HAORUI LI (SICHUAN NORMAL UNIVERSITY)
JIAXIN GUO (Sichuan Normal University)

“MAYBE I SHOULD STOP LYING FLAT”: A DUOETHNOGRAPHY OF PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS’ CONTRADICTIONS AND ACTIONS IN TEACHING COMPETITIONS : TEACHER EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Teaching competitions (TCs) are receiving increasing popularity in Mainland China. While existing studies have looked into how TCs promote in-service EFL teachers’ learning and development, little is known about pre-service EFL teachers in TCs. In this duoethnography, the authors, both pre-service EFL teachers, reflected critically on their experiences in TCs. The data collected include the authors’ reflective journals about their preparation and practice in competitions, WeChat messages with their mentors, the teaching materials used, and recordings of the teaching demonstrations. Applying Activity Theory as the framework, this study adopted a combination of inductive and deductive coding approaches to analyze the data and the findings reveal in total 4 levels of contradictions the authors faced in TCs: that between “lying flat” and endeavoring for change, that between the authors’ current knowledge and skills about teaching and those required for the competition, that between the authors’ previous pursuit of “charming” teaching and their new attempts for more “meaningful” teaching, and that between the time and energy invested in the competition and those needed for other academic activities. Moreover, this study reports on the authors’ corresponding actions, most notably engaging in in-depth interactions with their mentors and making continuous efforts revising and improving their teaching designs, which influenced the authors’ teaching abilities and teaching beliefs most. This study offers implications for both pre-service and in-service EFL teachers in TCs. And the authors call for more study on TCs for their great potential in promoting pre-service EFL teachers’ professional development.

Haorui Li is a second-year postgraduate student majoring in English Education at the School of Foreign Languages, Sichuan Normal University. He has engaged himself in various English teaching competitions and has won some national-level prizes. Currently, he is completing a teaching practicum in a public high school in Chengdu, China.

Jiaxin Guo is a senior student majoring in English Education at the School of Foreign Languages, Sichuan Normal University. With a strong passion for EFL education, he has participated in several English teaching contests and won the first prize in the 2nd Sichuan Chongqing Teachers-College Teaching Ability Competition.