Pedagogical Challenges of Immigrant Minority Teacher Educators: A Collaborative Autoethnography Study

Abstract

Oftentimes, novice teacher educators need to navigate social and institutional context when they transitioned from teachers to teacher educators. This is particularly true for minority teacher educators. To date, studies on pedagogical challenges that minority teacher educators encountered when teaching in a dominating foreign culture are understudied. This paper concerns pedagogical challenges of two novice teacher educators teaching in a transcultural context where their home languages and cultures are marginalized relative to the U.S. mainstream culture. Using collaborative autoethnography, we investigated our own pedagogical challenges related to language, culture, and power structure through the notion of third space. In a teacher preparation program at a mid-western university, we as doctoral students taught white teacher candidates in courses of world language and elementary mathematics methods, respectively. We position ourselves as immigrant MTEs from China and South Korea. The study focuses our reflection on teaching practices as novice teacher educators in the U.S. and the relationships of these practices to personal and professional life experiences in home countries. We collected the data by interviewing each other with topics, such as our teaching practices and pedagogical challenges. We analyzed the data by coding inductively and deductively. To increase the reliability and creditability of our analysis process, we did a cross check by examining each other’s selected interview excerpts and codes that we labeled. We presented three findings on pedagogical challenges pertaining to language, culture, and sociopolitical dimensions and how we negotiated our perspectives of teaching and learning. This study has implications on supporting minority teacher educators and the pedagogy of teacher education.

Introduction

In this paper, we regard foreign-born teacher educators like ourselves as immigrant minority teacher educators (hereafter, MTEs). We attend to how MTEs navigate their challenges in a new and foreign sociocultural context in the U.S. They have to deal with enormous challenges, which are caused largely by differences in language and cultures, broadly speaking. Research has thus far paid attention to the complexities of teacher educators’ teaching practices and learning (Knight et al., 2014). However, MTEs’ teaching and learning practices are still one of the understudied research areas (Goodwin et al., 2014; Korthagen, 2016; Hordvik et al., 2020). Rare research attends to the pedagogical challenges that MTEs encounter while teaching in a dominating foreign culture, which indicates specifically how MTEs perceive a U.S. mainstream culture.

This collaborative autoethnographic study aims to uncover the complexities of MTEs’ teaching practices through investigating their pedagogical challenges. We examine how we as immigrant MTEs from China and South Korea, negotiated our perspectives of teaching and learning. Specifically, this study was guided by the following research questions:

• 1. What are the pedagogical challenges that the MTEs have encountered when teaching undergraduates in a teacher preparation program in the U.S.?

• 2. How do the MTEs negotiate their pedagogical challenges when they teach in a “foreign culture” context in the U.S.?

Literature Review

Complexities of Becoming Teacher Educators

Becoming teacher educators is a complicated process (Ritter, 2007). Teacher educators not only need to enact pedagogy by teaching undergraduates and supervising student teaching, but also need to coordinate multiple duties and reform themselves via reflections on their own teaching (Erickson et al., 2011; Wei & Maddamsettti). In particular, novice teacher educators need to navigate new social and institutional contexts when transitioned from the role as a teacher to a teacher educator (William et al., 2012). In the meantime, it is not uncommon for novice teacher educators to encounter tensions and conflicts in the process of negotiating their professional identity and pedagogy (William et al., 2012).

Given the complexities of becoming a teacher educator, several researchers have tried to uncover pedagogical challenges that teacher educators might encounter. The specific challenges that teacher educators encountered include maintaining “authenticity” in teaching which refers to a negotiation of personal values and the situation values (William et al., 2012; Murray & Male, 2005), a negotiation of personal voices within the structures of the institution and curricula (Bullock, 2007), uncertainty of teaching, and concerns of students’ perceptions to novice teacher educators due to teacher educators’ strive for perfectionism (Hordvik et al., 2020).

