Journal of Language, Identity & Education

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hlie20

EFL Student Teachers’ Professional Identity

Construction: A Study of Student-Generated
Metaphors Before and After Student Teaching

Gang Zhu , Mary Rice , Guofang Li & Jinfei Zhu

To cite this article: Gang Zhu , Mary Rice , Guofang Li & Jinfei Zhu (2020): EFL Student
Teachers’ Professional Identity Construction: A Study of Student-Generated Metaphors
Before and After Student Teaching, Journal of Language, Identity & Education, DOI:
10.1080/15348458.2020.1777872

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2020.1777872

Published online: 07 Jul 2020.

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JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, IDENTITY & EDUCATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2020.1777872

EFL Student Teachers’ Professional Identity Construction: A Study

of Student-Generated Metaphors Before and After Student
Teaching
a b
Gang Zhu , Mary Rice , Guofang Lic, and Jinfei Zhud
a
East China Normal University; bUniversity of New Mexico; cUniversity of British Columbia; dZhejiang Normal University

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Metaphors are powerful windows to gain insight into EFL teachers’ professional EFL student teachers;
identity constructions. This study examined 33 Chinese EFL student teachers’ metaphor; professional
(STs) self-generated metaphors about teaching before and after their student identity; teaching practicum
teaching. Before their teaching practicum experience, they were: (a) optimistic,
but had naïve perceptions about their roles, (b) worried about their inadequacy
to teach professionally, and (c) anxious about their relationship with cooperat­
ing teachers. Post-practicum, we noted (a) increased transformative percep­
tions about their role, (b) professional knowledge growth, (c) the participants
explicated a broad array of challenges of building good student relationships,
and (d) the placement-school contexts exert a significant influence on their
identity formation. Implications for facilitating EFL student teachers’ profes­
sional identity (trans)formations during the field experiences are discussed.

Introduction
International scholars recognize the importance of student teaching and other practicum for building
professional identities as student teachers (STs) learn to teach (e.g., Meijer et al., 2011; Russell, 2005;
Yuan, 2016; Zhu & Zhu, 2018). The primary purpose of these experiences in classrooms is to provide
prospective teachers opportunities to learn about their responsibilities for future teaching, develop
repertoires of pedagogies, and construct professional identities (Lawson et al., 2015). During their
practicum, STs might encounter a number of challenges, including the immediacy of classroom
practice, the needs of placement schools, and the expectations of school-based mentors and university
supervisors (Buckworth, 2017). However, these experiences are also imbued with multiple layers of
learning and uncertainty regarding the transition to teaching from an identity perspective (Valencia
et al., 2009). These identities are defined as ideal selves that teachers aspire to become (Brickhouse,
2001; Tatto et al., 2018). Thus, prospective teachers ask themselves not just “Who am I?,” but also
“Who am I as a teacher?”
However, it is not always easy to describe one’s identity. Metaphors provide an avenue to probe
teachers’ developing professional identities. As Sumsion (2002) argued, metaphors are “constructions
of meaning that encapsulate our current understandings while extending and expanding them” (p.
870). Teacher education researchers have long recognized the intimate relationship between meta­
phors and teacher identity construction (Farrell, 2006; Pinnegar et al., 2011; Zhao et al., 2010). Even
with this emerging research base using metaphors in teaching, these studies have focused only on one
metaphor of teacher identity at a specific point and time. While this is useful in some ways, it is also
limiting because professional identity, especially as prospective teachers are learning to teach, could be
more dynamic (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009; Beijaard et al., 2004). Examining whether and how

CONTACT Gang Zhu tamugz-2016@tamu.edu Liberal Arts Building 1522, Institute of International and Comparative
Education, East China Normal University, China, 200062.
© 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 ZHU ET AL.

metaphors shift may provide insights into the professional identity transformation of prospective
teachers as they move from being a student to becoming a teacher.
Expecting that professional identity does exist at some level before student teaching and that it does
shift during the experience, we ask, How do EFL STs express their professional identities through
metaphors at the beginning and after their teaching practicums? To address this overarching question,
we formulate two sub-questions:

(1) What do EFL STs’ written metaphors reveal about their professional identities at the start of the
teaching practicums?
(2) What do EFL STs’ written metaphors reveal about their professional identities towards the end
of the teaching practicums?

Theoretical perspective and literature review

The theoretical perspective of this paper focused on using metaphor as a lens to explore the formation
of teachers’ professional identities in general and EFL teachers in particular. In this section, the authors
also synthesized the major empirical studies on STs’ professional identity construction amid the
teaching practicum period.

