Research Papers in Education

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Creating spaces for constructing practice and

identity: innovations of teachers of English
language to young learners in Vietnam

Chinh Duc Nguyen

To cite this article: Chinh Duc Nguyen (2017) Creating spaces for constructing practice and
identity: innovations of teachers of English language to young learners in Vietnam, Research
Papers in Education, 32:1, 56-70, DOI: 10.1080/02671522.2015.1129644

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2015.1129644

Published online: 11 Jan 2016.

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Research Papers in Education, 2017
VOL. 32, NO. 1, 56–70
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2015.1129644

Creating spaces for constructing practice and identity:

innovations of teachers of English language to young learners in
Vietnam
Chinh Duc Nguyen 
English Department, College of Foreign Language Studies, University of Danang, Danang, Vietnam

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The discourse on construction of practice and identity in language teaching Received 26 April 2015
has been situated in transnational contexts. However, not all teachers are Accepted 6 December 2015
provided with access to transnational spaces for professional development. KEYWORDS
Drawing on the concept of ‘multimembership’ in ‘multicommunities’, this Practice and identity;
study explores how Vietnamese teachers of English language to young teaching English language
learners created spaces for developing practice and identity in their local to young learners; multiple
contexts. Data were collected from narrative interviews conducted with four membership in multiple
participants who were teaching English language in four different primary communities; Vietnam;
schools in Vietnam. Each participant, as the only English language teacher boundary crossing;
in each primary school, found that participation in the school community professional development;
teachers
was inadequate for professional development. To develop their practice
and identity, the participants, on their own initiative, crossed the school
boundary to join other communities, including a separate group of primary
English language teachers, English classes for adult learners, an imagined
community between local and expatriate teachers and their own families.
The findings of the study provide a window into language teachers’
construction of practice and identity in Vietnam and other similar contexts.

Introduction
In the current era of globalisation, language teachers’ construction of identity and practice has been
located in transnational milieus (Canagarajah 2012; Menard-Warwick 2008). The predominant model
is one in which non-native English-speaking (NNES) teachers from English as a foreign language (EFL)
backgrounds constructed and negotiated their multiple identities (national, cultural and professional)
during their postgraduate studies or residency in Anglophone countries (Faez 2011; Huang 2014; Li
2007; Park 2012; Phan 2007; Samimy et al. 2011; Zacharias 2010). Under this model, teachers learned
new pedagogies and socialised with the local people and other international students using English
as the medium of communication. As a result, experience gained both in intercultural contexts and
in their own countries led to profound transformations in their beliefs and practices. At this point,
though, there arises a question of what percentage of language teachers in general and Teaching
English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) teachers in particular are provided with access to
transnational spaces for professional development. Indeed, the majority of TESOL teachers in the
world today are non-native English speakers who have spent their lives pursuing careers in their own

CONTACT  Chinh Duc Nguyen  chinhng80@gmail.com,  ndchinh@ufl.udn.vn

© 2016 Taylor & Francis
 Research Papers in Education   57

home country (Canagarajah 1999). It is, therefore, necessary for research to shift focus towards this
group of teachers in non-native English contexts (Hayes 2009).
In an effort to gain understandings of language teachers and their teaching in local contexts, this
study investigates how teachers of EFL to young learners in Vietnam created spaces for constructing
practice and identity. Teaching English to young learners (hereafter abbreviated as TEYL) is examined
in this study because it has recently emerged as a new branch of language education in many non-Eng-
lish-speaking countries, notably in the Asia-Pacific region (Butler 2014, 2015; Nguyen 2011; Nunan
2013). Compared to TESOL teachers at higher school levels (secondary and tertiary education), TEYL
teachers, especially those who embarked on their careers in the initial stage of TEYL implementation,
developed both theory and practice by themselves. For the majority of TEYL teachers, access to identity
construction and professional development in general, not to mention engagement in transnational
sites, is severely restricted (Copland, Garton, and Burns 2014). Therefore, the aim of the study is
not only to focus on language teachers’ construction of practice and identity in the local context of
Vietnam but also to empower TEYL teachers whose teaching enterprise is not highly valued in many
societies (Cameron 2001; Moon 2009). The findings of this study will help to reveal how teachers in
local contexts have sought sites for developing their practice and identity.

The construction of practice and identity in multiple communities of practice

Identity has been conceptualised as an analytical tool for understanding the relationship between
school and society (Gee 2000). Central to educational research on identity is teacher identity which
has emerged as a separate area (Beijaard, Meijer, and Verloop 2004). Although an exact definition of
teacher identity that can be used for all cases is unlikely to be possible, the concept of teacher identity
employed in this study is generally understood as teachers’ understanding of themselves in relation
to others in society (Danielewicz 2001; Milner 2010; Sachs 2005) and the roles enacted by teachers in
different settings (Burns and Richards 2009; Varghese 2006). More specifically, two definitions were
chosen for understanding teachers’ identity in the present study: ‘our [teachers’] understanding of
who we [teachers] are and of who we [teachers] think other people are’ (Danielewicz 2001, 10) and
‘how individuals [teachers] see themselves and how they enact their roles within different settings’
(Burns and Richards 2009, 5).
As can be seen from the research literature, the construction of teacher identity has been underlined
as a focus of attention (Beauchamp and Thomas 2009; Beijaard, Meijer, and Verloop 2004). Of the
conceptual frameworks employed in studies on the construction of teacher identity, the social theory
of learning advanced by Wenger (1998) has received growing acceptance and recognition (Barton
and Tusting 2005; Clarke 2008; Trent, Gao, and Gu 2014; Tsui 2011). Central to this theory is par-
ticipation in communities as social practice by which individuals learn and become who they are. In
other words, individuals form their identity as result of participation in communities of practice and
the practice constructed by individuals is the obvious expression of their identity. When this theory
is employed in the field of language education, the construction of teacher identity is conceptualised
as ‘an encompassing process of being active participants in the practices of social communities and
constructing identities in relation to these communities’ (Wenger 1998, 4). A community of practice
is, basically, understood as an aggregate of people who share a craft or a profession (Lave and Wenger
1991; Wenger 1998). The property of a community of practice is demonstrated through the interaction
of three dimensions: ‘mutual engagement’, ‘a joint enterprise’ and ‘a shared repertoire’ (Wenger 1998,
73). Wenger underlines how these three constituents exist in a dialectical relationship that creates the
coherence of a given community of practice. Members’ connection with a community is manifested
not only in the above-mentioned constituents but also in ‘modes of belonging’ which include ‘imag-
ination’, ‘alignment’ and ‘engagement’ (Wenger 1998, 174). In the present study, the participating
teachers’ involvement in their primary school is regarded as their participation in a community of
practice which will lead to the development of an ‘identity-in-practice’. This is pivotal to most studies
58    C. D. Nguyen

