English as a Foreign Language - EFL - teacher Minfang’s conflicting pedagogical beliefs: Minfang faced tensions when he had to adopt the Communicative Language Teaching - CLT- approach which the Chinese government promoted vigorously, as opposed to the traditional method which he believed was an effective method for 43 student achievement. While learning the CLT method during his teacher education program, he experienced a dilemma: he could not see the value of the CLT approach because he believed that “communicative competence” could be achieved outside the classroom. What he learned about good teaching during the teacher education program was different from his childhood frame of reference and he had to negotiate his position as an EFL teacher and learner and deal with conflicts in pedagogical beliefs in the work place. Similarly, Simon-Maeda (2004) describes how Japanese EFL teachers with diverse backgrounds experience tensions due to their complex views on education, teaching, and self-identity. What these teachers learned about language teaching in the workplace was different from Japanese teaching professional discourse. For example, one teacher interpreted her responsibility as helping Japanese students be capable of communicating with many nationalities or people of color and to be open and flexible, rather than helping them improve their exam scores or finding employment. Literature that speaks of a multiplicity of teacher identity focuses on teachers’ narratives. Current research methods regarding teacher identity have focused on interviews in which teachers describe how they perceive their roles and positions. For example, Trent (2012) investigated how native English teachers position themselves and interpret their roles in Hong Kong schools through in-depth interviews. Tsui (2007) also used a reflective diary, and face-to- face conversation, to learn how the Chinese EFL teacher, Minfang, discovered and shaped his professional identity through constructing and reconstructing his narrative (p. 659). Simon- Maeda (2004) examined how female EFL teachers gave meaning to their experience and personal actions, and developed their professional identities, using the “narrative-analytic approach” (p.407). This research avers that language teacher identity is an ongoing process of interpretation of their roles and positions within discourses. Since individuals simultaneously 44 participate in multiple discourse communities, teacher identity involves multiple social contexts reflecting their fragmented worlds or multiple communities. The common thread in these studies is that language teachers actively exercise their agency in interpreting and understanding their positions or roles relative to the teaching profession. Accordingly, these studies help us understand individual variations in beliefs and values in teaching, as presented in their stories. However, the recognition that language teacher identity is not a fixed entity but a process that is constructed and reconstructed through storytelling, raises the following questions: How are their sub-identities organized or structured within the self? How are tensions or dilemmas induced from conflicting identities resolved in their narratives? Language Teacher Identity as Discontinuous and Social Another aspect of language-teacher identity development found in recent literature is that the language-teacher identity shifts through time within diverse contexts and it is shaped and reshaped in relationship with others (Varghese, et al., 2005). In the framework that sees individuals as part of the social environment, language teachers go through the process of construction and reconstruction of their professional identity reflecting the conflictive and dynamic realities they encounter. Therefore, the common characterization of the language teacher identity in the current study is that it is discontinuous and social (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011). There are limitations in seeing identity as fixed and stable, since that view does not allow for looking at the dynamic nature of identity which is never fully formed and always possibly transforming (Gee, 1990). For example, Johnson (1992) employs social identity theory which understands teacher identity relative to static social categories. The study shows how an ESL 45 student teacher, Marc, realizes all the labels attached to her identity such as Hispanic, woman, single, catholic, nonnative English speaker, which are based on her otherness associated with language, race, gender, and religion. As a nonnative English speaker, Marc experiences an issue of self-confidence, and attempts to overcome it by actively engaging in a nonnative English speaker network. As Varghese et al.(2005) points out, this research fails to show the evolving nature of Marc’s teacher identity and the ways different networks influence and interact with Marc’s understanding of being an ESL teacher. In terms of the social nature of identity, researchers emphasize the interaction with cultural and social contexts and institutions, and with people, in forming and developing the language teacher identity. Research findings describe that language teachers learn how they are defined, labeled, and categorized by others or by institutional norms, rules, and traditions. They also define themselves concerning diverse social and cultural conditions. For example, in Farrell’s study (2011), ESL teachers establish their professional identity by talking regularly about their teaching practice in the teacher group and learning how their colleagues talk about teacher responsibility. Similarly, Trent (2012) examined how NETs are positioned in school by local English teachers and school managers, to learn how NETs’ professional identities are constructed. Language teachers in this research, however, realize the gap between the identity claimed by the teachers themselves and the one assigned by others or circumstances. The research describes this gap in various ways; for example, in studying how ESL teachers perceive their role, the term “individually created roles” is used to indicate the roles defined by individual teachers, and the term “ready-made roles” indicates the ones assigned by school policy (Farrell, 2011). Trent (2012) adopted the idea that distinguishes first-order positioning from second-order positioning, i.e., the initial stage in which individuals position themselves, and are positioned by 46 others, is defined as first-order positioning. Second-order positioning indicates circumstances in which first-order positioning is resisted (Davies & Harre, 1999). Trent (2012)’s research investigates how NETs’ self-positioning is challenged by local English teachers, and how NETs respond to tensions between the two positions available to themselves in Hong Kong schools. The gap between the claimed and the assigned identities creates tensions. Therefore, teachers need to negotiate their professional identities in facing these tensions or dilemmas. In relation to the social nature of language teacher identity, the tensions they experience are affected by diverse contextual variables such as colleagues who constitute key actors, or the social environment such as school policy or rules. Tensions are presented in the emotional expressions that respond to the actions of others and different types of situations and contexts; that is, emotions induced by the conflict between position(s) perceived by themselves and those assigned by others or contexts can be read in their stories. Since teachers’ emotions are “embedded in the conditions and interactions of their work” (Hargreaves, 2001), learning their emotions presented in narrative allows us to understand both the macro and the micro aspects of teacher identity development. In other words, the micro aspect of identity development can be defined as social relationships in which individual teachers are involved, whereas the macro aspect of identity development indicates institutional and sociopolitical contexts. This research investigates both macro and micro aspects of teacher identity construction. Researchers claim that teachers’ diverse emotions such as feelings of confidence, anger, frustration, and inferiority reflect their social relationships (Liu & Xu 2011; Rogers & Scott, 2008; Britzman, 1993). For example, Minfang, as an EFL teacher, experienced struggles in constructing his professional identity, which can be seen in his expression of frustration when he was criticized by senior teachers for being too friendly to students. A gap existed between what 47 he thought of as a teacher role and that which colleagues expected from him. Similarly, NETs in a Hong-Kong school expressed feelings of discomfort as they talked about local English teachers’ attitudes toward their teaching. NETs felt their identities were deemed as illegitimate by some local English teachers who, in describing NETs’ teaching, used the slurs “not real teaching,” “a waste of time,” and “nonsense” (Trent, 2012, p. 114). The discursively constructed tension in relation to the macro context of identity development such as the organizational or ethnographic context is also revealed in language teachers’ emotional expressions. In particular, Britzman (1993) cited “friction” to describe the tension between “institutional structures and expectations” and actual “structure of feelings” that teachers hold (p. 252), e.g. school culture that sees teachers as restrained conflicts with NETs who position themselves as teachers with “particular skills” which local teachers do not have. One of the NETs, Stephanie, expressing her feeling of confidence, claimed they had resources that the local English teachers did not have, thus they should not be treated as local English teachers (Trent, 2012). Ferrell (2011) in discussion of the “business of language education” (p. 58) mentions the feeling of discomfort expressed when ESL college teachers claimed that the school institution expected them to be “vendors” selling the teaching method. The aforementioned research helps us understand how language teachers respond to tensions in their interactions with others, and with contexts. As identity is constructed within discourse (Hall, 2000), I argue in this study that the identity of language teachers is constructed and reconstructed in and through responding to the stories of others. By describing how language teachers sometimes resist positions or roles assigned by the school culture or by policy or colleagues, my research allows us to understand the ways in which language teachers exercise their agency in critical reflection, and how they author their stories and make meanings of their 48 experiences. This chapter is organized in two sections to explore the following research purposes: 1) to examine how bilingual teachers’ multiple and conflicting identities create tensions in narrative, and how tensions are managed by language teachers; 2) to explore bilingual teachers’ emotions induced by tensions between multiple identities; 3) to identify constructed images of teachers in bilingual teachers’ narratives; and 4) to understand how bilingual teachers construct their own professional identities by engaging actively in relationships with others, and with the school system. The first section addresses the first and second questions focusing on tensions in narratives. This section considers the teacher identities and tensions in and outside the school and classroom. The second section attempts to answer the remaining questions regarding constructed images of teachers in general, and constructing identities in bilingual teachers’ narratives. Inside and Outside School: Immigrant self vs teacher self Despite variation among teachers, the majority of tensions presented in these bilingual teachers’ narrative are between immigrant identity and teacher identity. The bilingual teachers have difficulty in integrating the two, due to the mixed messages over their coming that derive from both school and society. Their immigrant selves are not welcomed in Korean society, and they feel pressured to be assimilated in Korean culture and norms. In school, however, their foreignness is a valuable, useful resource that bilingual teachers can use for the multicultural and bilingual education curriculum. During interviews, bilingual teachers’ emotions such as feeling of discomfort and insecurity are presented when they think they are positioned as immigrants rather than as teachers. They state that they are constantly reminded of their immigrant identity and that identity is regularly confirmed by native Korean teachers, by the enacted and hidden 49 curriculum, and by school leaders and school system. They think they are professional teachers but in multiple instances they are not positioned as teachers but as immigrants. Fumiko, a Japanese teacher teaching Japanese and multicultural education class for five years, exhibited tension between teacher self and immigrant self: I am a good resource. My language and my cultural background are useful in schooling. Thanks to that, I was able to be appointed to a teacher job in school. Yet inside school I am still an immigrant. Quite often I feel I differ from the native Korean teachers. Outside school, sure, I accept I am an immigrant but at least I hope that they [native Korean teachers] treat me as equal. Native Korean teachers show very clear expectations of my class during designing the curriculum together: they want me to teach what they do not include in their lesson plans. They want me to teach parts of social studies that they cannot digest during their classes. Yet they still don’t seem to respect me as a teacher. Instead, they see me with the same eyes they see their immigrant students. Fumiko’s school allocates more time for multicultural education class than bilingual class, since the school curriculum is designed to include more multicultural education. The school curriculum teaches values of difference and how to show respect to others within the frame of human rights. The curriculum includes specific cases and issues to discuss and students are to be exposed to the issues, different cultures, and languages which immigrants use while residing in Korean society. 