Metaphor as a lens to explore teachers’ professional identities

The feminist scholar Gilmore (1994) perceives metaphor and metonymy as figures for identity in
autobiography. Similarly, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) contend that metaphors are foundational
patterns demonstrating how individuals understand events and make decisions. Lakoff and
Johnson define metaphor as “understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of
another” (p. 5). As they note, “We have found . . . that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not
just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we
both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature” (p. 3). Since 1990, there has been
increasing interest in examining teachers’ professional development through the lens of meta­
phors (e.g., Alger, 2009; Erickson & Pinnegar, 2017; Patchen & Crawford, 2011; Thomas &
Beauchamp, 2011). Scholars have also categorized different types of metaphors in teaching and
teacher education. Oxford et al. (1998) framed a four-part typology that encompasses language
teachers’ different metaphorical orientations: social order, cultural transmission, learner-centred
growth, and social reform. In addition, Chen (2003) classified five teaching metaphors in a study
of different types of metaphors in relation to teaching: art-oriented, business-oriented, science-
oriented, power-oriented, and personal dynamics metaphor. In her study of American teachers’
identities through metaphors, Alsup (2006) found that the visual metaphors expressed by pre­
service teachers created connections between abstract ideals (i.e., philosophy statement) and
narratives of tension, experience, embodiment, and family/friends. Alsup’s seminal work further
attests the intimacy between metaphors and representation of professional identities.
Regarding the role of metaphor in teacher education, Saban (2006) systematically reviewed the
related literature and identified ten functions that metaphors play out in teacher education. They are
metaphor as (a) a blueprint of professional thinking, (b) an archetype of professional identity, (c)
a pedagogical device, (d) a medium of reflection, (e) a tool for evaluation, (f) a research tool, (g)
a curriculum theory, (h) a mental model, (i) an instrument of discovery, and (j) a springboard for
change. All these various orientations set an impetus for researchers to examine how these different
functions of metaphors play out in the dynamic evolution of teachers’ beliefs and identities (Saban,
2004). From our perspective, some of the functions that metaphors play out converge to some degree.
An illustrative example is that metaphor can function as an archetype of professional identity,
a medium of reflection, and a research tool at the same time. In this scenario, metaphors provide
 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, IDENTITY & EDUCATION 3

a cogent venue for researchers to probe into its connotations, pedagogical implications, and its
relevance to professional identity construction.

STs’ professional identity against the backdrop of teaching practicum

Despite growing research on teacher identities, there is no consensus on the definition and scope of
STs’ professional identities (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009; Timoštšuk & Ugaste, 2010). The multi­
layered theoretical frameworks suggest “multiple dimensions of identity in the inclusion of ‘how to be,’
‘how to act,’ and ‘how to understand’ as elements for attention” (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009, p. 178).
In recent decades, research on STs’ professional identity in the context of student teaching has gained
momentum, as scholars have unanimously acknowledged that learning-to-teach is an uncertain and
turbulent journey (Britzman, 1991; Nghia & Tai, 2017; Zhu & Zhu, 2018). Drawing on a systematic
review of current studies, Izadinia (2013) conceptualized STs’ professional identity as “perceptions of
their cognitive knowledge, sense of agency, self-awareness, voice, confidence and relationship with
colleagues, pupils and parents, as shaped by their educational contexts, prior experiences and learning
communities” (p. 708). Nghia and Tai (2017) observed that STs’ professional identities had been
shaped before entering their teacher education programs. During student teaching,prospective tea­
chers negotiate their beliefs and the realities of the practice, which significantly contributes to the
development of their teacher professional identities. These early identities are important because they
have the potential to set teachers off on either the “right” foot of ongoing positive identity development
or position them to have naïve expectations of themselves, their students, or teaching, which might
lead to early attrition or ineffectiveness.
In the Chinese educational context, STs’ professional identity formation in the context of teaching
practicum has been examined from multiple perspectives (e.g., Deng et al., 2018; Trent, 2018; Yuan &
Mak, 2018; Zhu, 2017a, 2017b). Yuan (2016) learned that in their teaching practicums, EFL STs
construct multiple identities, which are influenced by their mentor teachers. Yet, a negative mentor­
ship might impede professional identity formation. Zhu et al. (2020) identified four patterns of
professional identity change that EFL STs encountered throughout the student teaching period:
confirmation/consolidation, elaboration/expansiveness, contradiction/disequilibrium, and stability/
minor change. Specifically, confirmation/consolidation means that the EFL preservice teachers per­
ceived a consistency between their prior roles and newly emergent role perceptions at the beginning
and the end of the student teaching periods. Elaboration/expansiveness refers to the fact that EFL
preservice teachers sharpened or expanded their sophisticated understandings about their professional
identities compared with their initial professional identity perceptions. Contradiction/disequilibrium
implies that the EFL preservice teachers formed new professional identity perceptions by rejecting or
immensely modifying their prior professional identity perceptions at the end of the student teaching.
However, stability/minor change indicates that the EFL preservice teachers experienced no obvious
professional identity change from the beginning to the end of the teaching practicums evidenced by
the metaphors and the corresponding written reflections. Further, Teng (2017) found that the tightly
organized, hierarchical, and collectivistic structure of Chinese society influences Chinese STs’ practi­
cum experiences. To remedy the tension between vision and reality in teaching practicum, Yan and He
(2015) suggested that teacher educators make concerted efforts to help STs continually adjust their
vision in their practice.
After examining the present studies on STs’ professional identities through the lens of metaphors,
we found that there is no dynamic portrayal of the changesin the EFL STs’ metaphoric identities before
their foray into the teaching practicum and at the end of it. Therefore, we undertook this study to gain
an insight into STs’ professional identities during their extended time in a school where they instruct
students and learn what school is like from a teachers’ perspective (Tatto et al., 2018). In this article, we
conceptualize EFL STs’ professional identities as STs’ perceptions of their cognitive knowledge, sense
of agency, self-awareness, voice, confidence, and relationship with colleagues, pupils, and parents as
shaped by their educational context, prior experiences, and learning communities.
4 ZHU ET AL.