on language teachers’ construction of identity as framed by the social theory of learning (Kanno and
Stuart 2011; Trent 2011; Varghese et al. 2005).
According to Wenger, mutual relations of engagement in a given community of practice do not
necessarily reside only in homogenisation and collegiality but also in differentiation and resistance.
As a result, its members will seek to participate in other communities and, in return, introduce the
practices learned in the new communities to their primary community. Following this premise, and
as practice is everywhere, the teachers in this study are supposed to engage not only with one com-
munity (the primary school) but also with multiple communities. Teachers’ involvement in various
communities is participatory and non-participatory. In participatory involvement, teachers engage
with their colleagues for ‘shared repertoire’ and ‘joint enterprise’. However, teachers engage in some
communities through ‘imagination’ which means ‘creating images of the world and seeing connection
through time and space by extrapolating our own experience’ (Wenger 1998, 173).
Wenger uses the term ‘brokering’ to refer to ‘the use of multimembership to transfer some element
of one practice into another’ (109). The notion of ‘brokering’ employed in this study will impart a
sense how the participating teachers transferred practices from other communities to their primary
school and vice versa. Following this, the implementation of new pedagogical practices in their pri-
mary school and other communities is an example of teachers’ efforts to ‘make new connections across
communities of practice, enable coordination, and open new possibilities for meaning’ (Wenger 1998,
109). Alsup (2006) refers to the participation of teachers in various communities as ‘borderland dis-
course’, which means ‘the intersection of multiple worlds and multiple ways of thinking’ (150). In his
autobiographic form of language teaching research, Canagarajah (2012) looked back on his process
of joining a diversity of professional and cultural communities. However, few among the population
of language teachers have such a chance of engagement in multicultural contexts. Given that language
teachers in disadvantaged settings have difficulties engaging in cosmopolitan spaces, the ‘nexus of
multimembership’ in their local context is an alternative source for their identity development.
Based on the central concepts of ‘multimembership’ and ‘brokering’ as part of the theory of com-
munities of practice, this study will inquire into how the participating teachers, as ‘brokers’, undertook
the initiative to cross the boundary of their primary school to participate in other communities, thus
creating spaces for professional development. Their participation in various communities of practice
reinforces the principle that ‘we define who we are by the ways we reconcile our various forms of
membership into one identity’ (Wenger 1998, 149).

Methodology
The participants
The participants of this study were four English language teachers in four different primary schools
in Vietnam. These four teachers were chosen because they embarked on their TEYL careers from
1994 to 2002 when English language instruction was in the initial stage of implementation in primary
education. During this period, TEYL teachers constructed their teaching practices by experiential
learning (Grassick 2007; Moon 2009; Nguyen and Nguyen 2007). Therefore, these participants’ nar-
ratives provide a rich source of data in terms of the initiatives undertaken by the pioneer generation
of TEYL teachers for their professional development. Since this study was methodologically grounded
on the case study, the four participants are considered multiple cases who provide broader and deeper
perspectives into the research issues (Stake 2005; Yin 2014). They are all female because women
predominate as TEYL teachers. Two teachers were teaching in reputable primary schools in Vien
Dong, a metropolitan city in the middle of Vietnam. The remaining two were from primary schools
in rural areas, one from a rural district of Vien Dong City and the other from a village in Binh Minh,
a neighbouring province of Vien Dong City. To maintain confidentiality, pseudonyms were used for
the participants and the city or province where each teacher was living.
 Research Papers in Education   59

Table 1. Demographic information of the participants.

Participants
Information Thu Nguyen Hoa Thom
Age 35 35 41 44
Teaching experience 13 years 13 years 17 years 20 years
School type State country State country State city State city
Qualification(s) (B.A) TESOL TESOL TESOL TESOL TRFLa
a
Teaching Russian as a foreign language.