50 Fumiko’s feeling of discomfort is derived from the discordant identities and associated expectations inside and outside school. Fumiko clearly understands that Korean society positions her as an immigrant and requires her to overcome her foreignness, whereas the school curriculum employs her home language and culture as resources and positions her as teacher. Native Korean teachers’ expectations, however, seem to be different; Fumiko feels that her teacher identity is negated in school although she collaborates with Korean teachers when it comes to curriculum design. A case making her feel that way is as follows: It seems that native Korean teachers think my [multicultural education] class is kind of ad-hoc class. Although it is taught through regular curriculum, my class often is cancelled when native Korean teachers decide to use my class time for their class. They give me a just a last-minute notice before they cancel. This often happens and I am supposed to understand that teaching subject areas is more important than multicultural education. With these tensions between immigrant identity and teacher identity across all participants’ narratives, bilingual teachers seem to manage tensions by honoring and integrating multiple identities. Mei-Ling, an ethnic Han Chinese who teaches Chinese in her school, confided similar tensions and discomfort, but her successful teaching experiences with increasing demand for her Chinese language class encourages her and builds her confidence in being an immigrant bilingual teacher. 51 When first I came to Korea I was scared to death. I had nobody but my husband and I was a total stranger to Korean society. Sometimes these days I feel the same way … But I also take advantage of my position as immigrant in Korean society. Since Koreans love to learn Chinese, I easily could make friends and even was appointed to a school job. My Chinese language class always has a long waiting-list and my students love my class. This builds my strong sense of responsibility to teach well. Mei-ling pays attention to her immigrant status, and she is willing to take advantage of it inside school where her language and teaching are appreciated by students and parents. In turn, this gives her a strong sense of duty, increases her confidence, and strengthens her abilities. Inside School: Korean language teacher vs acculturator All five bilingual teachers exhibited the second type of tension, namely tension between teacher identity and acculturator self. Playing the acculturator role usually is considered part of language teachers’ responsibilities (Farrell, 2011), but this study’s participants often felt required to choose between being a teacher (that is, a teacher of subject area content/Korean) and being an acculturator. Teachers are well aware that the school curriculum expects bilingual teachers to assume the dual role of teacher and acculturator. Via bilingual education classes, immigrant students are expected to improve their Korean language proficiency and to adopt the language, attitude, culture, and behaviors of Korean society. But bilingual teachers in this study expressed frustration at not being able to be both Korean language teachers and acculturators for immigrant students. 52 Young-hee, Chinese teacher teaching KSL class, exhibits her feeling of frustration in taking both roles of Korean language teacher and acculturator. I understand it could be very stressful to become accustomed to the new environment. At first, to be acculturated, students need to feel they are welcomed and accepted in school. First, they need someone who listens to them, cares about them, and supports them. It is a long process and it takes time, effort, and patience. In this school, I do not have enough time to take care of each student individually like I did in the last school. I always feel sorry about that. This school has a very tight curriculum for the KSL class and I feel a lot of pressure to follow it. My responsibility here is to help students improve their Korean language proficiency and to help them become mainstreamed in the end. Bilingual teachers seem to agree that immigrant students need acculturated and they are responsible to take the role of being acculturator. In Young-hee’s definition, being an acculturator is more than teaching knowledge of Korean culture and norms. It should be preceded by building relationships with students, focusing on their self-esteem and sense of belonging. If they feel they are welcomed and that their background is respected, they can be not only physically but also spiritually ready to settle down in Korean society, which then and subsequently encourages them to acquire Korean language proficiency and Korean culture. However, Young-hee expresses feelings of regret that she cannot take the caring and supporting roles of acculturator, because the school curriculum does not allow her to pursue both roles of 53 language teacher and acculturator. By receiving a government grant, her school adopted the KSL curriculum run on a trial basis at the moment, and its progress is subject to report. She feels pressure in needing to produce certain progress, and that pressure drives her to sacrifice the role of what she defines as acculturator. Frustration and guilt feelings derive from the tensions between personal ideals and professional expectations. In dealing with such tensions, teachers seem to react differently from each other. For example, being a Korean language teacher, Young-hee seems to accept the less complex and culturally-defined teacher identity. She is aware of the purpose of KSL class, and accepts the role assigned by the KSL curriculum. She defines her role for immigrant students as improving their Korean language proficiency so that they can be educated in a general class with native Korean students. Conversely, though, Hae-soon, a Chinese teacher teaching bilingual and multicultural education classes, chooses differently. She interprets the school culture and curriculum in a way that emphasizes discipline, raising students to be good and well-behaved citizens. Thereby she chooses to define her teacher role as being an acculturator. If immigrant students are to be successful in school, they need to learn how to behave politely, and how to be acceptable to other teachers and to their peers. Students should realize they should behave appropriately in and outside classroom. I am supposed to teach Korean norms and conventions so that they successfully can adapt to Korean society and culture. 54 Other bilingual teachers choose to integrate personal ideologies and professional expectations in ways that enhance their professional knowledge and skills. Yujin, a Filipino teacher of multicultural education and bilingualism, puts this so: For them to be successfully acculturated, immigrant students need proper support and guidance. I do know how to teach them Korean language but I do not know how to help them adapt well to Korean society. I need to have professional skill to support and guide my students properly into the right directions. So, I am planning to obtain more input about counseling. If I study how to guide immigrant students (professionally, with more skillful technique and knowledge) I will be a good bilingual teacher for immigrant students especially in their emotional struggles. You know…we [bilingual teachers] all want to be good teachers So we would like more chance for professional development. But bilingual teachers receive no opportunities for professional development8 such as native Korean teachers do. I think the Korean government should pay more attention to it. As other bilingual teachers, Yujin defines being an acculturator as more than teaching knowledge of Korean culture and norms; therefore she needs more professional skills enabling her to provide proper guidance for immigrant students. She contends bilingual teachers should be                                                                                                                 8 Korean government provides diverse professional development programs for the in-service teachers, which are obligatory for them as public servants. 55 given more opportunities for professional development, but since government provides professional development programs only to native Korean teachers, she has decided to create by herself and for herself such opportunities to enhance her professional knowledge and application skills. Inside Classroom: Language teacher vs language learner Five teachers in this study demonstrate tensions between their personal beliefs in learning language, and pedagogical knowledge they learned from teacher education. They feel confusion when pedagogical knowledge they gain from teacher education is inconsistent with their personal experiences as language learners. While teacher education emphasizes a grammar-based and exam-oriented pedagogical approach in language teaching, bilingual teachers realize that grammar emphasis in language teaching and curriculum is ineffective for immigrant students to learn Korean language. Bilingual teachers contend that the communication-based teaching approach should be more appropriate and applicable to the purpose of enhancing the Korean- language proficiency of immigrant students. Yujin, from the Philippines and teaching the bilingual class and multicultural education class, expresses disappointment and confusion as she describes that what she learned from teacher education does not reflect the reality of immigrant students’ learning condition: What I learned at university was not really useful. I passed the Teaching Certificate exams and became a teacher, but was very disappointed when I realized that what I learned is not actually applicable in reality. Example: grammar-focused teaching is not helpful in improving 56 Korean language proficiency. I think the bilingual class should give students as much chance as possible to use their language in conversation, so that they are able to use their learning in their real lives. I improve my Korean language skill by repeatedly exercising my speaking and listening skills. Challenges and struggles that I experienced learning Korean language have been extremely helpful. As a language learner, I know exactly what my immigrant students need, but look at the all textbooks around here: they are not at all interesting and my students are not enjoying them. I would rather use books and materials I used as I learned Korean. So, I am trying to modify them and use them in my class with those other textbooks. Yujin expresses disappointment that her hard work in teacher education for learning and improving pedagogical knowledge is not really rewarding, since the theory was inapplicable and inconsistent with actual practice. Tension arises when professional knowledge in teaching and learning language conflicts with experiential knowledge she acquired while learning Korean. As a learner, she values communication skill and practice to master Korean language. As a language teacher, she understands her responsibility for creating and providing an environment that ensures immigrant students’ Korean language progress, giving much more output chances like speaking and writing in the target language. Young-hee worries about the gap between expectations toward bilingual education and real goals she personally sets for the bilingual class. She states: 57 In fact, I don’t think expectations for the [bilingual education] curriculum are realistic. Native Korean teachers expect immigrant students taking my class to improve Korean language proficiency to the extent that they can understand all the subject area knowledge including academic terms and concepts. But that is impossible. Learning subject areas is about learning content areas, not language itself. If schools want immigrant students to improve both subject area knowledge and Korean language skill, those schools should allow students to learn subject areas in both home language and target language. But Korean schools do not offer that chance, so should lower their expectations. I would be very satisfied if my students could communicate in Korean without difficulties. Bilingual teachers manage this type of tension in ways that honor both personal and professional knowledge. Important to note is that although bilingual teachers seem highly critical of what they learned from teacher education, they tend to rely on expanding pedagogical knowledge to deal with resultant tensions. They - the bilingual teachers - wish to improve their professional knowledge so that they have expanded resources from which to choose. Mei-ling, for example, studies online to improve her pedagogical knowledge so she can provide ideal teaching to immigrant students. I teach Chinese because I am Chinese and speak Chinese. I acquired Chinese language proficiency naturally since it is my mother tongue. But you know, to know how to speak Chinese and how to teach Chinese is 58 totally different. Thus, I am planning to take the online classes from the university on pedagogy of Chinese language. I do not think it is enough with what I learned from teacher education in Korea. I hope my students naturally improve Korean language skill like their home-language acquisition process. Then, they will find fun in my class. Mei-ling recognizes that being a language teacher requires more than merely language proficiency. She has her own picture of ‘good teaching’ which leads joyful learning that motivates students to learn. In her definition, joyful learning should be natural like a home- language acquisition process. Making distinction between content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge, Mei-ling expresses her desire for further professional development to acquire more pedagogical knowledge that can lead to successful and satisfactory teaching and learning. Constructed images of teachers and Constructing identities in narrative Bilingual teachers in this study make a boundary between native Korean teachers and themselves, often with the words ‘they’ versus ‘we’ or ‘they’ versus ‘I.’ In their narrative, diverse images of ‘Korean teachers’ are the criteria to understand themselves as teachers. They use the image of native Korean teachers as resources in constructing their narrative identities; that is, by comparing and contrasting ‘who native Korean teachers are’ versus ‘who I am’ or ‘who we are,’ they create their teacher identities. In this section, I focus on demonstrating multiple images of teachers emerging in bilingual teachers’ narratives, which are understood and used in constructing teacher identities. Those multiple images of teachers clustered around three themes - Teacher is a professional; Teacher is a public servant; Teacher is in the top hierarchy - 59 that have multiple subcategories. The categories are prerequisite for subcategories that are presented in bilingual teachers’ narratives, e.g., ‘Teacher is in the top hierarchy’ has subcategories of ‘teacher is privileged,’ ‘teacher is a rule-maker,’ ‘teacher is respected.’ Bilingual teachers in this study declare that ‘teacher is privileged, rule maker or respected because teacher is in the top hierarchy in school.’ “Teacher as professional” Table 4.1. Teacher as professional. Bilingual teachers’ understanding of teacher in Korea • • • busy and productive competent in teaching national curriculum- centered academic language- oriented rigid and strict Bilingual teachers’ Identity construction themselves culture guru citizenship development- oriented communicative language – oriented inspiring and motivating • • • • Teacher is professional • • The most frequently emerged description is ‘Teacher is professional’. Bilingual teachers reveal diverse understandings of ‘Teacher is professional’ with the following subcategories-- ‘Teacher is busy and productive’, ‘Teacher is competent in teaching’, ‘Teacher is academic language-oriented’. As mentioned, the first category of ‘teacher is professional’ is a prerequisite for other subcategories. The bilingual teachers interviewed stated that teacher is busy and productive, competent in teaching, and academic language-oriented because they are professional. Bilingual teachers’ understanding of ‘Korean teacher is professional’ is as follows: 60 I was aware that teachers in Korea had high quality and now I can understand it by observing them. They should follow the national curriculum and teachers anyway follow the lesson schedule no mater what. Well…. they seem to be under pressure, but they can stand it. They are professional. (Fumiko) It is obvious that teachers in Korea emphasize the importance of Korean language. If immigrant kids in the class cannot understand Korean, they will fall behind other students, and this will become a huge pressure on teachers. Academic achievement means a lot to teachers in Korea. (Yujin) Both Fumiko’s and Yujin’s understanding of teacher in Korea indicates that teachers are professional in that they are competent in teaching, make progress using the national curriculum, are responsible for and create the academic result of students under pressure. The pressure can be from the educational system itself, or from parents or society. This pressure causes teachers to put more emphasis on Korean language in teaching. Based on understanding of who and what a teacher is in Korea, bilingual teachers identify with or distance themselves from the ‘teacher is professional’. In making clear distinction between native Korean teachers and herself, Yujin distances herself from ‘Korean teacher is professional’ in the following description: Teachers in Korea are always busy. No wonder they do not have enough time to take care of individual students. They work and work, 61 and seem under great pressure to prove they are professional….you know, good at teaching. They need to follow the national curriculum. But I do not have to. I don't have to prove anything, or my class doesn't have a specific textbook or schedule. My class is quite flexible. I can teach whatever the students need. And I know well what my students need. (Yujin) Flexibility in designing curriculum including choice of textbook is the main reason why Yujin distances herself from ‘teacher is busy and productive.’ In the interview she states that her class is a ‘back-up’ class which is not required to follow the national curriculum and is more like an ad-hoc class responsive to the immediate demand in the school setting. As a language teacher who teaches Korean language class, she has substantial autonomy to design curriculum, thereby having lesser pressure from the teaching schedule or national curriculum. In contrast, another bilingual teacher I studied identifies with ‘teacher is professional.’ The following interview with Hae-soon shows that while she identifies with ‘teacher is competent in teaching,’ she takes a further step to redefine ‘being competent in teaching.’ Hae-soon makes sense of who she is as a professional teacher, creating her own identity, in other words, constructing teacher identity. Hae-soon: I know (the) Korean teacher is competent in teaching. Well….I also am competent in teaching but with a different goal. I set the goal to improve Korean language in my [Korean language] class, you know, basic knowledge to live in Korea. 62 Interviewer: You teach Korean students too in a multicultural education class, right? What is the goal of that class? Hae-soon: Oh, yes… I teach Korean students, too, in the multicultural education class. I teach them foundational knowledge of others, or other cultures. I think it very important. Korean students should know other cultures, and should be able to understand and accept difference. Look! I am different in their eyes. My accent shows them I am different and through my presence they feel closer to the difference…they can understand other cultures and language better. You know… all students really like my class. I am a kind of culture guru and I am proud of it. In making reference to ‘teacher is competent in teaching,’ Hae-soon depicts herself as someone competent in teaching language and culture with a different goal. She identifies herself with ‘teacher is competent in teaching’ in the sense that her teaching meets the needs of immigrant students. Hae-soon’s Korean language class is designed to teach basic knowledge for living in Korea. With her relatively greater autonomy, she can set the goal for her class with curriculum and textbooks, on her own. In the interview, Hae-soon is much concerned with immigrant students’ school lives, who actually are suffering from the identity crisis due to different language and culture. She states that ‘it is the language that matters, to make friends, to be a good student, to be a happy citizen, you need to learn Korean.’ In teaching a multicultural education class9 for native Korean students, Hae-soon identifies herself with ‘teacher is                                                                                                                 9  Bilingual teachers in this study need to teach two classes—bilingual class and multicultural education class.   competent in teaching’ in a sense that she feels proud of her teaching fundamental knowledge 63 necessary for native Korean students to understand others. Based on understanding of teacher in Korea, Hae-soon constructs identity in her narrative that emphasizes her presence as immigrant. The difference in her accent and background let her be inspiring and motivating to native Korean students and also immigrant students. She is a self-described ‘culture guru’ to native- Korean students, and for immigrant students, she acts as a buffer against identity crisis. Hae- soon is well aware of her role relative to what students need at the moment. When it comes to the needs of immigrant students, Hae-soon states “They need positive feeling of themselves, pride, sense of accomplishment, self-esteem through approval and praise by teachers, parents, society. I can identify with them in this sense. I feel pride and accomplishment as a teacher whenever I see their eyes happy and enthusiastic.” “Teacher as public servant” Table 4.2. Teacher as public servant. Bilingual teachers’ understanding of teacher in Korea Bilingual teachers’ dedicated identity construction of themselves • with a vocation for teaching • • willing to sacrifice • sentiment-centered • accessible • with empathy • stable • result-oriented • well trained and government certified Teacher is public servant ‘Teacher is public servant’ is also one of many images of teachers that emerged most frequently in these bilingual teachers’ narratives. This identity of ‘teacher is public servant’ is stated with the following subcategories: ‘Teacher (job) is stable’, ‘Teacher is result-oriented,’ ‘Teacher is well trained and certified by government.’ Language teachers’ understand ‘Teacher is public servant,’ as having a causal relationship with the rest of the other image of teachers in 64 general. For example, immigrant language teachers commonly state that ‘Teacher in Korea is stable because they are public servants,’ or ‘The reason teachers are result-oriented is because they are public servants.’ The following excerpts show how bilingual teachers combine multiple images of teachers in making sense of, and creating, their own identities. Teaching is a very stable job in Korea since teachers are actually public servants. They are certified by the government and very well trained from the government-sponsored higher institutions. I know Korean teachers are very smart, and becoming a teacher is very competitive. (Mei-ling) I have an impression that Korean teachers are usually result-oriented, I guess this is because they are public servants and this makes them always conscious about their performance. You know… they seem to worry about outcomes because of the performance-based bonus system. (Fumiko) Mei-ling and Fumiko explain that teaching is a stable job and teachers in Korea are result-oriented due to the public servant position. Mei-ling’s understanding of teachers is that it is certified and guaranteed by the government. To Mei-ling, as to all other interviewees, being a teacher in Korea means earning the position after receiving hard training and passing the highly competitive qualifying exam. The position is considered to be earned with difficulty through individual effort, and is valued by the bilingual teachers. Fumiko’s understanding of teacher is personal. Her narrative contains the following two different emotional aspects: ‘I envy them [native Korean teachers] somehow since they can be rewarded for their hard work…but I am not 65 sure if it is OK to focus too much on the outcome [not process and outcome together].’ This ambivalence toward ‘Teacher is public servant,’ develops to the point that she simultaneously distances herself from, yet identifies with, ‘Teacher is public servant’. I know it is very hard to become a teacher in Korea. They [native teachers] have to be smart enough to enter the university and pass the qualifying exam. I also was trained from the same institution [Seoul National University of Education] and my position was certified by the government. I probably have not studied enough but I am proud of being a teacher in Korea. (Fumiko) I think teacher(s) should have a vocation for teaching. I am fully aware of what I am doing and what my students want from me. I am willing to sacrifice myself and I think I am partly doing that now. But I am not sure if Korean teachers are like I am. Their sense of being a teacher is no more than having a job, you know… they are public servant(s) who want to be paid based on their performance, knowing the system well, following the system and taking advantage from it. (Fumiko) Fumiko’s sense of connectedness toward teacher as public servant is based on the extrinsic factor, that is, she identifies herself with the position of public servant in terms of her certified self. She feels proud of being a certified teacher like other native Korean teachers. The 66 sense of distance, on the other hand, can be related to both extrinsic and intrinsic factors. She felt distance due to her different track of certification that allows different treatment regarding salary and professional development by the government. Since they are hired in response to the individual school’s needs, their position can be considered temporary, which is contracted every year. Due to the different certification track, they seem to be treated differently regarding salary and professional development. These circumstances and their own position cause them to feel the job is unstable and thus unlike that of native Korean teachers’. With intrinsic factors, such as being envious of and hesitant toward the position of teacher as public servant, and the extrinsic factors, unsatisfied treatment and job instability, bilingual teachers distance themselves from teacher as public servant and teacher (job) as stable. Fumiko also distances herself from teacher as result-oriented. Although the performance- based bonus system in Korea is based on lesson hours, not on outcomes such as students’ grades, Fumiko perceives that native Korean teachers care more for their performance. By performance she means students’ grades. Fumiko perceives native Korean teachers as public servant are put in the position of being result-oriented since Fumiko thinks teachers in Korea are evaluated and rewarded by the outcome (i.e., grades). Furthermore, Fumiko’s perception of teachers as public servants aligns with the idea of teachers’ being professional and competent when she states thus: ‘Because Korean teachers are very competent in teaching, they can produce what the government demands. As public servants, they carry out their duties faithfully.’ She perceives that being teachers in Korea requires competence in teaching to fulfill their duties as public servants. As an immigrant bilingual teacher, Fumiko actively construct her identity as teacher with the combination of two images of teacher in Korea (teacher as public servant, teacher as professional), and with conflicting senses toward those images in mind. 67 While in various ways referring to multiple images of being a teacher in Korea, bilingual teachers in this research create their own identities. They construct possible teacher identities in unique and individualistic ways such as ‘teacher with a vocation for teaching,’ ‘ teacher is dedicated,’ ‘teacher is student sentiment-centered,’ and ‘teacher is accessible’. Somehow I think teachers should have something else…that other professions do not require. Some sort of having a mission in life… like a doctor or a priest. I think I am ready to sacrifice my life, actually I am sacrificing, dedicating myself to being a teacher without proper reward. (Fumiko) Of course the better language skill will eventually be helpful for getting good grades, but that’s not all. They, the immigrant students, need my bilingual class and a teacher like me, the teacher who knows them well and has some empathy for them and takes care of them, the teacher who listens to what they struggle in, and how they feel about their lives. (Yujin) The complexity of Fumiko’s understanding of being a teacher in Korea develops into creating her own identities, ‘teacher with a vocation for teaching’ and ‘teacher is dedicated.’ In her words, a teacher should have a sense of vocation for teaching, sacrificing her personal life. The meaning of sacrificing is dedicating herself without rewards; in this case, rewards means monetary compensation. Bilingual teachers are not beneficiaries of the performance-based bonus 68 system since they are in a track of certification different from native Korean teachers with different certification. Fumiko’s way of resisting the message from the school is not accepting the extrinsic condition but constructing her own identity as one who does not care about the unsatisfactory treatment, and is willing to sacrifice oneself with a sense of vocation for teaching. Yujin, in the same fashion, puts more emphasis on building rapport and a relationship with students in constructing her own identity. She distances herself from teacher as result-oriented, and underlines students’ sentiment in teaching and having empathy in understanding students. She seems to think that subject positions of ‘teacher is result-oriented’ and ‘teacher is students sentiment-centered’ are incompatible. Yujin also highlights teacher accessibility to students and parents. In her words, teachers should listen to student- and parent- voices and be deeply aware of their needs: ‘Because of the language barrier or cultural barrier, immigrant students and parents are struggling, that is why I am always there for them.’ “Teacher as top” Table 4.3. Teacher as top. Bilingual teachers’ understanding of teacher in Korea Teacher is in the top hierarchy • • • privileged rule maker respected Bilingual teachers’ identity construction themselves pursuing self-development qualified with degree qualified with certification counselor • • • • • with conscience solidarity In interviews, the third most frequent image of teacher emerging is ‘Teacher is in the top hierarchy.’ Sub-categories under that category are ‘teacher is privileged,’ ‘teacher is a rule maker,’ ‘teacher is respected.’ The relationship between the subcategories is as follows: Teachers are in the top hierarchy in school since they are the most privileged in terms of opportunities of 69 professional development, promotion and stipendiary vacation. And teachers are rule makers in ways that the rules are sometimes re-developed for the sake of teachers. Teachers are in some sense at the top in school, and even the principal cannot really touch them. They are given hundreds of programs for professional development and if they are veteran teachers they can be promoted… They even have stipends during vacations. But school staffs [including nutritionist, and matron] do not have those chances. (Young- hee) I think everything in school runs under teachers’ control. Rescheduling my class or conference meeting often happens in response to teachers’ requests without discussing with me. Just notice. Rule is rule, (sigh)…it is a promise, but for them it can be changed [but not for me]. (Hae-soon) Despite the fact that the teachers’ community is a horizontal structure and that their autonomy is allowed within a permissible range, practicing teaching without structural pressure, bilingual teachers perceive the vertical structure of schools, which indicates they experience alienation in the process of communication. As Hae-soon states, her own class schedule can be changed for other classes’ benefit. This is mainly due to the fact that bilingual classes are supportive classes (despite being part of the national curriculum). Her sense of alienation is not because of the schedule change itself, but because of the fact that her voice is not considered in 70 the process of change. While Hae-soon’s reasoning for ‘teacher is in the top hierarchy’ stems from a sense of alienation, Young-hee’s statement is based on her sense of deprivation. Young- hee states that all resources are concentrated on other native Korean teachers, and are not provided to her or to other ancillary workers including the nutritionist and the matron. She seems disappointed that she cannot participate in various professional development programs. Mei-ling and Yujin, on the other hand, do not only complain of the lack of opportunities, but also sublimate it into the creation of teacher identity, ‘Teacher is pursuing self-development.’ I am studying in internet courses now and I will earn a degree for Chinese language curriculum and instruction in two years. I need to be patient but in the end I will be a teacher who is well qualified with a degree. I am making this effort towards it. I think all teachers should make the same effort to it [being a highly qualified teacher]. (Mei-ling) I want to earn certification for counseling in the future. I am searching for the information and I may try it during summer vacation. I know nobody requires me to do anything like this, but I think it [certification] will be useful in the [school] field. At least I can learn something about how I should help students. Who knows?… I can be a professional school counselor someday. (Yujin) To some extent, a sense of alienation and deprivation is common among many, if not all, of the bilingual teachers, so a clear tendency is present in that they do not identify with ‘teacher 71 is at the top hierarchy.’ They are aware of their underprivileged position in the sense that certain opportunities are not given them, and that their voices are seldom heard. Bilingual teachers understand that they cannot help but accept the structural factor. Social factors, however, are those they feel most strongly, namely: lack of interaction with teachers or principals, and implicit bias against bilingual teachers. Young-hee says, ‘I am not sure if other [native Korean] teachers recognize me or my class. I rarely talk to them.’ Young-hee’s situation may be very individual, but lack of interaction between bilingual teachers and native Korean teachers is continuously pointed out also in other bilingual teachers’ narratives. Young-hee, like other participants of this study, not only expresses her dissatisfaction regarding her position, but also suggests what the bilingual teachers do as a teacher community. We [bilingual teachers] have our own community and regular meetings. I think we should raise consciousness among us by educating ourselves, you know…some bilingual teachers don’t care, but we should care. I know it is a Korean thing… gathering together and demonstrating…We should learn from the Korean culture. I am not saying that we should fight, but we need to get together and voice together. I realized that it is important that we teach and learn each other. (Yujin) In Yujin’s narrative, it is noticeable that she highlights the collective voice and solidarity among the bilingual teachers. Yujin clearly distances herself from teacher in the top hierarchy, 72 but she also actively creates her identity: Teacher with sense of comradeship, solidarity, and group consciousness. Discussion Defining identities constituting bilingual teachers’ multiple selves Immigrant identity Being immigrants constitutes bilingual teachers’ professional identities. As immigrants, they were eligible to apply for the position of bilingual teacher, since the multicultural education policy originally intended to hire immigrants with higher academic backgrounds as resources for teaching immigrant students at schools. Participants of this study tend to think they are also the beneficiaries of the policy. As Coulmas (1999) points out, however, Korean society has had a “higher degree of congruity of speech community and nation” (p. 408) with an ethnocultural identity that seems to be closed to foreigners. Being an immigrant and living life as an immigrant can be and is challenging; this study’s participants mention they often feel marginalized and isolated, with pressure to be assimilated into Korean culture and norms. Since they feel that their language and culture have been denied by Korean society, their immigrant identity conflicts with their teacher identity, which is regarded as highly respected by Korean people. Teacher identity Participants in this research understand the meaning of being a teacher in Korea in ways that conflict with their being immigrants. Being a teacher in Korea generally indicates being a public servant, national curriculum enactor, highly respected professional, responsible for raising children and youth to be dutiful and ethical citizens. Being a Korean language teacher, however, 73 is defined as different from being an acculturator, who teaches Korean language to immigrant students focusing on students’ academic performance and achievement. In contrast, being an acculturator is being responsible for social and emotional stabilization and adaptation to Korean society. Korean language-teacher self is defined also by participants as conflicting with language-learner identity, in that the experiential knowledge teachers have had as language learners is more applicable and effective compared to the professional knowledge they use. Acculturator identity The acculturator identity seems inseparable from immigrant identity, in that the experience of being an immigrant seems to have great impact on understanding and defining what it is to be an acculturator. As immigrants, they see the importance of sense of belonging and self-esteem when it comes to acculturation. Participants strongly contend that acculturation should be preceded by social and emotional care and support on the part of teachers. Participants agree that immigrant students should be acculturated properly for them to live successful lives inside and outside school, and its role should be taken by the bilingual teachers. Being acculturator also constitutes the bilingual teachers’ professional identity. Language learner identity According to Cummins (1984), a developmental gap exists between Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills - BICS - and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency - CALP; that is, it takes three to five years to master CALP while to master BICS takes a relatively-short period, six months to a year. Bilingual teachers’ experience as language learners leads them to emphasize the development of conversational fluency in Korean, while professional knowledge 74 as language teacher relates more to language skill that can be used in academic situations. Participants contend that their bilingual classes should focus more on development of basic social skills of language. It can be said that language-learner identity is also part of bilingual teachers’ professional identities. Micro and Macro contexts: Being multiple selves as bilingual teachers To study the full complexity and dynamics of teacher identity, it is important to consider both micro and macro contexts of identity construction. A macro context indicates the socio- cultural conditions of teachers’ environment, whereas a micro context entails various working conditions “within classrooms, school meetings, and professional development trajectories”(Akkerman & Meiher, 2011 p. 316). Also crucial to take into account is the possibility of both frames impinging on each other, in other words, it is relevant to see how teachers’ individual beliefs and acts are influenced by the school culture, or how certain incidents lead to change of school policy. This study aims at examining tensions derived from the multiple identity conflict and how tensions are managed by bilingual teachers. It therefore is important to consider the macro and micro contextual influence on tensions and on tension management in teachers’ narratives. This study finds three types of tension between multiple selves such as immigrant self and teacher self, Korean language teacher and acculturator, language teacher and language learner. Tensions arise with negative emotions for the following reasons -- 1) personal ideologies and professional expectations are incompatible, and 2) knowledge learned from university and the real-world was inconsistent. An example is that bilingual teachers express feelings of discomfort when they feel their teacher self is negated by native Korean teachers in school while 75 their immigrant self is appreciated, although not actually welcomed in Korean society. They also describe their feeling of frustration when they are forced to choose between being a Korean language teacher and acculturator, since the school curriculum does not allow for them to pursue both roles. Other negative emotions emerging from tension are feelings of disappointment and anxiety when teachers state that their professional knowledge learned from teacher education was not applicable and was inconsistent with what they gained from the real-world while learning Korean language. In this study, macro- and micro- contexts relevant to the tensions of multiple selves are 1) the school curriculum and culture; 2) teacher and policy expectation; and 3) teachers’ learning experience. For example, when immigrant identities are welcomed and celebrated by the school curriculum, yet teacher self is delegitimized by native Korean teachers, tension arises between immigrant self and teacher self. When the school curriculum emphasizes improving Korean language proficiency over acculturating immigrant students, or the school culture values Korean traditional norms and expects all students to conform to them, tension arises between being immigrant language teacher and being acculturator. When native Korean teachers and school curriculum expect immigrant students to improve their academic language in all subject areas through bilingual education class, there is tension between language teacher and language learner. The language-learner self, however, contends that the expectation needs to be adjusted, since its learning experience tells it the expectation is unrealistic unless the bilingual education policy provides two-way immersion, which allows students to learn subject areas via both home language and target language, for the purpose of enhancing dual language proficiency. Bilingual teachers respond to the tensions in ways they honor and integrate various selves or accept the culturally and politically defined teacher identity. As tension between immigrant 76 self and teacher self arises, Mei-ling manages tension by paying attention to her successful teaching experience and sense of confidence the experiences bring on. She integrates and honors both teacher and immigrant identities and aspires to develop professional knowledge through teacher education programs. Although Fumiko seems to be very confused and frustrated about the tension between the immigrant self or teacher self, she integrates them in a way that she expresses confidence as a teacher honoring her immigrant self as good teaching resource. When it comes to tension between the Korean language teacher and the acculturator, Younghee’s choice is to take the role of being a Korean language teacher who prioritizes students’ academic outcomes despite her sense of guilt at neglecting emotional caring and supporting. Her narrative of tension seems to reflect the meritocratic, outcome-oriented discourse in Korean education. Hae-soon’s narrative of tension, on the other hand, reflects the very school discourse that emphasizes discipline—raising students to be good and well-behaved citizens. She understands the expectation toward her class by interpreting the discourse and choosing to take an acculturator role. This first section of this chapter identifies bilingual teachers’ inner tensions among multiple selves centering on negative and positive emotions and contextual factors; the next section reveals bilingual teachers’ understandings of being teachers in Korea, and their active construction of professional identities in their narrative. Only a few studies have looked into the true voices of bilingual teachers who are immigrant, mostly females, and how they practice teaching based on their own frames, philosophies, and understandings of what being a teacher is, in and under the Korean education system. This study sheds light on how bilingual teachers understand being a teacher in Korea, and on their unique and meaningful process of identity construction. Although this study illuminates the most frequently emerging images of teacher in 77 bilingual teachers’ narratives, it does not seek a commonality of bilingual teachers’ perceptions of whom or what a teacher is in Korea. Instead, this study highlights the individuality of understanding the socially- and culturally-constructed image of teachers in Korea, and the dynamic process of constructing teacher identities through storytelling. Two major components deserve attention in terms of bilingual teachers’ understanding of being a teacher in Korea, namely its relative and value-laden nature. First, in bilingual teachers’ narratives, a strong tendency is the creation of a boundary between bilingual teachers themselves and Korean teachers. This tendency brings relativity to the middle-ground between being a teacher in general and being a bilingual teacher. For example, bilingual teachers understand being a teacher in Korea as ‘teacher is a public servant’ since it is relative to their position of ‘non-public servant.’ While bilingual teachers engage in multiple discursive practices, their choices and decisions make sense to their experience, values, and beliefs in understanding who and what a teacher is in Korea. Second, in the same vein, bilingual teachers identify with or distance themselves from the images of teachers in mind based on the cultural and experiential repertoire of good teaching or good teacher, which they learned both from their home countries and from Korea. Although in the narrative they did not explicitly describe good teacher or good teaching, it can be noticed that bilingual teachers value the idea of teachers who respond to the needs of the school community, of students and parents, and sometimes of Korean teachers. The bilingual teachers repeatedly and commonly emphasize teachers’ attitudes and efforts to listen to and learn about what students and parents need. These bilingual teachers, therefore, distance themselves from busy and productive teachers and describe themselves as teachers with empathy who spend more time to learn about students’ cultural and linguistic backgrounds. 78 In terms of constructing identities in line with their understanding of being a teacher, bilingual teachers are perceptually reactive to and actively interpretive of the experience from the school field. While actively interpreting what they learn and experience, these bilingual teachers express various emotions in their narrative, such as sense of accomplishment, alienation, deprivation, connectedness, distance, etc. They sometimes show contradictory feelings toward a certain image of teacher, such as envy or criticism. The teachers emotionally connect to certain images more, while others are distanced in constructing their own identities. The focal teachers construct their identities in ways that these emotional dynamics and active interpretation of the experiences make sense to their idea of who and what teacher they are or would be. Interacting with their surroundings, learning and participating in various discursive practices, they recognize whether they belong psychologically and emotionally to that description of teacher in general, on which basis they deduce and construct clearer pictures of who they are as teachers. Among multiple identity constructions is the significant and dominant identity construction: ‘A teacher responsive to the needs of students and parents in the school field.’ A teacher responsive to needs is considered as a “nodal point” (Søreide, 2007, p. 540) in the bilingual teachers’ narrative. This identity of nodal point is created when “privileged, certain and fixed meanings” (Søreide, 2007, p. 540) are given to this particular identity, thereby being dominant throughout the narrative. Bilingual teachers in my study seem concerned most over needs of immigrant students and their parents. Needs are able to be identified from understanding of situations they face such as identity crises of immigrant students, linguistic barriers between parents and Korean teachers/ school staffs, and suchlike. On the basis of this understanding, the bilingual teachers are able to construct their identities: teachers who have accessibility with listening ears and open minds, teachers who are sentiment-centered and 79 competent in teaching the Korean language, and so on. It is necessary to pay attention to intrinsic and extrinsic factors of interpreting the experiences from the school field. In the process of interacting with the environment, participating in various discursive practices are the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that emotionally and physically affected these bilingual teachers’ constructions of their identities. Unsatisfying treatment or lack of interaction with Korean teachers can be extrinsic factors while job insecurity, pride or sense of accomplishment can be intrinsic factors. Bilingual teachers in this study demonstrate various emotions and unique and meaningful ways of constructing their own identities through narrative construction. Conclusion and Implications The present study sheds light on how bilingual teachers’ multiple selves create tensions and how these tensions are resolved in the process of the teachers developing their professional identities. Overall this study demonstrates that the bilingual teachers’ sense of selves is closely engaged in understanding and interpreting the macro- and micro- contexts of tension and identity construction. Careful examination of tensions between bilingual teachers’ multiple selves can provide knowledge of how the organizational and ethnographic contexts-- including multicultural curriculum and policy, school culture and norm, societal and individual beliefs-- impact bilingual teachers’ sense of self. In the context of multicultural education policy, the bilingual teachers’ multiple selves intersect and conflict with each other involving their knowledge, experiences, ideologies, and beliefs in teaching and learning. This study also sheds light on the value of culturally-different individual perspectives in understanding the meaning of who and what a teacher is, which already has been socially and historically established. My analysis indicates that these bilingual teachers’ narratives carry their own wishes and 80 expectations of being teachers in relation to their past and current repertoires of concepts of what and who teachers are. Bilingual teachers actively construct their own narrative identities based on their understandings of relationships with others, and with the school system. 81 CHAPTER FIVE WHAT AM I ? BILINGUAL TEACHERS’ METAPHORS AND THEIR IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION This study looks at ways in which these bilingual teachers understand their being teachers in the particular context of multicultural education in Korea. Since the bilingual-teacher position was created under the 2006 multicultural education policy, their conceptualization of teacher drew my attention. However, little research has been conducted regarding bilingual teachers’ identity. To better understand teachers’ professional identity, various studies have been conducted using metaphor. Metaphor can serve as a means to explore teachers’ experiences and beliefs relative to teaching and learning. Metaphor use can encourage teachers to examine their educational philosophies and articulate their implicit knowledge and beliefs. With the goal of providing insight into teachers’ perceptions of who they are as teachers, in this chapter I explore how bilingual teachers’ self-created metaphors reveal their understanding of being teachers, regarding roles, responsibilities, and beliefs in teaching and learning. Theoretical Framework Research into and about teachers’ metaphor has increased, with considerable interest in teachers’ knowledge, practice, pedagogy and values (Alsup, 2005; Buchanan,2015; Kavanoz, 2016; Zhu & Zhu, 2018; Erickson & Pinnegar, 2017; Emerson & Mansvelt, 2014). Since metaphors can be defined as “mental structures reflecting individuals’ self-related beliefs, emotions and thoughts by means of which they understand and act within their worlds” (Eren & Tekinnarslan, 2013, p. 435), researchers employ metaphor for the purpose of better understanding teachers’ “internal thinking, reflection and emotional state” (Johnson et al., 2014, 82 p. 541). As Oxford et al. (1998) suggest, metaphor serves as a “conceptual tool to elucidate features of a more complex subject or situation” (p.4). It therefore can be a useful tool to reconstruct and present abstract ideas and thoughts in concrete language or imagery. With such features and functions of metaphor, research has been conducted to learn more about teachers’ conceptions of teaching and learning. In the study of pre-service teachers and teacher education programs, researchers find that making pre-service teachers explicate their ideas and beliefs in metaphoric language is useful in understanding their cognitive and affective perceptions in teaching and learning, and helpful also for pre-service teachers in constructing their own meanings of teaching, students, pedagogy, etc. (Kim & Danforth, 2012; Ma, & Gao, 2017; Massengill Shaw& Mahlios, 2008; Goldstein, 2005). Massenggill, Shaw and Mahlios (2008), for example, found connection between metaphor and literacy beliefs among 66 teacher participants after analyzing their metaphors. Researchers argue that metaphor can be a powerful conceptual tool in framing the sense of teaching. Metaphor can serve as “a means for framing and defining experience … to achieve meaning about one’s life” (Massengill, Shaw & Mahlios, 2008, p.35). Researchers examine metaphors used by teachers to identify how pre- and in-service teachers can be “modeling and reifying their prior experience” in teaching and learning (Zhao et al., 2010, p. 381). Teachers’ experiences - in the classroom, relationships, internship, preparation program, etc., can be learned and understood by analyzing their use of metaphor. For example, Goldstein (2005) found that the first field placement experience is framed by pre-service elementary teachers with metaphors that refer to it as a hero’s/heroine’s journey. This indicates pre-service teachers interpret student teaching internship and/or other field-based practica as transformation and growth. Goldstein argues that a hero’s/heroine’s journey is a potentially powerful metaphor for 83 the new teachers, however, it also can disillusion them when they experience the contrast between idealized images and the realities of the profession. Alger (2009) notes the importance of connection between metaphor and culture. He claims that “metaphors are conventional, meaning that they are prevalent in the culture and their meaning is shared by the culture” (p. 743). His research finds that new teachers encounter limitations in making sense of and interpreting their experience due to culturally-bound metaphors. In-service teachers in the study of Emerson and Mansvelt (2014) resist the existing consumer metaphor in teaching and learning attached to New Zealand culture, and reconstruct their own metaphor with deeper understanding of roles, responsibilities and relationship with teachers. Emerson and Mensvelt find that in-service teachers transform their metaphors in relation to their own belief, attitude, and behavior toward students’ position, resisting pre- existing and culturally-bounded metaphors. Not only do metaphors reveal what teaching is, but also they pertain to who the teacher is, and individual teachers’ sense of self. In the study of identity are multiple notions of self, such as present self and possible self (Flores & Day, 2006), “ought” self (Thomas & Beauchamp, 2011, p. 179), cognitive self and affective self (Beijaard et al., 2004), and cultural self and situated self (Buchanan, 2015). These diverse notions are based on the shifting, conflicting, multiple nature of identity itself. This line of teacher education literature reveals the developmental nature of teacher identity, and the connection between professional and personal identity through metaphoric narrative (Alsup, 2005; Thomas & Beauchamp, 2011; Buchanan, 2015; Zhao et al., 2010; Erickson and Pinnegar, 2017; Jhu & Jhu, 2018). For example, Thomas and Beauchamp (2011) analyze new teachers’ metaphors to identify how their professional identities have been developed in a three-year period. The findings indicate that the new teachers’ 84 sense of self shifted from being ready for challenges to struggling for survival in the profession. The dynamic and evolving concept of identity can be demonstrated through positioning (Harre and Van Langenhove, 1999) as teachers continue to construct and reconstruct their identities by positioning themselves and others in ways that make sense to themselves. By analyzing teachers’ metaphors, teachers’ identity can be uncovered relative to the roles of teachers, students, school leaders, and contexts. Social and cultural discourses play pivotal roles in the positioning process revealed in metaphoric narrative (Erickson & Pinnegar, 2017; Pinnegar et al., 2011; Iedema,1996). Much research has been conducted worldwide regarding bilingual teachers’ identity and its development through metaphoric representation (Ma & Gao, 2017; Karabay, 2016; Kavanoz, 2016; Han, 2017). With 94 participants of English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers, Kavanoz (2016) analyzes Turkish pre-service bilingual teachers’ metaphors, to identify aspects of teacher identity development. The analysis reveals that as bilingual teachers become accustomed to the profession, they come to resist initial views of the bilingual teacher as a professional responsible