Methodology
Contexts and participants
This study was conducted in a four-year university-based EFL teacher education program in Zhejiang
Province, Mainland China. The fourth author, the director of the EFL teacher education program of
this study, distributed the written instructions on metaphoric professional identity to 40 EFL pre­
service teachers within the English language education department (see Appendix). Overall, 33 EFL
preservice teachers, who undertook their teaching practicums from Fall 2017 to Spring 2018, agreed to
participate in this research. The participation rate is 82.5%. Among these participants, seven were male
and 26 were female. Eleven of them were placed in public middle schools for their teaching practicum
and twenty-two in public high schools in China. To maintain high ethical standards, we received the
Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval both from one research-intensive university in the U.S. and
the Chinese university where we recruited the participants. During the research process, the authors
maintained the confidentiality of the participants’ private information according to the negotiated
protocol.

Data collection
Journaling has been championed as an effective tool for deep reflection (Boud, 2001; Craig et al., 2015).
Accordingly, the first author collected 33 pieces of written narratives at the beginning and at the end of
the teaching practicums from Fall 2017 to Spring 2018. The written narratives are intended to capture
the critical events, meaning-oriented professional learning experience that occurred during the
teaching practicums. The participants were required to compose concrete examples to elucidate
their chosen metaphors. The first author then translated all the written metaphors and the accom­
panying reflections into English. Subsequently, all of us iteratively analysed the written metaphors and
the resulting explanations.

Data analysis
The authors adopted the grounded theory and constant-comparative approach (Cohen et al., 2011;
Miles et al., 2014) to analyse the written metaphors and the supporting written reflections. Specifically,
the authors conducted the three-level data analysis in an inductive manner: codes (basic transcript
unit), categories (emerging patterns), and themes (the major domain of categories). Regarding the
meta-analysis, the complete data analysis process involved the following four steps (see Table 1).
Over the course of the data analysis, we coded the metaphors in a recursive and iterative manner to
increase the reliability of the study (Marshall & Rossman, 2014). Initially, the authors coded the
metaphors and the written reflections independently. In case of disagreements, we double-checked the
accuracy of the categorizing process to increase the inter-reliability rate of the project. In this study, the

Table 1. The data analysis process and activities.

Steps Process Activities
1 Naming/labelling We first coded the linguistic metaphors based on their underlying philosophical
orientations, such as different understandings about teachers’ roles (Saban et al., 2007).
2 Sorting We then distilled the major themes and the plotlines derived from the written metaphors
(clarification (Saban et al., 2007). At this stage, we probed into how the participants interpreted and
and elimination) reinterpreted the formation of their professional identities and the accompanying
professional competency and professional relationships. We also recorded the frequency
of keywords that repeatedly surfaced in the metaphors and the corresponding narratives.
3 Categorization We positioned the commonly shared metaphors into one group and further developed
a subheading.
4 Analysing metaphors and We analysed the connotations and entailments of the metaphors embedded within one
the narratives similar category (Saban et al., 2007).
 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, IDENTITY & EDUCATION 5

percentage of discrepancies in the analysis of the data is 10%. Finally, we negotiated and resolved the
discrepancies generated in the process of metaphor analysis until a joint consensus was reached.