Research also shows a difference in pedagogical challenges that novice teacher educators encountered based on their experiences as school teachers (e.g., William et al., 2012). Novice teacher educators with less experiences as classroom teachers tend to advocate traditional teaching methods in their college teaching. They need to navigate both their teaching practices and belief and the institutional context when they face pedagogical challenges in their course teaching. On the other hand, novice teacher educators with more experiences as classroom teachers tend to be more comfortable and confident about their teaching practices and belief in the context of university teaching, and instead they focus on navigating the institutional context as they encounter pedagogical challenges.

Complexities and Challenges of Becoming MTEs

In addition to the aforementioned complexities of becoming a teacher educator, MTEs encounter more challenges while negotiating their pedagogies that they brought from their home country and those mainstream pedagogies in the U.S. In the section below, first we review literature on tensions and challenges that MTEs encountered. Then we review literature on how MTEs transformed their pedagogical practices in a dominating foreign culture.

Tensions and Challenges of MTEs’ Pedagogical Practices

The first challenge comes from MTEs’ feelings and concerns of being perceived as “less competent” when teaching in a “foreign culture” context. These feelings and concerns have been reported by MTEs in multiple studies (Mayuzumi, 2008; Liao & Maddamsetti, 2019; Dao & Bian, 2018; Mayuzumi, 2008). For example, Dao & Bian (2018) reflected that they were concerned about students perceiving them as less capable teachers. Sometimes the MTEs felt “captive” because students’ evaluation showed a hesitant attitude toward their teaching due MTEs’ international background (Dao & Bian, 2018, p. 144).

The second challenge that MTEs encountered is that students may perceive them as “lack of language proficiency and culture references” (Liao & Maddamsetti, 2019, p. 9). For example, Skachkova (2000) found that instructors with an accent tended to receive negative feedback on their teaching. The accent, oftentimes, was regarded as a distinct marker between immigrants and non-immigrants, and between white and non-white (Mayuzumi, 2008). In addition, MTEs themselves also perceived them as lacking English proficiency, which caused barriers for them to use certain activities as a tool to support student learning. For example, Liao & Maddamsetti (2019) work showed that MTEs encountered challenges of having a full understanding of certain game activities (e.g., Barnga) due to a limited English vocabulary related to the card game. As a result, the game activities were not implemented well. Because of worries about students’ perception, MTEs can show more anxieties when they are planning lessons and interacting with students in the U.S. In addition, those pedagogical challenges that MTEs encountered may lead MTEs to doubt their quality of teaching in the U.S. as a teacher educator (Liao & Maddamsetti, 2019).

The third challenge that MTEs encountered is associated with the teacher authority in classrooms. According to Rong (2002), minority educators, particularly the Asian American female educators, who were perceived as permissive, tended to receive aggression from students and thus faced a difficult classroom situation.

The last challenge is about tensions caused by MTEs’ teaching and learning experiences from their home sociocultural context versus expectations and norms in the new sociocultural context. When MTEs planned lessons and activities drawing on the training that they received in their home countries, it may cause tensions with expectations in the new teaching context. For example, an MTE expressed that he used to want to be “knowledgeable” in front of students because of his teaching and learning experiences in his home country; however, it turned out that students were easily getting bored although he had planned for almost every minute for his lesson when teaching in the U.S. as a teacher educator (Liao & Maddamsetti, 2019).

MTEs’ Pedagogical Transformation

Although MTEs faced various challenges in forming a professional identity and pedagogical practices because of their marginalized status in the new sociocultural context of teaching (Kostogriz & Peeler, 2007; Lee & Tucker, 2018), they did not end up staying at the stage of struggling. Instead, MTEs negotiated their pedagogical practices constantly after learning new knowledge in the new teaching context.

As the aforementioned case in Liao and Maddamsetti’s (2019) study showed, the MTE started to seek help and looked for suggestions from his American colleague after he noticed the tension between his initial expectation of being “knowledgeable” in front of students and the institutional expectation of teacher educators being a facilitator. Then, he switched to step back and tended to be “co-learner” in his class. Since then, the situation got improved and the MTE felt more comfortable to work with his students.