All the participants were experienced and highly regarded teachers in terms of teaching exper-
tise and English language proficiency: the duration of teaching experience of members of the group
ranged from 13 to 21 years. Three participants achieved a Bachelor’s degree in TESOL. Thom was the
only one to achieve two degrees: Russian language teaching and TESOL. None of the teachers either
learned English in primary school or took a Bachelor’s degree in TEYL. In addition to the profiles
of the participating teachers summarised in Table 1, short portraits of individual cases, with special
attention to their motives for entering TEYL careers, are presented as follows:
Thom majored in Russian language teaching in her first degree but the fall of the former Soviet
Union shattered her hope of becoming a Russian language teacher. To adjust to the sociopolitical reality,
Thom took a second degree in ELT for employment purposes. After graduation, she was recruited
as a junior secondary school English language teacher. In the workplace, Thom was not considered
competent to teach English because her colleagues knew her first degree was in Russian language. As
a result, she decided to lower her status from secondary to primary teaching level.
Hoa went into her TEYL career as her second preference. As a student graduating with commen-
dation for high achievement, Hoa was confident in her knowledge and teaching competence to teach
English at senior secondary schools. Unfortunately, the unfair selection process shattered Hoa’s hopes
after two unsuccessful attempts. In her last attempt, Hoa decided to apply for a position as a primary
school English teacher because it was easier to be recruited. Furthermore, she hoped that it would be
a platform for her to teach in senior secondary schools afterwards.
Nguyen initially found it challenging to be offered a teaching position at a senior secondary school
so she decided to settle in the countryside with her parents. She hoped that job opportunities would
come up in the new place where she might be appointed to a senior secondary school or at least at a
junior secondary school. However, she was once again disillusioned with the reality at her new home
as it was also challenging. Nguyen was eventually recommended to teach English at a primary school
on a contractual basis.
Thu was also aware that is was unlikely she would be recruited as an English teacher either in junior
or senior secondary schools so she compromised herself by accepting to teach at primary school. She
contacted the Department of Education and they recommended her for a casual position as an English
teacher in a village school. Thu stated her reason for accepting that position: ‘I saw it as a temporary
job and then I would move to a senior secondary school’.

Data collection and analysis

Data for this study were collected from narrative interviews, one conducted with each participant.
Creswell (2013) suggests that personal conversations or interviews are the best ways for participants
to tell stories about their lived experiences. The interviews conducted were semi-structured with
guiding questions and prompts developed beforehand. However, the nature of open-ended interviews
means that the format was loosely shaped to encourage participants ‘to elaborate on the issues raised
in an exploratory manner’ (Dornyei 2007, 136). During the one-hour interview, the participants were
encouraged to talk about their professional development in general. In particular, the participants were
asked a number of questions about how they engaged in their primary school in order to develop their
60    C. D. Nguyen

teaching practice and identity as TEYL teachers. Also, the participants were encouraged to reflect on
their participation in other groups or on other ways they performed their professional development.
The venue varied between the interviews and between the participants, with conversations occurring
in public libraries, cafes or the participant’s home. With the teachers’ consent, all the interviews were
audio-recorded and then transcribed. Although the participants were proficient in English, the inter-
viewing language was Vietnamese because they felt more confident to communicate ideas in their
mother tongue. As such, all the details from the interviews used as quotes in this paper were translated
from Vietnamese into English by the author who is fluent in both languages.
Data analysis in this study drew on an inductive process whereby researchers begin with detailed
and particular data and end with categories and patterns (Creswell 2013; Lichtman 2013; Punch 2009).
In this way, themes and conclusions are sought from data rather than imposed from pre-existing codes
or prefigured categories (McMillan and Schumacher 2010). In terms of the voluminous data collected
from the four participants, the basic strategy depended on whether within-case or cross-case analysis
would be chosen which, in turn, depended on whether the study was of single or multiple cases (Duff
2008). Therefore, the strategy for analysing the data gathered was a combination of within-case and
cross-case analysis, as suggested by Yin (2014) for multiple-case studies. In other words, data analysis
started with within-cases and then moved to cross-cases. Drawing on the conceptual framework of
‘brokering’ and ‘multimembership’, data analysis was initiated by the four participants’ engagement in
primary school as the principal community. Building on the information provided by the participants
regarding their participation in the primary school, the analysis continued with other communities in
which they were involved. Of the five communities/groups in which the teachers participated, three
were analysed in terms of cross-case. The remaining two were presented through within-case analysis
because these two communities/groups indicated distinctive efforts by two of the teachers in terms of
seeking sites for professional development.

Findings: multiple memberships in multiple communities

As the only English language teacher in their primary school, each participant found that membership
in the school community was insufficient for adequate professional development. This was the major
challenge faced by all the participating teachers during the early stage of their TEYL career. Therefore,
they undertook practical initiatives to change the situation. In particular, they crossed the school
boundary to develop their practice and identity and joined other communities.
Hoa understood that TEYL teachers were provided with limited access to professional development.
Therefore, she proposed the formation of a group of primary school language English teachers in her
district. Leaders in the Department of Education at district level appreciated her initiative which they
thought would help teachers have their own space for learning to teach. Hoa was nominated as the
group leader due to her proactive role. In addition to this group, Hoa joined an English language centre
in which she taught adult learners. By participating in various communities, Hoa was recognised by
her colleagues as a highly regarded TEYL teacher in her district. However, in the dawn of her teaching
career, Thom was apprehensive that she might forget all of her English knowledge if she spent all her
teaching life working with learners at beginner levels in primary schools.
As with Hoa, Thom taught evening adult classes in an English language centre. Thom also learned
to teach by working with her children at home. That is, she asked her son and daughter to be involved
in her TEYL work by preparing and rehearsing lessons together. Participating in these two groups
resulted in her gaining in-depth understanding of her TEYL work and herself as a TEYL teacher.
Being based in rural areas, Thu and Nguyen were not provided with many chances for professional
development. As English language instruction was initially implemented in rural schools, there was
almost no space for teachers to learn and share teaching experience with each other. The initiative
they each took was teaching middle and high school students who needed private tutoring. In this
way, their professional development was limited only to English language knowledge. To build their
teaching expertise, they capitalised on available resources and their imagination. Nguyen, for example,
 Research Papers in Education   61