Findings
The metaphors provided valuable insights into the EFL STs’ changes in their metaphoric perceptions
regarding EFL teaching and the resulting complexities of teacher identity construction. These meta­
phors embodied the convergence and divergence of internal/external contextual dynamics that shaped
participants’ professional identity construction during the practicums (see Table 2). Specifically, the
internal dynamics mainly arise from the STs’ professional agency, capabilities, and professional
relationships with the students. Meanwhile, the external dynamics come from the collective influence
of the EFL teacher education program, field placements, and the different style of mentorships.

Table 2. Metaphors before and after the teaching practicums.

No. Age Gender Placement Before After
S1 23 Female Middle A lonely shepherd A hard-working sculptor
school
S2 22 Female High school A clumsy parrot A parrot that speaks several words
S3 21 Male High school A deer that just walked out of the forest Half a bucket of running water
S4 22 Male High school Ants on a hot pan Bamboo sprouts after the rain
S5 25 Female Middle Sunflowers in the sun An elementary school student
school
S6 26 Female High school A frog in a well An eagle flying in the sky
S7 23 Female High school An eagle A wild goose
S8 23 Female Middle Three medium-cooked steak Five medium-cooked steak
school
S9 25 Male High school Sunshine and rain A gust of wind
S10 23 Female Middle A clumsy bird with a string in its mouth on the A young eagle in a hot air balloon
school cliff
S11 23 Male Middle A gardener A permanent revolving gyro
school
S12 21 Female High school The little monk just down the hill ‘“White snow in sunny spring” style worker
S13 22 Female Middle A nestling A little bird flying low
school
S14 22 Female Middle A calf A sponge
school
S15 22 Male High school A parrot A dog with a collar
S16 23 Female High school A trainer in a zoo Sunshine in the garden
S17 23 Female High school Watering pot Double-sided adhesive tape
S18 22 Female High school Mimosa pudica Sunflower
S19 22 Female Middle Green hand Rookie
school
S20 22 Female High school Dry rice Beacon
S21 21 Female Middle Bird feeder Road guide
school
S22 21 Male High school Husband-gazing stone statue A metallic tool to husk rice
S23 21 Female High school Car wheels A car wheel with directions
S24 23 Male Middle A cocoon A butterfly
school
S25 22 Male High school A fish in a pond A fish in a river
S26 22 Female High school A lost lamb A lamb who found the path
S27 21 Female High school A colourful flower A hidden love
S28 22 Female Middle A beautiful Christmas tree A Christmas tree transplanted back to the
school earth
S29 25 Female High school A shy sparrow A confident sun
S30 21 Female High school A yacht without propelling power A well-decorated wagon
S31 22 Female High school A bird free of the cage A bird with a home
S32 21 Female High school Transfer student Student union president
S33 23 Female High school An ant A climber on a cliff
6 ZHU ET AL.

Professional identity at the beginning of the teaching practicum

We identified major categories of EFL STs’ professional identity formation at the inception of the
teaching practice: (a) They had naïve perceptions about their role as English language teachers, (b)
there was fear of inadequacy of professional capability in teaching, and (c) they were anxious about
negotiating their professional relationship with the cooperating teacher1 (see Table 3).
Naïve perceptions about their role as English language teachers. At the beginning of the teaching
practicum, participants held idealistic perceptions about the roles and responsibilities of English

Table 3. Overview of the category at the inception of the teaching practicum.

Representative Number of
Category evidence Illustrations Metaphors
Naïve perceptions of English sunflowers under the The participants can make a difference in their students’ 8
language teachers’ roles sun (S5) English learning and position themselves at the centre of
a beautiful Christmas the learning experience.
tree (S28)
a zoo keeper or trainer
(S16)
Fear of inadequacy of a lonely shepherd (S1) The participants encountered transition shock and lacked 6
professional capability in medium-cooked steak adequate professional knowledge to tackle the
teaching (S8) multifaceted teaching task.
a yacht without the
propelling power
(wind) (S30)
Negotiating professional a clumsy parrot (S2) It was hard to build equal collegiality due to the hierarchical 7
relationship with the a transfer student power relationship.
cooperating teacher (S32)
a shy sparrow (S29)

Table 4. Overview of the category after the teaching practicum.