MTEs also made sense of their pedagogical practices in the U.S. via perceiving their home cultural backgrounds and autobiography as an asset. For example, MTEs used their cultural backgrounds as a tool to create space for students to learn things from different perspectives (Dao & Bian, 2018; Liao & Maddamsetti, 2019). In turn, positive feedback from students could help to build MTEs’ confidence when they explored and negotiated “best” pedagogical practices in a new teaching context.

Theoretical Framework

This study draws on the notion of third space to examine MTEs’ pedagogical challenges and their negotiation of the challenges. Conceptualized by Bhabha (1996), third space refers to a transformative space created by contrasting cultural experiences. This “in-between” transformative space is not a physical space (Lee & Tucker, 2018). Instead, it is created by the reciprocal interaction between the first and second spaces (Soja, 2004). In our study, the first space refers to teaching in the sociocultural context of MTEs’ home country; while the second space refers to teaching in the sociocultural context of a new country. When the teaching practices from a sociocultural context meet teaching practice in another sociocultural context, a third space was created. Within this hybrid space, teachers negotiate their teaching practices in different sociocultural contexts and may produce “new” pedagogies.

In our study, a third space has multiple dimensions given that pedagogical challenges and negotiation can be complicated to understand due to their multidimensionality (Hordvik et al., 2020; Goodwin et al., 2014). According to Gee (1999), teachers will encounter multiple sets of discourse with language practices and non-language practices, such as thinking, feeling, and acting while they teach at local communities. Those multiple discourses can be implicit and explicit, and pose myriad challenges for teachers (Wang, 2016).

To uncover the complexities of MTEs’ pedagogical challenges, we examine how MTEs negotiate their teaching practices in a third space from three dimensions: culture, language, and sociopolitical dimension (Fig. 18.1).

Fig. 18.1

MTEs teaching in a “foreign” culture

First, the language dimension indicates teachers’ verbal and non-verbal language to communicate with students and to plan and deliver their instructions. English language proficiency has been identified as a common challenge that MTEs face when teaching transnationally (Dao & Bian, 2018; Faez, 2010; Liao & Maddamsetti, 2019; Mayuzumi, 2008). In addition to English, we extended the connotation of the language dimension, and included non-verbal communication, such as body language and facial expressions into this study.

Second, drawing on ideas from Garson (2005), we define “culture” as values, norms, attitudes, assumptions and expectations when teaching in different sociocultural contexts. Culture, including religion, history, politics, and physical surroundings, shapes people’s thinking, feeling and behaviors (Garson, 2005). Since teaching is a social and cultural behavior, MTEs’ pedagogies are hardly isolated from their life experiences in different contexts. Cultural experiences in different contexts cause MTEs to encounter various pedagogical challenges related to, for example, respect for educators (Hoare, 2013), teacher authority in classrooms (Dao & Bian, 2018), and student-centered versus teacher-centered approaches (Slethaug, 2007).

Third, we define the sociopolitical dimension as power dynamics between MTEs and students and between MTEs and colleagues in different teaching contexts. Research shows a recurring theme that minority teachers’ sense of marginalization received more and more attention pertaining to the sociopolitical dimension (Wang, 2016). Teaching in a transcultural context, minority teachers might feel isolated because of their languages, ethnicity and home culture (Lee & Tucker, 2018; Dao & Bian, 2018; Liao & Maddamsetti, 2019). We are interested in how MTEs’ may or may not feel marginalized because of the power structures and how they negotiate the power dynamics within the third space.

Methodology

Our study draws on collaborative autoethnography as research methodology (Lapadat, 2017; Chang et al., 2013). Collaborative autoethnography is “collaborative”, “autobiographical” and “ethnographic” (Chang et al., 2013, p. 17). We chose this methodology for two reasons. First, this methodology has gained attention among researchers and educators who may be marginalized and who seek MTEs’ voices as insiders (Lapadat, 2017; Ngunjiri et al., 2010). As minority teacher educators. We think this methodology helps us find ways to voice our pedagogical challenges. Second, this methodology allows for contributions of multidimensional and multidisciplinary lens on research (Chang et al., 2013; Lapadat, 2017). In this study, both authors are from different disciplinary backgrounds (language for the first author and mathematics for the second author). As such, this methodology can open a space for both authors to listen to each other deeply and delve into MTEs’ pedagogical challenges in different disciplines.