resorted to her knowledge of Western education, that is, teachers’ engagement with young learners. For
example, Thu explored the approaches to teaching literacy to young learners in Australia on television.
Although achieving notable success in the eyes of their colleagues, Nguyen and Thu said that they
needed to cross more boundaries so that their practices and identities would become more diverse.
It is important to remember that the four participants embarked on their TEYL careers as a result of
their failure to become TESOL teachers at secondary or high school. Worse than that, their work was
not highly valued in mainstream society. In those circumstances, they may well have been demotivated
to go further on their professional journey. Indeed, many of their colleagues were unable to continue
with a TEYL career due to tensions, stereotyping and ill-treatment. In contrast to the majority, the
participants stayed on primary schools regardless of the difficulties which were both material and
spiritual. The reward of such courage was their sense of agency, one of the important characteristics of
teacher identity (Beauchamp and Thomas 2009; Beijaard, Meijer, and Verloop 2004; Campbell 2012).
In particular, Beijaard, Meijer, and Verloop (2004) pointed out, ‘Agency is an important element of
professional identity, meaning teachers have to be active in the process of professional development’
(122). As active agents, each participant undertook initiatives for transforming their practice and
constructing teacher identity. The initiatives were their boundary crossing for participation in multiple
communities.
Each of the communities in which the participating teachers were involved is discussed in detail
below.

The primary school as a principal community of practice

On the premise of the social theory of learning (Lave and Wenger 1991; Wenger 1998), the primary
school, in which each participant was engaged, is regarded as a community to develop practice and
construct identity. According to Wright (2010), membership of a school as a professional community
is a key aspect of learning to teach. During their early days in the school community, the participants
found it hard to adapt to the discourses of primary schools. From their viewpoint, everything in the
primary schools, from classroom practices to administration work, was based on strict and rigid rules
and regulations. The reality was different from their expectations inspired by the discourses of foreign
language teaching, which presented primary schools offering foreign language learning as ‘liberal’
and ‘authority-free’. The four participants were even afraid they might be transformed into absolutely
different people who would be unable to enact the identities ascribed to English language teachers: ‘I
wondered whether I was teaching English or something else. I was different from the typical image
of an English teacher’ (Hoa). Nevertheless, these participants felt obligated to align themselves to the
school community by negotiating their pre-existing identities with the new discourses of primary
schools, reflecting the impact of contextual factors on teachers’ identity construction (Beauchamp
and Thomas 2009; Varghese et al. 2005).
As there was only one English language teacher in each primary school at the beginning of their
teaching careers, the four participants had no choice other than to engage with homeroom teachers
who taught Vietnamese and mathematics in order to build their teaching expertise. They felt this
engagement with homeroom teachers partly reinforced their pedagogical practices and classroom
management. In detailed observation of L1 (Vietnamese language) teachers’ classes, the participants
paid special attention to the ways their colleagues engaged with pupils and the pedagogical practices
they used in primary classes. However, they gradually realised that the procedures of an L1 class would
not be applicable to an EFL class: ‘Pupils already know how to say words in L1, so Vietnamese literacy
teachers just focus on writing. For English, I have to instruct them from pronunciation to writing’
(Nguyen). They also found discrepancies in classroom practices: ‘Pupils have to study a lot in classes
of Vietnamese and mathematics, so the atmosphere is very strict and tense. But in English classes, I
need to create something pleasant for children’ (Thu). As the primary school was not conducive for
the participants to develop practice and identity, the participants each took the initiative to cross the
school boundary. According to Louis (2012), teachers’ professional development is not merely limited
62    C. D. Nguyen

to strong links within the school but needs to be expanded to other groups. Their efforts to create sites
for constructing practice and identity could be considered an example of ‘borderland discourse’: ‘One
must find borderland between two (or more) discourses in a sincere way and speak from this new
space, this site of alternative discourse, to enact change in a particular community’ (Alsup 2006, 9).

Hoa’s initiative for a community of TEYL teachers

The community of TEYL teachers formed by Hoa was regarded a practical solution to the problem of
limited spaces for professional development in her local context. TEYL teachers in the whole district
found the new group efficient and beneficial to their teaching practice. In contrast to the primary
school, this new group was a true community of practice for all TEYL teachers to engage with each
other, pursue ‘a joint enterprise’ and develop ‘shared repertoire’. From a sociocultural perspective on
teacher development (Hawkins 2004; Johnson 2009; Wright 2010), this community is compatible
with a critical friend group which has been proved to transform teachers’ professional development
(Tasker 2011; Vo and Nguyen 2010).
We did a lot of things in each monthly meeting such as sharing lesson plans, solving difficulties in each teaching
unit, developing resources for teaching and learning theories of TEYL. The most important part in each meeting
was that one teacher taught a sample lesson for other members to observe and give constructive feedback. The
more we engaged with each other, the more we broadened our minds. All the teachers told me that they ‘found
themselves’ in the group. (Hoa)
All members in the group acknowledged Hoa’s contributions to the community: ‘Without your ini-
tiative, our teaching would be very poor and boring’ one teacher said to Hoa. The most significant
action Hoa took for ‘changing the face of primary English instruction in the district’ (a teacher’s
remark retold by Hoa) was her negotiation with officials in the Department of Education (at district
level) for the implementation of a new textbook to replace the textbook prescribed by the Ministry of
Education and Training (MoET). By pointing out the pros and cons of each textbook, Hoa successfully
persuaded all the officials concerned to grant permission for using the new one as a shared repertoire
for the whole group:
All the teachers agreed that ‘Let’s Go’ [published by Oxford University Press] was interesting, communicative
and interactive and attractive to pupils. Actually, ‘Let’s Learn English’ [published by the MoET] did not inspire
children to learn. We had to struggle with every page in it. We discussed and concluded that ‘Let’s Learn English’
should be replaced with ‘Let’s Go’.
The greatest success of the community was, according to Hoa, manifested in the new discourses and
practices established by the members such as collegial relationships, support and mutual respect. The
most significant practice Hoa and other members learned from participating in the new community
was the practice of giving constructive feedback to each other. This was in marked contrast to the
discourse of criticising and showing authoritarian attitudes which they had experienced in their pri-
mary schools: ‘We joined the group not to criticise each other’s mistakes, but to share experience and
learn practical ideas from peers that [we] would apply in [our] own classroom,’ said Hoa. Beyond the
community of TEYL teachers, those new discourses and practices were thus introduced to the general
classroom in primary schools and English classes were evaluated by other teachers – those teaching
Vietnamese and mathematics – in the primary school community as ‘friendly, relaxed and liberal’
(Hoa). The success of the community surpassed its members’ expectations as teachers in other districts
regarded it as a model for peer learning in other districts.