Representative
Category evidence Illustrations Frequency
Transformative perceptions of English a parrot that The participants gained nuanced understandings about 9
language teachers’ roles and speaks several the complexity of English language teaching and the
responsibilities words (S2) multiple roles of teachers.
an eagle flying in
the sky (S6)
an elementary
school student
(S5)
Professional growth in student a gust of wind The participants accumulated more practical experiences 8
teaching (S9) related to English language teaching.
half a bucket of
running water
(S3)
bamboo sprouts
after the rain (S4)
The educational belief shift from a road guide (S21) The participants modified their language pedagogical 5
teacher-centredness to student- a butterfly (S24) beliefs from traditional to more progressive
centredness orientations.
Building relationships with the a hidden love It was challenging to earn students’ and their parents’ 6
students and their parents (S27) trust.
Student Union
president (S32)
a climber on
a cliff (S33)
The contextual influence of the a three-medium The school policy and the instructional routine exerted 7
placement school cooked steak (S8) a great influence on the participants’ formation of
a wild goose (S7) professional identity.
 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, IDENTITY & EDUCATION 7

language teachers. For instance, S5 depicted her professional identity as “sunflowers under the sun.” In
this metaphor, students are the sunflowers that grow under the light of the teacher’s care. S5 further
explained that everything English teachers do should revolve around students’ varying learning needs.
Similarly, S9 considered himself as “sunshine and rain,” and his expected responsibility was to “irrigate
the young saplings like how I was.” S9 assumed his efforts alone would make a difference in his students’
English learning. While well-intentioned, these two pastoral metaphors from S5 and S9 are examples of
naïve understandings about English language teachers’ roles. These metaphors put the teacher at the
centre of the learning experience, even though the participants did not seem to realize this.2
Regarding English language teachers’ responsibilities, S6 and S7 assumed that the overarching
responsibility of English language teachers was to focus on the act of instructing. Hence, S6 described
herself as “a frog in a well” because she had a very narrow understanding of what instructing involved.
S6 further specified that “I think my job is to make the English class interesting and actively engage the
students in English learning.” From her standpoint, instructing looked like entertaining, but she was
not sure if she could do it. Against the backdrop of test-driven culture, S6 did not realize that she had
to follow the national curriculum guide and all kinds of tests in the school.
Another instance where a student emphasized aspects of personality as instructional capability
came from S7, who used the metaphor of an eagle to describe her professional identity at the start of
the teaching practicum. From S7’s perspective, an eagle is active and independent but not gregarious.
In this sense, S7 said that her overarching goal in the teaching practicum was to make her English
classroom engaging and effective. In the case of both S6 and S7, their metaphors distance them from
the students in that they think they are supposed to entertain. S21 and S28 described themselves as “a
bird feeder” and “a beautiful Christmas tree,” respectively:

A teacher should design, prepare, and provide the English learning materials. In the classroom learning settings,
I delivered the pre-packaged contents to the students, which rendered the students passive over the course of
English learning.

I have many well-designed gifts, candies, and colourful ornaments that I would like to share. I am always looking
forward to the family that I would serve. I shall greet all the family members with my inborn mission as
a Christmas tree.

Although S21 desired to serve her students in ways that required her to be close to them, her
metaphors continue to place the teacher at the centre of the activity. In these metaphors, the teacher
appears to be the only one who has anything to give. In accordance with her metaphor, S21 narrowly
focused on English knowledge, preparation, and delivery, which eventually disengaged the students. In
a similar vein, S16 reflected on her initial identity perception as mentioned below:

At the beginning of student teaching, I likened myself to a trainer in a zoo. I worked as a head teacher (banzhuren,
班主任) during my teaching practicum. I was very strict with my students and did not communicate enough with
them. Therefore, I was a distant manager and created a hierarchy between me and the students. I did not reveal
my authentic emotions and personality. Regarding my first-time English teaching, the students did not actively
participate in my classroom discussions.

S16 used the metaphor of a zoo keeper or trainer, which shows the same trend regarding students as
mentioned earlier. She is the person in charge. She was a distance manager. There is a hierarchy
wherein she is the giver and the students are the takers, and as part of the contract, they should accept
her will. When prospective teachers think of metaphors such as these, they can either retain these
metaphors or shed them in favour of more sociocultural definitions of teaching, which considers
teaching as a cultural activity in an interactive milieu.
Fear of inadequacy of professional capability in teaching. At the beginning of the teaching
practicum, S1 described herself as “a lonely shepherd.” To elaborate, S1 acknowledged that she was not
well prepared to assume the responsibility of an English language teacher. It was hard to develop
repertoires of pedagogies and routines. Meanwhile, S1 lacked the necessary professional support from
the placement school. Consequently, S1 stated:
8 ZHU ET AL.

I think I am a lonely shepherd. No one in the placement school understands my investment. I felt helpless when
I faced the students in the classroom, and I did not garner recognition from the students.