for social order and cultural transmission. The transformation of teachers’ perceptions suggests that teachers’ identity continues to be reconstructed in response to social and political conditions. Another research, on Chinese language teachers’ identity (Ma and Gao, 2017), contends that teachers’ use of metaphors can be a powerful tool to understand the complexity of teaching associated with cultural, historical, and sociopolitical conditions. By analyzing patterns of metaphor production from English teachers in Korea, Han’s (2017) research discloses attributes and dynamics of English teachers’ identity development in a socio-psychological framework; its findings indicate that teachers’ sense of self reflects the interpretation of the English language teaching environment, comprehension of the national English curriculum, and related policies. In 85 global research on bilingual teachers’ metaphors relative to identity, one finds commonalities: the teaching and learning environment, and cultural and social conditions, as presented in teachers’ narratives, tend to be key factors in construction of teacher identity. One of the purposes of this research is to identify how bilingual teachers critically evaluate the teaching and sociocultural environment, and to reflect on internalized beliefs about teaching and learning. The aim of this chapter is to explore how bilingual teachers’ self-created metaphors reveal ways in which teacher identity is constructed relative to experiences and beliefs of teaching and learning. This chapter’s central focus is on the metaphors themselves, as presented in teachers’ narrative. Method The purpose of this chapter is to identify ways in which bilingual teachers’ construct their professional identity through creation of metaphors. Coming to understand their metaphors drew on my extensive interactions with the focal teachers. Since I began my preliminary research, I built relationships with the five bilingual teacher participants over three years, which gave me a favorable position from which to elicit their stories with true feelings and explore metaphors they offered to describe themselves. In this chapter, I draw particularly on specific interviews that explicitly invited discussion of metaphors. From the first interview I had with each teacher, each was asked to think about their being teachers, using metaphor. In the final interview session (of five to six sessions) they each had the opportunity to explain their metaphors. This allowed the teachers enough time to create metaphors that explain their being bilingual teachers during the whole research period. To help 86 them grasp the concept of metaphor, I provided brief explanations with examples on the sheet. The last interview session lasted 90-120 hours, In the interview I focused on only a simple two-part question: Using a metaphor, how would you describe your being a teacher? Could you explain why you create the metaphor? While listening to their metaphors, I kept giving them feedback, to confirm whether my interpretation is what they meant. Each metaphor is analyzed in isolation one at a time. I coded metaphors using a priori categories such as roles, responsibilities, beliefs and experiences, since the aim of this research is to explore how teachers construct their professional identity relative to roles, responsibilities, beliefs and experiences. I coded as roles statements indicating what the bilingual teacher expects from their students through her teaching, and how they understand the curriculum design in terms of goals of multicultural and bilingual education. Coded as responsibilities were statements exposing their perceptions of what teachers are responsible for in terms of their teaching and students’ learning. Coded as beliefs were statements revealing their desires and hopes of being a teacher relative to their multiple positions of immigrant, teacher, mother of immigrant children, and so on. Coded as experiences were statements exposing their understanding of teaching and sociocultural context relative to challenges and struggles of being a teacher in Korea. After the coding process, I developed descriptions of each metaphor, and continued to review findings focusing on my interpretation and their responses back and forth. 87 Analysis: The Metaphors Teachers Constructed Fumiko: Teacher as onion Fumiko’s metaphor of onion indicates that she values learning and teaching about others as new knowledge; every time you peel onions, you see the new kernel. I would like to say I [as a bilingual teacher] am like the onion. You know you peel and peel, but you still see the new skin remaining. My teaching is like that. I teach new things every day. I am not teaching unchanging truth like math formulas. Thus, I cannot stop educating myself. Many people [native Korean teachers and parents] question why it is necessary to learn about other cultures or languages in a general curriculum, why Japanese, not English or Chinese? Well, what I am teaching is not only useful now, but will be the great foundation for life. Multicultural sensitivity10 is an essential quality these days for Korean students and teachers, and I think not many Korean teachers have this quality and teach with it. Fumiko teaches only multicultural education classes for native Korean teachers in the current school since there is no any demand for a bilingual education class for immigrant students. Her attitude toward teaching cultural components of target language, or teaching diverse culture, is humble in the sense she feels she needs to continue to educate herself. With critical perspective she also comprehends the reality around her; for example, native Korean                                                                                                                 10 The Korean government officially adopted this term in designing a multicultural education curriculum. Multicultural sensitivity indicates ability to perceive, react and accept differences from other cultures. 88 teachers and parents question the multicultural curriculum and bilingual teaching. And she thinks they are the ones who need to learn and improve multicultural sensitivity, that is, the ability to perceive, react and accept differences. Her onion metaphor demonstrates how she understands teaching relative to the challenges and struggles as follows: Fumiko: Teaching is peeling the onion. It is repetitive and sometimes makes you cry. But you try, and try to like peeling the skin of onion. Sometimes I feel like it never ends. Interviewer: Were there any cases that made you cry? Fumiko: I never have cried while teaching in the classroom or anywhere in school, but sometimes I have been on the verge of tears with frustration. Interviewer: What made you feel frustrated or disappointed in school? Fumiko: Oh… I have no particular issues, but I am not happy with how my class is considered by [native Korean] teachers or school curriculum. They seem to question my professional ability. Whenever I teach the multicultural education class, some teachers stay in the classroom while I am teaching. It seems they are worried that I might not be able to control the class. Some other teachers are just indifferent about multicultural education or its curriculum. 89 She describes teaching itself as repetitive work like peeling onions and she understands the routinized characteristic of teaching. However, she problematizes native Korean teachers’ attitudes toward her teaching and her class. She feels her authority is questioned by native Korean teachers. Despite the frustration, she seems to understand her being a teacher without ambiguity. She believes that she has a quality that she thinks other Korean teachers lack, that is, multicultural sensitivity, the most important quality needed among students and teachers in a global society. Young-hee: Teacher as Thick Glass In the narrative of metaphor, Young-hee, the KSL teacher, demonstrates her own perspective and stance of bilingual education, and the role of bilingual teacher as she compares herself to ‘glass’. I myself, as a bilingual teacher, am like ‘glass.’ Thick glass! Glass has roles such as protecting and insulating, and it sometimes is like a mirror that reflects back one’s body. It also requires to be cleaned with delicate touch. It is not easily broken, but you need to be careful. I hope I can be treated with fair hands in school. Also, I am very careful in teaching and interacting with my students. They are who need protection and need to be embraced with warm heart. They [the students] are facing many difficulties and troubles in school. The most important role is on families. If they [the students] interact with parents well, they will grow strong egos. If students are proud of themselves and their backgrounds, their school lives will be 90 much happier. I think the most important is the Korean language. If my students’ Korean language proficiency is improved, their problems will be gone. This is what their parents’ want and I, as a mother, also agree with this. Thus, my role as bilingual teacher is limited to teaching Korean. Other things are parents’ jobs, you know, mothers’ jobs... Young-hee identifies herself with multicultural students relative to their need to be treated carefully, as she states that she would like to be treated fairly as are other native Korean teachers in school. In describing the traits of glass, she argues that she needs to be treated prudently in school, as fragile glass is treated with caution. She seems to have trouble with her mentor teacher who is ‘too busy to meet and talk with her’. According to Young-hee, the mentor seems to act as if mentoring is not the mentor teachers’ job as long as no problem arises over class schedule. The teacher role explicated through the glass metaphor is primarily protecting multicultural students against bias and isolation, which seems to be the hardship she herself experiences in school. Immigrant students are taught separated from general class students, and can be labeled as ‘different’ students. Besides, the process of assessing the Korean language proficiency of immigrant students is unclear. If immigrant students struggle academically, ‘busy’ teachers assign them to the bilingual education class, which in turn causes immigrant students to feel inferior. Young-hee recognizes well her students’ struggles and their anomic state of emotion as immigrants and she describes roles and responsibilities of bilingual teachers and parents in dealing with this issue. She makes clear distinction between roles of teachers and parents, but takes the positions of both bilingual teacher and mother of multicultural students. In 91 her definition, the bilingual teacher’s responsibility is to improve immigrant students’ Korean language proficiency. She sees this as aligned with parents’ expectation. As a mother of multicultural students, and as a bilingual teacher, she agrees that Korean language proficiency is important. She emphasizes that Korean language proficiency is key for the multicultural student success in Korean schools. It seems she equally values the role of parents at home in that a positive sense of self should be developed through a positive relationship with parents, which in turn affects relationships with pupils and teachers in school. Hae-soon: Teacher as Bridge Hae-soon used a metaphor of ‘bridge’ in describing herself as teacher as she explores how she can make her belief in bilingual education consistent with her personal experience as a minority member in Korean society. I am the minority. I remain on the fringe of Korean society. My language and my nationality all indicate I am not in the mainstream. As a minority, I realized the importance of rules of Korean society. If you are to be respected, you should respect the Korean society. You know, when in Rome, do as Romans do. Thus, I would like to say my role is like a ‘bridge.’ A bridge that connects island to mainland... I try to become a tool to bridge between the mainstream world and non-mainstream world. If my students learn Korean norms and get along with Korean students and Korean teachers, they will have more chance to be successful in school and Korean society. The school is like a small society and my students need to 92 understand and respect the rules of school, which emphasizes politeness and classroom attitude. That is why I always focus on teaching my students proper behavior and language use. Hae-soon’s narrative reveals her recognition of the importance of following and understanding norms, as a member of a minority. It can be assumed that her minority experience greatly impacted her beliefs about multicultural and bilingual education. She had various job experiences in Korea before having a teacher position and she described her experience as follows: I am very grateful that I can work in school. Being a teacher is a really decent job compared to others. I had tough years under the stormy billows of the world out there and I learned one thing: Follow the rules and accept what you haven’t known. She expects that by learning how to behave appropriately, and respecting rules and norms, multicultural students can be accepted well by Korean society. The bridge metaphor demonstrates Hae-soon’s understanding of the role of the bilingual teacher in acculturating the language minority students. Her class is to bridge the divide between the mainstream and minority world with a goal of learning and practicing mainstream rules. Hae-soon further states: I want my students to be successful in Korean society. Then, my students need first to learn what is proper and mannerly in certain situations, 93 especially in the classroom. They should know how to interact with teachers with respectful manners and by using proper words. They also should know what expressions should not be used, which they already have acquired and become accustomed to. They should distinguish between what are appropriate words for the elderly and for their peers. Being acculturated and socialized to Korean language and culture can be a sign of acquiring cultural capital, which she thinks will advantage multicultural students in living successful lives in Korean society. Hae-soon is well aware of which values are emphasized in Korean school, that is, politeness and proper use of language, and she defines her responsibility as providing opportunity for multicultural students to be acculturated by learning social norms through her class. Hae-soon’s narrative indicates that she clearly identifies herself as bilingual teacher and acculturator. Mei-ling: Teacher as Scarf Mei-ling’s metaphor of scarf reveals her desire to be professional by improving her pedagogical knowledge from further university study. I would like to compare myself to ‘scarf’. It is useful in creating various styles. Style is changeable according to occasion and location. I try to be a versatile teacher who can be flexible and professional in teaching in response to the demand. These days see a growing demand for Chinese language class. You know, Chinese is becoming an important language as 94 China becomes an economic superpower. Korean parents recognize it well. Every beginning of the semester, more and more Korean parents enroll their children in my Chinese language class. They want to equip their children for successful careers in the global market. They also have very high expectations of my Chinese language class. I put more energy and effort into preparing my Chinese language class, but I think I somehow should learn more. I would like to improve my teaching skill. How can I make my class more fun? So I am study online through Korea National Open University11. I wish to learn more about useful pedagogy that I can apply to my class. In the narrative, Mei-ling recognizes that her foreignness, which directly translates into her ability to speak native Chinese and to deliver and present the cultural component of language to the students, is welcomed due to the growing demand for Chinese language education. It is crucial to note that she recognizes and embraces discourse on Chinese language status in the global market when she constructs her bilingual teacher identity. In response to the demand and high expectation toward her Chinese language class, she sees the necessity of improving her teaching skills that can create an inspiring and motivating class atmosphere. Mei-ling’s scarf metaphor represents her desire to be a professional teacher who will provide high quality teaching that can satisfy students and parents and her. Regarding multicultural students, Mei-ling expresses concern about their different learning experiences, which can cause difficulty in adjusting to new surroundings.                                                                                                                 