Participation in higher level TESOL communities

The participants’ journeys of constructing practice and identity were not confined to primary schools
but were also associated with other TESOL communities wherein they taught English to learners at
higher school levels. They originally participated in those communities for two simple reasons: sup-
plementing their personal income and maintaining their English competence. In addition to achieving
 Research Papers in Education   63

the two original goals, engagement in other communities enabled them to thoroughly understand
their practice and identity as TEYL teachers: ‘The more I was involved in higher classes, the more I
loved teaching children’ (Thom). By engaging in higher school level TESOL communities in different
ways, each participant made specific discoveries about their TEYL work and identity.
Hoa was afraid that her English proficiency would deteriorate if she locked herself within primary
classes. She saw a way to maintain her English repertoire was teaching adult learners at a reputable
English centre. Drawing on her experience of teaching older learners there, Hoa came to an in-depth
understanding of her teaching in the primary school. She even felt confident to argue against the
assumption that ‘the higher level you teach, the more intellectual you are’. The evidence Hoa produced
for her argument was:
Adult learners could understand everything I taught. I didn’t explain everything in detail. With my English rep-
ertoire, I found it easy to express any idea coming to my mind. But in primary classes, I had to prepare what to
say to pupils at home. Otherwise they wouldn’t understand my complicated English. In classes for adult learners,
I didn’t have to use a variety of activities during one class. But with children, their concentration span is quite
short, so I think I had to change to a new activity every ten minutes.
Thom also taught in an evening centre in which most learners were university students. They were
motivated to enrol in the evening classes to practise oral communication skills because ELT at uni-
versity was grammar-focused and examination-oriented. To help students meet their target, Thom
experimented with the pedagogical practices she had developed for TEYL, adapted to suit older
students’ learning characteristics: ‘They’re university students but still keen to play games and sing
English songs. I was surprised to know that my pedagogical practices for primary English classes
were successfully applied in adult classes’. That success of integrating TEYL elements into adult classes
brought Thom great joy because she not only maintained her English proficiency as planned but also
gained an insight into TEYL.
Thu and Nguyen did not engage in other official TESOL communities but taught junior and sec-
ondary school students in informal private classes. Working with older students, the two participants
argued that teaching English at higher school levels was, to some extent, easier than TEYL because
teachers were not concerned about issues such as classroom management, discipline and pastoral care
of pupils. Despite the focus on knowledge and the examination-oriented nature of their private classes,
they modified some of the activities they used in primary classes when teaching older students. Thu,
in particular, integrated storytelling into her private classes instead of constantly teaching grammar
and instructing students to do sample tests:
I used storytelling to teach secondary school students. They liked the stories and then acquired grammar and
vocabulary very quickly. Without experience in TEYL, I wouldn’t have had a successful class for secondary
students. Many students told me that they couldn’t find a friendly atmosphere and a caring lesson from their
teachers at schools.
Since the participants succeeded in teaching older learners, they were asked to predict the likelihood
of success if teachers from higher level TESOL communities changed to teach in primary schools:
They would face many difficulties. I’m sure that they can’t at once manage a class of fifty pupils who are not
self-conscious about their words and behaviour. They would find it difficult and boring to teach simple English
because they’re used to teaching complicated knowledge to adult learners. A simple thing like giving instruction,
I don’t think they would do smoothly in the beginning. (Nguyen)
Thu argued that it would take her four months to adapt herself to the new discourses of ELT at either
secondary or tertiary education. Teachers at higher school levels, she believed, needed at least two years
for similar adaptation. Unsurprisingly, all of the participants heard many complaints from English
teachers who moved from secondary to primary schools: ‘It was a mistake to move here’, ‘I never
thought that teaching primary English would be so difficult’, and ‘I can’t teach! The class is as noisy as
a market’. Listening to such complaints provided the participants with incentive to remain in TEYL.
The participants did not learn as many new practices and discourses in the higher level TESOL
communities as TEYL teachers did in the community created by Hoa (as analysed above). Indeed,
they enacted the roles of language teachers to older learners so that they would ultimately find the
64    C. D. Nguyen

similarities and differences between their TEYL practice and TESOL practice in higher level com-
munities. In this sense, they positioned themselves as ‘outsiders’ in order to look into the community
in which they were ‘insiders’. From the perspectives of ‘brokering’ (Wenger 1998) and ‘borderland
discourse’ (Alsup 2006), each participant, to different degrees, introduced new practices and discourses
to the higher level TESOL communities. This can be considered a significant aspect of the participants’
boundary crossing from the principal community of primary school to other TESOL communities.