In this metaphor, the shepherd is with the students, albeit at their head. While it is positive that the
prospective teachers understood the seriousness of their obligations as teachers of young people, it is
unfortunate that their metaphors still focused on their learning as a student rather than on their
teaching.
In a similar fashion, S8 considered herself a “medium-cooked steak”; she had the basic qualification
for teaching but was too naïve. S8 said that the three-year teacher education coursework only enabled
her to forge her basic English teaching ability (i.e., how to design an English class with clear objectives
and vigour) and learn about the responsibilities of head-teachers (i.e., work as a bridge between the
head-teacher and the students). However, she lacked the confidence to consider herself a “well-
performing” teacher; instead, she wanted to be a student. S13 said she was“a nestling” at the beginning
of the teaching practicum:
After observing my cooperating teacher’s open class (a type of professional teacher development routine in
Chinese K-12 schools) on reading English newspapers, I came up with some innovative ideas on how to design
my English classroom instruction. On discussing them with my cooperating teacher, she said that my proposed
teaching activities were instrumental for igniting the classroom atmosphere but inhibited attaining the teaching
objective.

S13 realized that she looked like “a nestling.” Many of her teaching activities were not mature, and she
had a strong sense of lack of pedagogical knowledge. With the support of her cooperating teacher, S13
grew professionally, but continued to have limited confidence in her teaching ability. Similarly, S19
and S20 felt inadequate as STs. S19 chose “rookie” as her metaphorical identity and admitted:
It was my first encounter with students and the podium. As expected, I was nervous and had no idea what to do.

S24 chose “cocoon”to describe her initial professional identity. She found it challenging to integrate
theory and practice:
I mainly learned theory in the university. However, amidst the student teaching, I had to integrate theory and
practice. I felt like I was restricted in a cocoon because everything was covered in shells.

Some students found themselves stifled as they worked to apply their knowledge. S30 used the
metaphor of “a yacht without the propelling power of the wind” to describe her sense of powerlessness
and disorientation:
At the beginning of the teaching practicum, I was in a state of passivity. I did not understand the new teaching life.
Sometimes, I waited for the wind to stir me up and push me forward.

As shown in these examples, many STs’ beginning metaphors were mainly focused on themselves
rather than on their students. Their concerns varied from how they were going to provide students
what they thought they needed, to whether they would be recognized as a teacher.
Negotiating the professional relationship with the cooperating teacher and the student. Due to
the short teaching period, STs find it challenging to build a professional relationship with their
mentors and with their students, which confirms the previous conclusion (Deng et al., 2018).
Regarding the fragile and sometimes uneasy mentorship, S2 used the metaphor of “a clumsy parrot”
to elucidate her professional identity:
Most of the time, I observed my cooperating teacher’s instruction in the classroom. While communicating with
my cooperating teacher, I always followed the suggestions offered by her/him rather than confidently express my
personal opinions on teaching.

S2 felt that she was like “a clumsy parrot” in the Chinese sociocultural context; she only repeats what
others say without expressing her own opinions in teaching. Similarly, S12 was in a situation where her
cooperating teachers adopted the metaphor of “the little monk just down the hill” to describe her
professional identity:
 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, IDENTITY & EDUCATION 9

Atthe first meeting with my cooperating teacher, she opposed my unsuitable dressing style. She asked me to dress
more formally as a teacher. On the second day, I changed my dressing style. From this experience, I learned that
teaching practicum enables preservice teachers to experience teaching jobs authentically. I need to position
myself as an adult.

This quote demonstrates that S12 lacked the necessary understanding about the social norms of the
community that she entered. By a similar token, S27 shared the following:
I was nervous when I learned that my mentor teacher was the head of the English teaching and research group.
I thought she was strict. To make things worse, I was not good at interpersonal communication. Overall, I felt
burdensome at the beginning of the student teaching.

Such narratives as these suggested that STs positioned their cooperating teachers as mentors rather
than as colleagues. They gave these mentors considerable authority in guiding them through the
practicum experience.
Regarding their professional relationship with the students, the participants acknowledged that it
was difficult to fit in the placement schools. As S32 reflected:
In fact, I looked more like a transfer student and a member of the classroom community. I studied with them
toward one communal direction—to build a better learning community. The students felt very strange on seeing
me as a “student teacher” during the initial student teaching period.

S32 specified that when she first entered the placement school, she was unfamiliar with the students
there. Consequently, it was an arduous task to become an authentic community member in the
placement school.