11 Korea National Open University (방송통신대학교) provides degree-seeking students with distance education including various online courses. 95 Multicultural students struggle not because of Korean language proficiency, but rather their own way of thinking based on their culture or previous learning experience. I think Korean teachers should distinguish whether that is because they lack Korean language proficiency, or because they have just different learning styles or experience. Some students actually do know well about the subject, but the way they learned from Chinese teachers might differ from that of Koreans. Thus, I teach my students in a way that stimulates two ways of thinking: the Korean way and the Chinese way. I hope my class is fun and motivating enough for them to feel they achieve something. Mei-ling argues that Chinese students, who are often segregated to the class for lower- achievement students, were actually high achievers back in China. She believes that previous learning experience in China should be respected and considered to be an ‘advantage’ rather than a ‘disadvantage.’ Across her entire narrative, Mei-ling makes clear that the bilingual teacher should be one who is culturally competent as well as pedagogically knowledgeable, to meet demands of students and parents, and to motivate and inspire students to gain a sense of achievement. Like a scarf is useful and matches diverse outfits, her teaching can be versatile with multicultural backgrounds in that she is able to teach in both Korean and Chinese ways. She considers her foreignness is a great asset that can qualify her to become a good teacher. 96 Yujin: Teacher as Jangdok12 Yujin’s metaphor, Jangdok (Korean traditional crock), represents her ideology in teaching and students. As a bilingual teacher, she takes the role of eliciting talent and drawing attraction from multicultural students to raise them as useful individuals in Korean society, and she believes she can create the opportunity with patience and time. I compare myself to Jangdok, you know, it ripens Kimchi and makes it more savory and richer. The longer the food is in it, the more delicious it will be. Through my teaching and my class, I think my students become more attractive and useful persons in Korean society. It takes a long time, which is why bilingual teachers need patience and trust in their potentiality. I believe in them, and show my trust, then students will trust themselves. I also always want to be a useful person for them, like Jangdok. To be like this, I always try to improve myself. You know, as you treasure and polish Jangdok, you should polish yourself, then your inside will contain attractive content. I know the Korean school system is sometimes absurd, and staffs or novice teachers can make mistakes. The curriculum can be problematic and so can other things. But I try to understand it. I see it as process of development, to become better. See the Kimchi, all different kinds of ingredients, spicy, hot, salty, sweet, even disgusting ones, are all put inside Jangdok and it becomes the tasty Kimchi everyone loves. Again                                                                                                                 it takes time and patience. 12 Jangdok (장독) indicates Korean traditional crock for soy sauce or other condiments and it usually used for fermenting Kimchi(Korean traditional cuisine usually made of napa cabbage) inside. 97 Yujin compares to the qualities of Jangdok what she thinks the bilingual teacher and teaching should be. She contends that teaching should be based on trust and patience, through which students can build self-esteem. She assumes that teachers can scaffold students learning by recognizing students’ potentials. She believes that teachers should provide space for students to develop and exhibit their competence so that they become independent and self-regulating leaners. In her description of her Jangdok metaphor, she portrays her attitude in life. As an immigrant, Yujin recognizes and respects the values of Korean society even as she faces seemingly absurd or irrational occasions. She sees that the school system sometimes is not systematic enough, especially relative to the multicultural education curriculum. It seems she is the only one who works on the multicultural education curriculum while doing various related jobs such as leading parent-teacher conferences for immigrant parents, translating school letters, preparing for multiple events with the immigrant students, etc. She suggests that as a member of the school institution, teachers should attempt to reconcile the student needs with concern for the school system regarding curriculum, treatment, relationship, etc. She shows a receptive attitude by stating that it takes time and perseverance for the better, just like Kimchi ripens inside a Jangdok, harmonizing with all kinds of different ingredients. When asked how she can harmonize with others if there is any conflict, she answers as follows: If there is a conflict with me, I will look for the agreement, then I can find it. The answer is always inside me. But I never had direct conflict with any. That’s not my thing. 98 Discussion This chapter aims to identify what metaphors reveal about these bilingual teachers’ sense of self as a teacher. Bilingual teachers in this study were encouraged to explore and discuss their metaphors so that they can have insights into who they are relative to beliefs, assumptions, thoughts, practice, and contexts. Metaphors can help teachers “look in and look out” (Buchanan, 2015, p.34), that is, through creating metaphors, teachers are able to understand themselves as teachers as well as surrounding environments with more critical perspectives. This section will discuss how bilingual teachers construct their identity relative to their roles and responsibilities in metaphoric narrative, and explore how they critically engage in understanding the complexity of teaching and learning associated with cultural and sociopolitical conditions. Look in: teachers’ perceptions of role, responsibility, and challenges Bilingual teachers in this study actively create their identities and shape the worlds they inhabit or hope to inhabit (Gee, 2001). Metaphors capture conceptions they hold for teaching and learning and, through metaphoric language, they critically reflect their roles and responsibilities. In this study, the five bilingual teachers’ metaphors demonstrate both idealistic and realistic perceptions of roles and responsibilities. Five metaphors demonstrate teachers’ desires and hope to be professional, acculturator, or teachers who draw on students’ potential capabilities, and reflect the reality of life as teachers in response to challenges and struggles. Responsibilities are reinforced by teachers’ desire to support immigrant students academically and emotionally. Their teaching should allow immigrant students to improve self- esteem and to become useful and attractive laborers in the global market. It is evident in this study that teachers’ metaphors are enacted through their teaching practice in terms of roles and 99 responsibilities (Collins & Green, 1990). Students are those who have great potential but at the same time are somehow fragile like glass so that they need to be treated carefully just like teachers need to be treated with fairness. This shared view of students leads to these teachers’ perception of roles and responsibilities that focus on both cognitive and affective aspects of teaching and learning. Students are to be protected, acculturated, and educated for the purpose of raising them as successful citizens in Korea. In their definition of ‘being successful citizens,’ their selves as teachers are projected; they see themselves as successful citizens since teacher positions are highly appreciated in Korea. Their foreignness with bilingual ability is a great asset to become a teacher, since it is a useful resource in curricula. Bilingual teachers attach value to their experiences as immigrants, Korean language learners, bilinguals, which shape their ideas of teacher roles and responsibilities. For example, on the one hand their experience as immigrant is reified in their teaching, assigning roles of teacher to be acculturating, improving self-esteem, building sense of belonging, emotionally supporting. On the other, their experience as Korean language learner is modeled in teaching, defining responsibilities of teachers to enhance pedagogical knowledge and practice. It is evident that in this study, bilingual teachers’ personal and professional self closely connects to understanding of their selves as teacher (Lipka & Brinthaupt, 1999) and this is revealed through the metaphors they chose to describe themselves. These teachers make an effort to balance between professional and personal views in the decision-making process for teaching and living their lives as teachers in school. The metaphors not only reveal teachers’ desires and hopes regarding responsibilities and roles, but also demonstrate teachers’ challenges and struggles. Metaphors describe the reality of being a teacher relative to struggles in teaching, classroom management, relationship with 100 students and teachers, and the school environment, and so on. Like peeling an onion, being a teacher is to live a repetitive life and sometimes makes one cry. Teaching itself can be highly challenging, like building a bridge connecting an island and the mainland. It sometimes produces difficult odors from fermenting Kimchi and requires patience, like Jangdok. It should be noted how individual bilingual teachers react differently to challenges and struggles in their metaphoric language. Yujin hopes to earn certification for counseling, so as to overcome challenges she feels in supporting immigrant students and parents; Mei-ling is studying online to improve pedagogical knowledge and skill; they both actively search for ways to manage their struggles, whereas Fumiko and Young-hee require the school system and native Korean teachers to change in their attitudes and treatment; Hey-soon seems to adapt herself to the nature of the school environment reflecting prior hardship in job experiences. Look Out: critical reflection on teaching and sociocultural environment In this study, the self-constructed metaphors reveal the teachers’ sense of self that reflects bilingual teachers’ critical reflection on teaching environment, multicultural education policy and curriculum. Since the multicultural education policy has created the position of the bilingual teacher, the teachers consider that the policy legitimizes them. The policy is designed to support immigrant students and the bilingual teachers, therefore, defines their role as teachers mainly concerning the immigrant students. That is, bilingual teachers are responsible for mainstreaming the immigrant students through acculturation and language teaching. As Fumiko’s metaphoric narrative described, multicultural sensitivity is considered a quality possessed by bilingual teachers but not by Korean teachers. She suggests that native Korean teachers need to improve their multicultural knowledge and sensitivity, so that they can 101 incorporate the idea and knowledge into their pedagogical choice and teaching subject areas. Native Korean teachers are responsible for educating native Korean students to be open-minded and sensitive to difference and respectful to others from different cultures and use different languages since they are the ones who teach native Korean students through entire curricula. Bilingual teachers generally agree on the purpose of multicultural and bilingual education policy, but in important ways differ in how critically they view both their work and condition for it. As shown in Figure 1 below, perspectives the teachers express through their metaphor choices range from hopeful optimism to a critical attitude. Figure 5.1. Metaphors as a continuum of critical attitude. Scarf (+) à Jangdok à Bridge àthick glass àonion(-) Aspiration aspiration adaptation critical critical reality reality improvement In Figure 5.1. above, Mei-ling’s scarf metaphor implies the least critical view on teaching and sociocultural environment whereas Fumiko’s onion metaphor suggests the most critical attitude. Mei-ling’s scarf metaphor indicates her aspiration to be a professional and successful teacher. Like a scarf, she hopes to become useful, practical, efficient, and versatile, as teacher. Comparably, in Fumiko’s description of the onion