Context and Participants

The context of our experiences was at a teacher preparation program at a mid-western university in the U.S. Two authors were the participants in this study. In the program, we as doctoral students taught white teacher candidates in courses of world language and elementary mathematics methods, respectively. We position ourselves as immigrant MTEs from China and South Korea. We speak Chinese and Korean as mother tongues, respectively. The level of our English as the instructional language is fluent enough to pass a speaking test administered by the university. Xuexue Yang (hereafter XY), the first author, has relatively less experiences being a classroom teacher in China. Byungeun Pak (hereafter BP), the second author, has 13 years of classroom teaching experience as an elementary school teacher in South Korea. Both participants did not have experience of teaching abroad before working as a teacher educator in the U.S.

Data Collection

In this study, we focus on MTEs’ reflections on teaching practices as teacher educators in the U.S. and the relationships of these practices to personal and professional life experiences in their home countries. In particular, we collected interviews as our primary data source. While recalling teaching and learning stories at our home country, we also reflected on our teaching practice as MTEs in the U.S. By recalling stories and digging into our past experiences, we aim to make better sense of our teaching practices and pedagogical challenges in the context of the U.S.

We collected the interview data in two parts. In each part, we conducted two rounds of interviews in which we took turns to interview each other each time. In the first part, we collected participants’ personal and professional stories and background information. We used a semi-structured interview protocol (see Appendix A). This protocol includes questions to explore our teaching and learning experiences in China and South Korea, reasons for being a teacher educator in the U.S., and the strengths and weaknesses of being MTEs. Each interview was audio recorded and lasted around 45 min. We transcribed these two interviews with a purpose to read through it and prepare our probing questions for the next step.

In the second part, we collected data related to participants’ pedagogical practices and challenges while we taught undergraduates in the U.S. We used another semi-structured interview protocol for this interview (see Appendix B). Similar to the first interview, each virtual interview lasted around 45 min and was audio recorded. In total, we have 180-min interview transcripts.

Data Analysis

To analyze the interview transcripts, we conducted both deductive and inductive coding. For deductive coding, we coded our interview data guided by the three dimensions of our theoretical framework (linguistic, cultural, and sociopolitical dimension). To avoid potential subjectivity, we took a closer examination on each other’s interview transcripts looking for excerpts including cues on pedagogical practices relevant to these three dimensions. For example, we looked for excerpts with cue sentences, such as “I have limited proficiency”, “I think language first” and “I have lots of pedagogical challenge, so [the] first [is] language.” We then compiled all the selected interview excerpts and categorized them into cultural dimension, language dimension and sociopolitical dimension. For inductive coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) to find emerging themes and patterns, we first conducted open coding by labeling codes sentence by sentence. For example, we labeled sentences as codes, such as “language proficiency and authority”, “language and position, “communication with students/colleagues.” Then we looked for broader themes via discussing the labeled codes and comparing similarities and differences across our experiences. For example, we grouped some codes such as “communication with students” and “communication with colleagues” into a broader category “quality of teaching.” Overall key codes that we obtained via the inductive and deductive coding were presented in Table 18.1 below. Finally, after getting all those codes, both authors wrote memos on their analysis of the interview excerpts; then discussed how to make sense of the memos during a Zoom meeting.

Table 18.1 Key codes of pedagogical practices and challenges

To increase the reliability of our analysis process, we did a cross check by examining each other’s selected interview excerpts and codes that we labeled. The purpose of the cross check is to challenge each other’s perspectives and to ensure that we interpret each other’s interviews accurately (Chang, 2013).

Findings

In this section, we present three findings as a result of the analysis to capture how each of the three dimensions reveal our pedagogical challenges in third space.