Post-practicum professional identity metaphors

Post-practicum experiences centred around six themes: (a) the transformative perceptions about the
roles and responsibilities of English language teachers; (b) professional growth in student teaching; (c)
the change in pedagogical orientation from behaviourist to constructivist; (d) building relationships
with students and parents; and (e) the contextual influence of the placement school (see Table 4). In
this section, we expand on each theme with the corresponding metaphoric evidences.
The transformative perceptions about English language teachers’ roles and responsibilities.
After their practicums, the STs’ metaphors shifted regarding the roles and responsibilities of English
language teachers. Most of the participants gained a better and authentic understanding of their roles
and responsibilities as English language teachers. S2 said she was “a parrot who could speak several
words.” After the teaching practicum, although S2 could express her teaching beliefs to her cooperat­
ing teacher, she could not get rid of the parrot image because she had not forged a systematic teaching
philosophy yet. However, S2 said that she was better prepared to design instruction for students. S5
described herself as “an elementary school student,” demonstrating her newly found intellectual
curiosity about her students.
After the teaching practicum, S6 said she had a deeper understanding about English teaching and
expressed herself as “an eagle flying in the sky.” To explain this metaphor shift, S6 specified that she
realized that besides igniting students’ English learning enthusiasm in the 40-minute timeframe, it was
important to grade students’ assignments, recognize students’ learning difficulties, and help them solve
these problems. Additionally, it was of paramount importance to encourage students to apply English
in their daily life and make them experience the enjoyment and sense of achievement in learning
English. Similarly, S11 considered student teaching “a permanent revolving gyro.”As a head-teacher,
S11 had to monitor students’ morning exercises, noon-breaks, and evening self-study sessions. Apart
from classroom teaching routines, S11 arranged students’ seats, organized classroom activities, and
settled disputes among students.
In a similar sense, S12 expressed herself as “white snow in sunny spring.” In Chinese culture, the
idiom “white snow in sunny spring” literally means elegant art and literature, which are difficult to
10 ZHU ET AL.

understand for ordinary people. From S12’s perspective, “elegant art and literature” exemplifies that
S12 has developed an idealistic professional identity by the end of the teaching practicum, which does
not necessarily fit the context of the placement school. Specifically, S12 said that she had paid excessive
attention to classroom teaching skills at the cost of ignoring after-school tutoring and facilitating
homework. S12 reflected now that these after-school teaching activities are also a constitutive part of
the teaching practicum:
[For] English teaching in China, EFL teachers should work as learning facilitators, which is in accordance with
my cooperating teacher’s pedagogies. However, I was very teacher-centred and traditional during the teaching
practicum.

S32 chose “student union president” to describe her transformative professional identity after the
teaching practicum:
After a two-month student teaching stint, I gradually found that teachers should play a larger role. A teacher is
not only a student’s friend and a member of the classroom community, but also a manager, an organizer, and
a servant. As head teacher, I should first guarantee that my class runs smoothly, ensuring efficient classroom
dynamics, morning reading, physical exercise, and rest.

In these metaphors and their explanations, STs expressed the understanding and awareness they had
gained of the various teaching responsibilities.
Professional knowledge growth in student teaching. While most of the students expressed
a feeling of success using metaphors, not all did so. S9 felt that he was “a gust of wind” after the
practicum—he could not make a real change in English teaching and only offered students support
when necessary. The STs’ professional growth centred on EFL pedagogy refinement and practical
knowledge development. S3 called herself “half a bucket of running water.” S3 explained this metaphor
from the Chinese idiom describing the role of teachers:
If a teacher wants to give a student a glass of water, he or she must possess a bucket of water.

In this sense, S3 admitted that she was inadequate for the teaching profession, considering her ill-
prepared professional knowledge and skills. S3 further reflected that to be a qualified English teacher
and teach the students in a better way, she needed to continually refine her professional competency.
As another example, S4 described himself as “bamboo sprouts after the rain” after he finished his
teaching practicum. This metaphor suggeststhat S4 experienced professional growth through the
teaching practicum. Specifically, S4 shared that he had undergone a “whole-persona education.” S4
also stipulated that he had become a reflective practitioner through continuously reflecting on his
classroom instructional goals, teaching activity designs, and instructional implementations.
S10 said she became “a young eagle in a hot air balloon” after two months of English teaching.
Specifically, S10 believed that she had accumulated more practical experiences compared to other
college students. Yet, she was less experienced than the formal teachers in the placement schools.
Regarding the hot air balloon metaphor, S10 clarified that she was now eligible for a teaching job that
required only a two-month teaching practicum experience. The teaching practicum experience
seemed to her like “a hot air balloon” that could take her to a new world.
The pedagogical orientation changing from more behaviourist to more constructivist. Some
STs shifted from behaviourist to constructivist orientations. Compared with her initial “bird feeder”
metaphor, S21 selected “road guide” to illustrate the change in her professional identity formation
after the English teaching practice:
After my student teaching, I realized that an English teacher needs to be a road guide. While guiding the students,
I should point the direction, provide necessary materials, and support the students whenever unexpected issues
occur. Learning is essentially a process of discovery, and teachers should guide students on their path of discovery
in the forest. This way, I can cultivate passion for learning among students.