Engagement with children in family: Thom’s story

In addition to joining other communities, Thom was engaged with her children at home in order
to develop her teaching practice. In other words, she took advantage of having children at home to
experiment and explore new ideas for TEYL. This way of constructing practice is, according to Thom,
exclusive to TEYL teachers because it is more difficult for English language teachers at higher school
levels to engage with their children’s English learning in a similar way: ‘Many English teachers at
high schools also get involved in their children’s English learning but they often study together in a
formal way. They never play a game or sing a song together like we do’. Her children joked about their
participation as pupils in a rehearsal for a story she planned for a primary English class: ‘Mum! We’re
laboratory rats for you to experiment on for your stories’.
In terms of practical benefits, experimentation and rehearsal with her children at home gave Thom
confidence in her classes. Many activities and ideas for teaching, without being tried out with her chil-
dren, would have been unsuccessful in the classroom. Thom acknowledged her children’s contributions
to the success of storytelling in her English classes. All the stories she developed as a supplementary
source for teaching were told in advance to her children at home: ‘I just looked at my daughter’s face
and then guessed whether or not my pupils could understand the stories’. After rehearsal with her
children, Thom changed the plot or modified the language to fit with the English proficiency and
cognitive abilities of her pupils. Very often, she asked her children to play the roles of learners so that
she could check whether or not the instruction for each activity would be comprehensible to pupils
in the classroom. Furthermore, many ideas for the stories she developed for English classes originated
from the moments she played with her daughter:
I used animation characters from my childhood such as Tom, Jerry and Mickey. But I observed my kids playing
with modern characters like Angry Birds, Pikachu and Pokémon. And then I changed the characters in my
stories to suit [modern] children’s taste.
Beyond the original purpose of experimentation and rehearsal, Thom conceived her family as a space
for exploring and constructing new theories and practices of TEYL. As teachers in Vietnamese schools
have to cover a large amount of knowledge in their classes, Thom could not always observe and access
every pupil in a large-sized class so as to reach a thorough understanding of children’s language learning
process. Alternatively, she observed her children at home, working out children’s language learning
characteristics. By being involved in her children’s English learning, Thom found that children focus on
meanings of a situation rather words used to express the message. Accordingly, learning activities she
designed for TEYL afterward were all built on this significant discovery of children’s instinct for mean-
ing. Additionally, experimentation with her children at home helped her find new ways of teaching:
I taught pupils in Year 4 how to make a negative sentence: ‘I don’t like ice cream’. In the controlled practice,
they all had correct answers. But in free practice, many pupils said ‘I no go to school’. I was a little bit confused,
so when I got home, I tried with my daughter … and you know she made the same mistake. Then I created a
game … she repeated the correct negative sentence while playing the game. I used that game for another class
and pupils successfully produced correct negative sentences.
In a reciprocal relationship, her experiences in primary classrooms resulted in a deeper understand-
ing of her children at home. They were not pressured to do as much homework as children in other
families because Thom knew that children are unable to sit still or concentrate for a long time. While
many families sent their children to private classes after school, her children stayed at home to join her
English lessons. In this sense, Thom created a learning space for her children at home. Her experiences
 Research Papers in Education   65

at home, in turn, contributed to the long-term goal of constructing practices and identities in the pri-
mary community (the primary school). In other words, by engaging with her children, Thom under-
stood her TEYL work in terms of what knowledge she needed to have and what roles she had to play.

An imagined community of expatriate and Vietnamese teachers

Unable to engage directly with teachers from other cultural contexts, the four teachers in this study
drew on their own experience to imagine their engagement with expatriate teachers in a joint com-
munity. The importance of imagination is explained by Wenger (1998): ‘Imagination is an important
component of our experience of the world and our senses of place in it. It can make a big difference
for our experience of identity and the potential for learning inherent in our activities’ (176).
On the premise of imaginary participation, the participants did not assess their own strengths and
weaknesses in comparison to expatriate teachers’ in general and NES teachers’ in particular as often
seen in the research literature on TESOL teacher identity (Braine 2010; Davies 2013; Holliday 2008;
Mahboob 2010; Moussu and Llurda 2008; Selvi 2014). Instead of criticising a dichotomy between
two groups, the participants regarded the English language used by expatriate teachers as a valuable
source for improving the English language proficiency of both teachers and students in Vietnam. In
other words, they believed that expatriate teachers’ involvement in the Vietnamese TESOL community
‘brought winds of change’ (Hoa) in terms of the spread of correct English. Beyond English language
proficiency, the participants, to different degrees, found expatriate teachers’ pedagogical practices
beneficial to their construction of TEYL practice. According to Hoa, a comment she heard from a
parent motivated her to learn from expatriate colleagues even though her engagement with them was
imaginary:
How come the kids are crazy about expatriate teachers? Even sick, they asked their parents to take them to
expatriates’ classes at all costs. But it’s a struggle to ask them to go to Vietnamese teachers’ classes.
Such a comment gave them an incentive to engage with expatriate teachers on the basis of ‘mutual
respect’ (Thom) and ‘peer learning’ (Thu) rather than claiming which group was better. Thu, in par-
ticular, explained, ‘we should look at their good points to improve ourselves. If we are still conservative
and keep backward norms with us, we will be isolated from modern education’. Through imagination,
the participants acknowledged that they learned a lot from expatriate teachers for their own TEYL
practice and teacher identity. In other words, each sought a new aspect of the expatriate teachers and
then appropriated it for their own practices and identities. Thom, for instance, drew on her learning
experiences with native Russian teachers in Russia for one year, envisioning similar positive qualities
of expatriate teachers of English from which she would learn for her own TEYL practice. ‘The edu-
cational practice in the West is basically the same, so I think expatriate teachers [of English] are also
friendly and close to students, not formal and distant like Vietnamese teachers’, said Thom. Given
that classroom management is a challenge in a primary English class, Hoa was curious to know how
expatriate teachers set up discipline in a class or how they punished badly behaved pupils. She then
adopted this way of punishment in her English language classes:
I observed an expatriate teacher’s class in a private English centre. I was impressed by the way he punished
badly-behaved pupils in class. He just asked them to sing, dance or do something unusual, but most Vietnamese
teachers were very serious with this problem.
Approaching the usefulness of expatriate teachers another way, Thu watched an educational pro-
gramme for children in Anglophone countries. Although it was produced for teaching L1 literacy in
Australia, she found it very useful to learn the ways those teachers engaged with children: ‘The teachers
were like artists. They sang, danced, drew and did many things with the kids’. This programme had a
substantial impact on her beliefs and practices of using artistic components in TEYL. More impor-
tantly, she attributed her success in constructing identity and practice to the artistic elements: ‘As a
timid girl at first, I had difficulties singing or joining plays with children. But now I’m very positive
and dynamic. I can sing, dance, play games or do anything with pupils’.
66    C. D. Nguyen