Language Dimension

First, we pointed out language as a cause of pedagogical challenges, even though we were qualified by the university for teaching courses for undergraduate students. XY, the first author, suggested that language was a crucial determinant to high quality teaching in her World Language Methods courses. For example, she said, “I see the language can be a barrier to prevent me from establishing a deeper relationship with my students.” She perceived her oral language proficiency to be not as good as she expected, which constrained a deeper relationship between her and her students. In her interview, she also took body language, such as hand gesture or eye contact, as examples of the language-as-a barriers. “I felt like my hand gesture or eye contact affected how my students perceived me. They might see me as a less confident or assertive teacher educator.” In this excerpt, she described her perception of non-verbal language as pedagogical challenges in her classrooms. What she talked about in the excerpt reveals her perception of a conflict between her teaching behaviors and more confident instructional style. Her body language is inseparable from the way she was raised and educated in her country. In the U.S., she perceived that she was expected by her students to be more confident and aggressive.

BP, the second author, explained this relationship between his mother tongues and English as an instructional language in his courses. In the second-round interview, he mentioned,

I felt like my accent and pronunciation prevented my students from understanding what I was trying to say. Because my accent and pronunciation are what I cannot change easily even though I know I need to speak the way Americans do. Even though I speak in English to teach my students, I felt like what I bring with me in terms of accent and pronunciation does not help me teach well.

In this excerpt, BP perceived accent and pronunciation as the other language-as-barriers to support his students in learning to teach mathematics. His accent and pronunciation are shaped deeply by how he speaks Korean language. In his course teaching, his unique accent and pronunciation does not help him teach well. As such, it is possible to think about a pedagogical challenge in a third space where his speaking habits in Korean language was in conflict with English as an instructional language.

To deal with the language-related pedagogical challenges, both teacher educators create their ways. For example, XY coped with these challenges, in the beginning of the semester, she often invited her students to ask questions for clarification. BP took additional time to correct his accent and pronunciation for terms or words he had to say before the class.

Cultural Dimension

Second, we perceived cultural differences in teaching as causing us to encounter pedagogical challenges. What we brought to the U.S. classrooms was related to our professional teaching culture we had experienced as a K-12 learner and as a teacher in our home country classrooms. Both authors mentioned differences in teaching philosophy and practices. XY expressed pedagogical challenges she experienced in her course teaching. In this excerpt from the first-round interview, she talked about how she perceived the differences between teacher-centered teaching culture that she experienced in China and student-centered teaching culture in the U.S.

I kind of like to compare which kind of teaching methods or teaching philosophy… I didn't say I kind of only value the U.S. teaching, but instead I make a balance in my class. So for example I know many people have critiqued lecture-based teaching methods in China or the Asian culture. I want to highlight [that] I still perceive some good stuff by using lecture-based teaching methods. I feel like [teaching] it's quite flexible in the U.S. classroom. Especially in higher education when I learned to be a teacher educator, it's always flexible for you to talk or to debrief about the articles. So for me I appreciate those flexibility and the freedom for every teacher educator to share their perspective in terms of how to prepare teachers or what's your perspective about teaching or kind of education. But at the same time, I feel sometimes I still want the instructor or professor in the classroom to share their views or their feelings about these the article explicitly, like [using] a summary, or using a diagram.

In this excerpt, she described a pedagogical challenge that came from conflict between different teaching practices. This challenge results from some part of her uncomfortableness for “flexibility and the freedom for every teacher educator.” In her country, teacher educators tend to lecture what their students need to know. By lecture, they guide students to be able to achieve a clear understanding. As a result, she had negotiated her practices between lecture-based teaching that she still valued the teaching approach of giving students more freedom to learn in the U.S. Then she created a third space where she valued a mixed use of both types of teaching methods flexibly in classrooms.

BP emphasized that being a teacher educator means to continue to negotiate cultural differences between his home country context and the U.S. context. He often felt that his cultural backgrounds shaped the way he made sense of his interaction with students. In his second interview, he talked about his perception of instructors being respected differently by their students.