metaphor, she is critical of the teaching profession and native Korean teachers’ lack of intention to embody the value of multicultural education in life. It is also important to note that Han Chinese Mei-ling’s scarf metaphor demonstrates a more positive perception on school curricula and sociocultural environments, while Ethnic Korean Chinese Hae-soon’s and Young-hee’s metaphors –bridge and glass—reflect a rather critical yet realistic perspective. This is because the metaphors reflect the fact that the 102 bilingual teachers’ experiences are quite different from each other in terms of their relationships with students, native Korean teachers, mentor teachers, school environment, curricula, and the treatment they receive. For example, Young-hee confides that her mentor teacher seems indifferent to her teaching and class, and she also feels the bilingual teacher group is unfairly treated in many ways by native Korean students, mentor teachers, school leadership, and policy. Hae-soon shows a somewhat unique attitude through her metaphoric language in that she compares the hardship of prior job experience to her teaching environment. Despite the most unpleasant surroundings such as the derelict classroom and isolated site she uses for her class, Hae-soon seems to reconcile herself to the current situation, satisfied with the stable and well- respected position of teacher in Korea. As Lortie (2002) points out, these teachers tend to stay behind closed doors and maintain isolation, rather than openly discuss their challenges and struggles. They rarely discuss the organization of bilingual teachers or seek out the collective voice or solidarity, although they realize it is necessary. Some are preoccupied in their survival modes, therefore they tend to avoid possible conflict with anyone in school. They consider that they should improve their pedagogical knowledge and skill, since they feel that their professional knowledge is illegitimated by some Korean native teachers. Concerning what they do and don’t have, the bilingual teachers continue to construct and reconstruct their identity as teacher through the creation and explaining of metaphors. They are well aware that their bilingual ability and immigrant background can be an asset and become useful resources in enacting the multicultural curriculum. Despite similarities that can be found in the experiences of teacher education in the same institution, Korean National University of Education, where bilingual teachers learn and practice how and what to teach, their perception of the experiences regarding teaching in practice and cultural and political surroundings varies 103 among participants. Teaching is repetitive and sometimes tormenting like peeling the onion, challenging like bridge-building between mainland and island, rewarding and painstaking like fermenting Kimchi. They actively enact their agency purposefully to direct their professional growth and contribute to multicultural education in Korea. Teachers should be all-rounders and resourceful like scarf, and preserving like Jangdok. They demand that the bilingual teacher group should have opportunity for professional development - like other native Korean teachers do - so that they can be the good teachers they individually envision. Conclusion and Implications In this chapter, self-created metaphors provide bilingual teachers with opportunities to critically reflect on their experiences based on their perception of roles and responsibilities in being a teacher in Korea. The metaphors also offer me a means for exploring bilingual teachers’ identity construction in relation to their own beliefs, desires, challenges and struggles in their metaphoric narrative. This analysis suggests that self-constructed metaphors reveal the broad range of perspectives that bilingual teachers bring to discussion of professional identity construction, and remind us it can be a very personal one that can include various interpretations. Individual use of metaphor can “demystify the passage of personal ‘felt’ or ‘intuitive’ knowledge into professional practice” (Hunt, 2006, p. 328). Bilingual teachers in this study take advantage of creating their own metaphors and constructing their identity by attempting to translate their intuitive grasp of selves and surroundings into articulate words. They actively exercise their agency in this process, evident in the wide range of interpretation of being a teacher with regard to multicultural education curriculum and policy. They critically reflect what and who a teacher is concerning the 104 sociocultural context of Korea, resisting, editing, sometimes accepting the existing discourse of being a teacher. 105 CHAPTER SIX CONCLUSION What I learned about the bilingual teachers This study aims at exploring how bilingual teachers author their stories of being teachers with a focus on their marginalized status in the Korean multicultural education context. As non- natives and differently tracked, bilingual teachers, who are supposed to teach Korean language, foreign language, and multicultural values and culture, are the ones responsible to enact the multicultural and bilingual education curriculum. However, they experience marginalization in terms of salary, treatment, and relationship in the school setting, and their positions often are questioned and unappreciated due to their relatively short period (six months) of pre-service teacher education and their noncompetitive certifying process compared to native Korean teachers. The seemingly easily earned teaching certification is not appreciated by other teachers and society. Given these aspects of the bilingual teachers’ position, I attempted to listen to individual teachers’ voices through their stories, expecting the study would produce a meaningful outcome to the potential audience of this study—bilingual teachers themselves. Because Korean bilingual teachers’ stories are never spoken and never heard, I thought it would be meaningful for teachers to produce their own stories and construct their own identities through multiple narratives. Accordingly, I heard their stories and I create my stories with their voices in this research. I truly am grateful that I can learn with such amazing teachers who are willing to open their hearts and tell their stories of past, present, and future. 106 As they spoke to me about who they are and what they do as teachers, bilingual teachers display inner tensions in their narratives. In constructing these, bilingual teachers honor and integrate their various selves as they manage tension between multiple selves in ways that they aspire to develop professional knowledge. They choose to accept the culturally- and politically- defined teacher identity which prioritizes students’ academic outcomes as they manage tension between their multiple selves. In terms of the macro- and micro-contexts, the school curriculum and culture, teacher and policy expectation, and teachers’ learning experiences are relevant to the tensions of their multiple selves. I also found that significant and dominant themes in their identity construction are 1) a teacher responsive to the needs of students and parents; 2) a teacher who has accessibility with listening ears and an open mind; and 3) a teacher who is sentiment-centered and competent in teaching the Korean language. Also, intrinsic and extrinsic factors are present that emotionally and physically affect bilingual teachers’ constructions of their identities. They include unsatisfying treatment, lack of interaction with Korean teachers, job insecurity, and pride or sense of accomplishment. I asked the bilingual teachers to create their own metaphors to understand the dynamic process of constructing identities through their metaphoric representation. Their self-constructed metaphors reveal their sense of self that reflects bilingual teachers’ desires and hopes regarding roles and responsibilities, challenges and struggles in teaching classroom management, relationship with students and teachers, and the school environment. I also learned that bilingual teachers’ critical reflections on teaching environment, multicultural education policy and curriculum can be revealed through metaphors, and that perspectives of individual teachers can range from hopeful optimism to a critical attitude. 107 I argue that tensions between identities can actually provide the site or impetus for professional identity construction. It is important, though, that tensions should not be so great as to discourage bilingual teachers or to disempower their teaching. Telling stories can enact a “characteristic type of self, and through such performances they can become that type of self” (Wortham, 2001). Therefore, it is worth noting that bilingual teachers should have more opportunities to tell positive stories of themselves so that they can live more positive teaching lives. Towards that end, contextual factors should be improved. I also believe that constructing metaphor can help bilingual teachers critically evaluate and reflect on their beliefs and thoughts, their experiences and their knowledge about teaching and learning. The most encouraging moment during this study was when bilingual teachers actually mentioned that the conversation was helpful in better understanding their job and themselves. Bilingual teachers should be encouraged to critically examine and explore who they are as teachers with opportunities of developing professional identities. Why the present study is meaningful Context-wise, this study is meaningful in that this research identifies the contextual factors that affect bilingual teachers’ identity construction, such as the different track of the teacher certification process, the relatively-short period of teacher preparation, and the lack of professional development offered by the government, all of which result in a marginalized position and questioned bilingual teacher profession. Given the relative short history of bilingual education since 2006, little research has been conducted focusing on bilingual teachers’ stories and their identities. This research, therefore, reveals the stories of bilingual teachers whose positions are marginalized and unappreciated. While the instability and vulnerability of their 108 lives are displayed in their narratives, bilingual teachers construct their professional identity with their agency; that is, individual bilingual teachers as intentional beings construct their own professional identity in their narrative by actively interacting with social, cultural, and political contexts. Theory-wise, this study is meaningful since in that it sheds light on the predominant themes in theoretical frames of bilingual teacher identity including identity as multiple, social, discontinuous, and conflicting; identity as closely related to micro and macro context; identity being constructed in and through narrative. This study examined substantive areas of research interest in bilingual teacher identity, such as the status of bilingual teachers as professional; the multiple selves constituting bilingual teachers’ professional identities; the emotions and experiences that bilingual teachers have undergone in constructing professional identity in and through narrative. In addition, it is meaningful to reveal the broad range of perspectives of bilingual teachers in understanding and evaluating teaching and the sociocultural environment in Korea using metaphors. While much research has been conducted regarding teachers’ identity and its development through metaphoric representation, little research has been conducted that identifies how bilingual teachers’ self-created metaphors can examine ways in which teacher identities are constructed in relation to the experiences and beliefs of teaching and learning. Methodology-wise, this research is meaningful to the field of study of narrative as well as to me. As a researcher, the part of the research that produced the most difficulty was finding the proper methodology to answer my questions and understanding, plus adopting the theory of methodology into actual conducting of research—from data collection to present findings through written words. While ‘identity’ is the conceptual and theoretical base of this research, ‘narrative’ is the analytical lens through which to understand teachers’ stories in constructing 109 their professional identities. Initially, I was interested in the position of bilingual teachers and started to learn their stories and experiences, then began to care about their emotions and their wellbeing. I did not intend to interrupt their lives, but instead to support their learning in terms of “finding” and “realizing” identity though revealing their voices. I carefully built rapport over a relatively longer term and by leading the conversation to let it flow freely without much interruption. By various questions and requesting them to create metaphors, I encouraged teachers to figure out who they are. And through narrative inquiry, I learned their stories as well as created my own. In many global contexts, bilingual teachers experience marginalization that causes them to live unstable and vulnerable teaching lives, which negatively impacts their sense of self, and their development of professional identity. This research identifies and explores individual stories of teachers who remain in society’s margins, experiencing various forms of exclusion where historically and culturally rooted ethnocentrism has constructed strong we-ness and other- ness. The bilingual teachers in this research realize their multiple identities which are complex and many-faceted. Not only do the stories express and present those multiple selves, but also carry the hopes of positive selves as teachers. Through telling stories, teachers “enact a characteristic type of self, and through such performances they can become that type of self”(Wortham, 2001, p. 12). I witnessed this “narrative becoming”(Alsup, p. 185, 2005) through construction of narratives and learned and experienced my own stories manifested, resulting in “narrative self construction” (Wortham, 2001, p. 11). My multiple identities of teacher, foreigner, female, non-native speaker, and researcher are to be revealed through this research implicitly and explicitly. I cannot deny that it creates tensions throughout, conducting this research from choosing research topic, collecting and analyzing stories, to writing the stories with my voices. 110 This research let us know about stories of teachers as well as mine, never before spoken and heard. 111 REFERENCES 112 REFERENCES Akkerman, S. F., & Meijer, P. 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