Rather than envisaging what she would learn from expatriate teachers, Nguyen situated the edu-
cational discourses brought by expatriate teachers in the reality of Vietnamese education:
They [expatriate teachers] let pupils say what they think. But Vietnamese teachers force students to think in a
prescribed way. The expatriate teachers don’t impose their ideas on students. For example, if students have to
draw a cat, you can see that teachers from Western countries may hang many pictures of cat on the wall and
students may either copy a cat in any picture or draw their own ones. But most Vietnamese teachers often ask
students to draw the same as teachers draw on the board.
Without access to an intercultural working environment, the participants engaged with expatriates
in an ‘imagined community’, that is, ‘a desired community that offers possibilities for an enhanced
range of identity options’ (Norton 2011, 323). With respect to modes of belonging to communities
of practice, they were involved in ‘imagination’ which means ‘the process of expanding our self by
transcending our time and space and creating new images of the world and ourselves’ (Wenger 1998,
176). Indeed, the participants were not offered the advantages of socialising in multicultural contexts
in Anglophone countries as participants in other studies were (Park 2012; Phan 2007; Zacharias 2010).
However, they placed themselves in a community of Vietnamese and expatriate teachers as well as in
discourses of other cultures on the premise of ‘peer learning’. The ‘imagined’ identities and practices
the four participating teachers ascribed to their expatriate colleagues may not be entirely accurate,
being possibly overgeneralised. Nevertheless, the participants drew on this source of imagination in
order to create new identities for themselves as well as new practices for TEYL.
Looking at how Vietnamese teachers worked with their expatriate colleagues in many private
school communities, the participants expected that they would be involved in that way of collaborative
teaching in a real rather than imaginary community. Their aspiration confirms the growing trend in
TESOL practice suggested by researchers, that is, a collaboration between NES and NNES teachers
(Carless 2006; Moussu and Llurda 2008; Trent 2012).

Discussion
The participants demonstrated their proactive roles in terms of seeking other sites for learning to teach.
When entering their TEYL careers, they found self-learning as well as learning from their colleagues
in primary schools inadequate for sufficient professional development. As a result, they crossed the
boundary, joining other groups to achieve their goals: developing new practices and constructing new
identities. The participants’ boundary crossing is considered the most significant aspect of the study
because it foregrounded their initiatives of learning in accordance with the local reality. Since there
was almost no chance for them to socialise or develop their profession in transnational contexts (study
or residency in English-speaking countries for instance) as often discussed in the research literature
(Canagarajah 2012; Faez 2011; Huang 2014), they found an alternative: crossing pedagogical and
epistemological boundaries in search of new practices and identities. In other words, their professional
development was not only confined to teaching knowledge and theories from their colleagues in the
primary school but also expanded to pedagogical practices and discourses in other communities.
More importantly, they realised that practices and identities would not be framed by their existing
knowledge and self-perceptions of themselves. By enhancing their knowledge and transforming their
self-images, the teachers were determined to cross their epistemological boundaries. As can be seen
in the joint-imagined community between Vietnamese and expatriate teachers, the participants were
involved in discourses and practices of a community in which they were not physically present. On
the basis of the participants’ success stories, teachers should be encouraged to be involved in two ways
of boundary crossing (pedagogical and epistemological) because they can envision their engagement
in communities from which they are geographically distant. Successfully crossing boundaries, the
participants should be regarded as ‘good brokers’ who transcended limited space for professional
development in their primary school, opening new possibilities for learning in other communities.
By engaging in four other communities of practice in conjunction with the primary school, the
participants experienced multiple membership as Wenger (1998, 159) proposes: ‘An identity is thus
 Research Papers in Education   67