I needed myself to lower my expectations in relation to getting respect as much as Korean professors are getting from their prospective teachers. So I needed to adjust my expectations in the U.S. classrooms. Very often I feel uncomfortable when I interact with my students in my courses. So, the way I deal with them with uncomfortableness was expressing my uncomfortableness to them in a very respectful manner.

This excerpt shows a pedagogical challenge related to low respect that he experienced in his course teaching. As a teacher educator, he received high respect from his college students in South Korea. From his experiences, it was true for the other instructors in his country. But he felt receiving low respect when he interacted with his U.S. students in his course teaching. To deal with this pedagogical challenge, he tried to lower his expectations in relation to getting respect “as much as Korean professors are getting from their prospective teachers.” By lowering his expectations, a third space was created for him to perceive his pedagogical challenges.

Sociopolitical Dimension

Third, power and authority played out in interactions and relationships with students in our course teaching. XY frequently mentioned that her students seemed to position her as an instructor in a lower status than her co-instructor. In her second interview, she described her perception of the power and authority differences. “Even though I co-taught with a professor, I felt an imbalance about the power because I could sometimes feel the students perceived me kind of like a teaching assistant, while they perceived the professor as a core instructor.” This excerpt shows that students’ reactions suggested to her an unequal power difference. This positioning was important for her because how her students see her may shape building trust with students.

She talked about the power differences emerging from her lack of enough knowledge of U.S. local and school context. “You have to make a lot of efforts for them to trust you, such as lesson planning and also including some knowledge beyond those courses or some knowledge about the U.S. schools.” She thinks that this kind of local contextual knowledge caused her students to position her as an MTE in a lower status than her co-instructor. Thus, she negotiated the power differences by adjusting her position to be a learner learning from the professor that she worked with. BP talked about his sense of being subordinated and marginalized and how his sense was related to his pedagogical challenges. He felt marginalized when he worked with prospective teachers. For example, in his first-round interview, he mentioned how his students responded differently to his request when his U.S. colleagues asked students to close their electronic devices in class time.

I was always thinking about how I could make my prospective teachers learn to teach mathematics. Sometimes prospective teachers in my course were off task or they were playing with a phone and device. That off-task behavior was annoying. Some prospective teachers responded to my request to stop using electronic devices differently from my co-instructor. When something like that happened, it made me think about the differences in authority as an instructor.

This excerpt shows a pedagogical challenge related to his perception of lower authority different from U.S. instructors. As mentioned above in the cultural dimension, he felt he received lower respect from his students in the U.S. In his country, he was “not trying to be like an authority in the classroom” and he was trying “not to be strict to students.” His perception of low authority caused him to navigate ways to negotiate his authority in his course teaching, which created a third space.

Discussion, Conclusions and Implications

This study provides a picture of how multiple dimensions may interfere with MTEs’ teaching practices. In this study, we extend the concept of pedagogy and include MTEs’ interaction with colleagues such co-planning and co-teaching. We found that three dimensions (language, culture, and power structure) often constrained our teaching practices.

First of all, both participants perceived language proficiency as a challenge for them to communicate and to deepen relationships with students, which echoed existing literature (Liao & Maddamsetti, 2019; Dao & Bian, 2018; Faez, 2010; Mayuzumi, 2008). It seemed that both participants held a high expectation to their teaching quality. Yet, because of the limited oral language proficiency, both participants might not achieve the teaching outcome that they expected. BP commented on his battle between his accent that was shaped by his home languages and the instructional language as norms in classrooms. He chose to correct his accent and pronunciation as a way to cope with the pedagogical challenge of communication with students. XY, another participant, decided to be open to her students and invite students to ask clarification questions. Even though with those teaching strategies, both participants were concerned that students perceived them as “less competent” instructors. Thus, the finding may suggest that when preparing a novice teacher educator in higher education, it is important for the institution or teacher preparation program to provide MTEs with professional development opportunities in instructional language, as well as strategies of dealing with the difficult situation caused by language barriers in classes. This suggestion is also connected to Liao and Maddamsetti’s (2019) study, where it calls for support provided to develop MTEs’ language proficiency.

In addition, findings in this study also bring about tensions of MTEs’ body language that were shaped by their home culture versus the body language expected in the U.S. cultural context. Unfortunately, the study did not show explicit evidence on how the two participants negotiated their body languages in the third space. Future study can further illustrate how body language plays a role in MTEs’ pedagogical challenge and how they negotiated it.

Second, this study shows MTEs encountered a pedagogical challenge in negotiating respect in classrooms. There has been a long history of respecting teachers in the Confucius culture. The sayings such as “day as a teacher, life fatherhood”, has shown the status of teachers, and the relationship between students and teachers. Thus, it is not surprising that BP held a high expectation on respect from his students. However, the cultural norms on a teacher’s role in classrooms, as well as relationships between students and teachers in the U.S. are different. It was not surprising that BP felt uncomfortable after noticing less respect from students than he assumed. Drawing on the tension between his assumption on respect from students and the reality of teacher-student relationship in U.S. classrooms, BP created a third space and he adjusted his pedagogy. Findings on the expectation of “respect” and the role of teachers in classrooms inform us a need to adopt multiple and comparative perspectives when preparing MTEs.

Third, regarding pedagogical challenge in the sociopolitical dimension, both participants mentioned that they felt being marginalized and subordinated while co-planning and co-teaching lessons with American colleagues. In addition, they felt that students perceived them as having less authority than their colleagues. Those feelings of being marginalized and having less authority figures are consistent with previous studies (Rong, 2002; Dao & Bian, 2018; Wang, 2016). Yet, both participants did not talk much more about how they used their home language and cultural background as a powerful tool to support their teaching and student learning. This can be associated with their deficit views when talking about their pedagogical practices in a new sociocultural context. Unlike non-MTEs, MTEs may get vulnerable more easily because they need to navigate both the U.S. institutional context and pedagogical practices, and beliefs at the same time, no matter they are experienced teachers and less experienced classroom teachers before becoming a teacher educator.

Conclusions and Implications

Drawing on collaborative autoethnography approach, we explored our own pedagogical challenges through the notion of third space while teaching in a foreign culture context. This study showed the sources of MTEs’ pedagogical challenges and ways for them to negotiate the challenges. Findings in this study added insider perspectives to what we know about MTEs’ pedagogical challenges to the existing literature. We found that the language, culture, and power structure often constrained our teaching practices. Findings across the three dimensions reveal that one of the biggest resources responding for MTEs’ concerns is students’ perception and satisfaction. Negative feedback, either verbal or nonverbal, seemed to affect MTEs’ confidence in exploring most suitable teaching practices for them. In addition, two participants show sincere care about building relationships and trust with students. However, a lack of language proficiency and cultural reference may prevent them doing so. This study is suggestive for teacher preparation programs as institutions. Building on this study, teacher education programs may begin to think about how to support MTEs to develop their teaching practices in relation to language, culture, and power structure, not just to survive in a foreign culture.

Appendices

Appendices

Appendix A

Sample Interview Questions

• 1. Can you introduce your experiences of working as a school teacher in your home country?

• 2. Tell me about your experiences of becoming a teacher educator.

• 3. What kind of teacher educator would you like to be? Why do you want to pursue being a teacher educator in the US?

• 4. Have you encountered any tensions or conflicts when learning to become a teacher educator in the US?

  • (a) If yes, could you describe what happened? How did you address the tensions or conflicts?

Appendix B

Sample Interview Questions

• 1. How do you perceive yourself when teaching in the US? Will you perceive yourself as a minority teacher educator? If yes, why?

• 2. Have you seen any strength or vulnerability of being a minority teacher educator in the US?

• 3. What is the biggest pedagogical challenge in your experiences of learning to be a teacher educator?

  • (a) Can you specify what aspects are the most challenging?