more than just a single trajectory; instead, it should be viewed as a nexus of multiple membership’. As
such, the four teachers, to various degrees, engaged with multiple discourses which contributed to the
diversity of their identity and practice (Alsup 2006; Danielewicz 2001). In this way, they experienced
‘borderland discourse’ as recommended by Alsup (2006). From a holistic perspective, two concepts
– practice and identity – were at the core of the participants’ multiple membership in multiple com-
munities. In other words, new practices (doing) and new identities (being) are constitutive of teacher
learning in multiple communities.
In terms of practice, the participants entered their TEYL careers without any theoretical or practical
knowledge of teaching young learners. When joining the community of primary school, each partic-
ipant sought to equip herself with new knowledge and practices of primary education. In addition to
new techniques and methods for the classroom practice learned from the multiples communities, the
participants explored specific aspects of TEYL such as the mechanism whereby children learn a foreign
language, textbooks used for TEYL and the importance of artistic components integrated into TEYL.
Similar to the findings in other studies (Akkerman and Meijer 2011; Alsup 2006; Canagarajah 2012),
the participants in the present study did not passively acquire knowledge but introduced new voices
into the multiple communities in which they participated. Perhaps more importantly, they introduced
diverse practices and discourses existing in other communities to their TEYL practice which was still
in the stage of exploration in Vietnam. For example, the discourses of friendly atmosphere and mutual
respect, which had been developed in the community led by Hoa, were transferred to English classes
in primary schools. In a mutually supportive relationship, the practices, notably creative and artistic
activities formed in TEYL practice, were successfully implemented in English classes for adult learners.
The participants’ introduction of practices from one community to another is known as ‘brokering’,
that Wenger explains to be ‘the use of multimembership to transfer some element of one practice into
another’ (1998, 109). The products of brokering were ‘boundary objects’ (Wenger 1998, 107), which
included the pedagogical practices and educational discourses transferred across communities by the
participants. More significant were the new discourses they transferred from other communities to
the primary school, especially their English classes. In this way, they not only pursued their original
goals of learning new practices but also strove for educational and social changes.
As well as new practices, the participants constructed their new identities as a result of their engage-
ment in multiple communities. Teacher identity, as elucidated by Burns and Richards (2009), is the
roles teachers enact in different settings. On this premise, the roles played by the four participating
teachers in multiple communities were indicative of their multiple identities. The shared point of
departure of all of them was a novice TEYL teacher who showed limited understanding of themselves
as a teacher teaching a new language to young learners. Being ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the primary school
community, they enacted their core identity as TEYL teachers as well as their new identities in multiple
communities (teachers in higher level TESOL communities, TESOL teachers in intercultural settings,
mother teachers at home, teacher learners). In this way, their identity conforms to one of the features
of teacher identity pointed out by Beijaard, Meijer, and Verloop (2004): ‘A teacher ‘s professional
identity consists of sub-identities that more or less harmonise. The notion of sub-identities relates
to teachers’ different contexts and relationships’ (122). As teacher identity, basically understood as
teachers’ understanding of themselves and their work in relation to others in society (Danielewicz
2001; Varghese 2006), the multiple identities constructed by the participants are manifested in their
‘selves’ in multiple communities. In the nexus of multiple membership, the participants experienced
‘multiple selves’ in support of a thorough understanding of their ‘core self ’ as TEYL teachers. In other
words, they were in the position of TESOL teacher in other communities, looking at themselves and
their work in the primary school. By placing themselves in various communities, they were able to
identify their own strengths, weaknesses and multiple identities. Furthermore, the participants saw
their ‘selves’ in the ‘others’ and the ‘others’ in their ‘selves’ (Gomez and White 2010). Drawing on their
engagement in multiple communities, they perceived TESOL teacher identity as ‘we’ in contrast to
teachers of other subjects as ‘they’. They also used the pronouns of ‘I’ and ‘they’ in order to distin-
guish themselves as the only English teacher with other teachers in the school community. Further,
68    C. D. Nguyen

the participants positioned themselves, TEYL teachers, as ‘we’ in relation to teachers in other TESOL
communities who were ‘they’.

Conclusion
This study explored TEYL teachers’ construction of practice and identity through their membership
in multiple communities. In the dawn of their TEYL careers, the four participating teachers found that
their engagement in the primary school community was inadequate for teacher learning. Therefore,
they crossed the boundaries, joining other communities which included a group of TEYL teachers
in a district, children as learners at home, higher level TESOL communities and the joint imagined
community of Vietnamese and expatriate teachers. Their engagement in multiple communities resulted
in new practices and identities. The system of new practices and identities helped them understand
themselves and their teaching in the primary school as well as in other communities.
The findings of this study make a significant contribution to both research and practice in language
teaching. Firstly, the practices learned by the participants contribute to the knowledge base of TEYL
which has recently emerged in both research and practice in TESOL. In particular, the pedagogical
practices, teaching methods and theories of teaching young learners built by the participants can
resource TEYL practitioners in Vietnam as well as other similar contexts where TEYL is a new and
developing programme (Butler 2015; Copland, Garton, and Burns 2014; Nunan 2013). Secondly, in line
with sociocultural approaches to teacher development, this study reinforces the premise that teachers’
pedagogical knowledge and teaching expertise does not necessarily develop only from formal training
courses but also from their participation in sociocultural life (Burns and Richards 2009; Johnson 2009;
Wright 2010). When the participants first entered their PELT careers, the shared departure point of
all of them was almost ‘zero’ in terms of pedagogical knowledge about teaching young learners. As
such, the system of TEYL knowledge they possess now has been the fruit of their experiential learn-
ing and their engagement in social communities. Thirdly, the research findings make a substantial
contribution to situated learning or social theory of learning in the sense that learning is embedded
in everyday life contexts (Lave and Wenger 1991; Wenger 1998). The four teachers’ participation in
multiple communities is considered ‘social participation’ or ‘engagement in social practice’ which is
theorised as a ‘fundamental process by which we learn and so become who we are’ (Wenger 1998,
i). The findings of this study show the effectiveness of situated learning in terms of a conceptual tool
for exploring teachers’ construction of practice and identity. When situated learning is seen from
a practical perspective, the experiences, especially the initiative the four participants undertook to
transform their teaching practice, would be beneficial to language teachers in many disadvantaged
contexts. That is, they can make use of available resources, creating their own spaces for constructing
practice and identity.

Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their critical reviews that greatly improved the manuscript.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Chinh Duc Nguyen is a lecturer of language education in the College of Foreign Language Studies at the University of
Danang, Vietnam. His main research interests are second language teacher education, identity in language teaching
and sociocultural issues in language education.
 Research Papers in Education   69

ORCID
Chinh Duc Nguyen   http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7015-2064

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