Similarly, S24’s metaphors changed from “a cocoon” to “a butterfly” with respect to her professional
identity construction after the student teaching experience:
 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, IDENTITY & EDUCATION 11

Regarding the change in my teaching philosophy, I would not only observe and learn from experienced teachers’
research-informed classroom instructions, but also integrate the cutting-edge theories that I learned from the
university coursework. When I designed my lesson plans, I take the students’ backgrounds into consideration,
rehearse my lessons, and teach students how to learn.

In other words, doing teaching work made students feel like teachers over time. Although not all the
metaphors reflect a radical transformation, the explanations of their metaphors showed a development
towards more sophisticated teaching.
Building relationships with students and their parents. When STs moved to more constructivist
perspectives, they became more concerned about building positive relationships with students and
their parents. When these relationships did not run smoothly, they caused distress to the STs. As S33
explained, she found it challenging to gain recognition from the parents:
Whether you are a novice teacher or a student teacher, it was always difficult to earn parents’ trust. Chinese
parents always assume that it was challenging for their children to achieve a higher academic performance in
unexperienced teachers’ classrooms. As a result, parents often distrust STs.

This alienation hindered the professional identity construction of the STs, as S27 mentioned:
On many occasions, I found I had to express my affection carefully. On the one hand, I wanted the students to
know that I cared about them. On the other hand, I was afraid that they would take advantage of my affection.

As noted, S27’s dilemma was how to keep an appropriate emotional distance with her students in the
practicum school.
The contextual influence of the placement school. A few STs also addressed the contextual
influence of the placement school on their professional identity transformation. In this section, S8
considered herself “a three-medium cooked steak”—mature and green simultaneously:
The placement school where I practiced my teaching emphasized students’ English test scores and high school
attendance. Under the circumstance, I had to give up my communicative English class that foregrounds students’
well-rounded development. Finally, I had to cater to test-oriented teaching—mechanical English grammar
practice and intensive test preparation.

As a head-teacher, S11 had to monitor students’ morning exercise, noon-breaks, and evening self-
study. S11 reflected on his post-practicum experience as mentioned below:
Apart from classroom teaching routines, I had to arrange students’ seats, organize classroom activities, and settle
the disputes among students. Frequently, I did not have enough weekend or holiday rests.

S11 therefore considered student teaching “a permanent revolving gyro” because of the external
pressures arising from the placement school and from his mission as an EFL teacher. In the case of
S7, the metaphor of “a wild goose” was used after the teaching practicum. Geese emphasize group
interests and normally migrate in flocks. S7 forged her personal fixed daily English teaching routi­
neand found that her teaching mindset had to some extent become solidified and isolated. She
perceived that her English teaching style had become disintegrated with her colleagues in the field
placement.

Discussion
Through an examination of the metaphors they used about themselves before and after their teaching
practicum, this study aimed to learn about how EFL STs’ perceptions of themselves as teachers evolve.
Although STs’ professional identities, which were shaped long before they commenced their profes­
sional experiences, might position them well on their career trajectory or place unrealistic expectations
on themselves and the surroundings. This study has demonstrated that metaphors act as a powerful
lens to understand STs’ tactic referential systems and serve as “filters” through which teachers can
clarify their own teaching practices (Saban, 2006). In this study, metaphors were constructed as
psychological modelling experiences, allowing reification of teachers’ prior experiences, leading to
12 ZHU ET AL.

new forms of conceptual knowledge. They also reduced teachers’ complex educational philosophies
and actions into comprehensible images (Martı́nez et al., 2001).
This inquiry revealed that there was a shift in the metaphors used by EFL STs to describe themselves
within the context of their work during their practicum assignments. Further, the shifts generally
reflected a more complex and sophisticated understanding, albeit a still emerging understanding of
their roles and responsibilities in teaching young people and displaying their own expertise. In this
study, the participating EFL STs transformed their perceptions about English language teachers’ roles
and responsibilities and continually cultivated their professional knowledge in student teaching.
Meanwhile, the post-practicum metaphors depicted shifts in pedagogical orientation changing from
more behaviourist to more constructivist. They also demonstrated identity ruptures and reconfigura­
tions arising from the realization that they had to engage relationally with students and that these
relationships would require considerable effort on their part. All these changes support previous
conclusions from other research that STs’ professional identity is dynamic across a multitude of
professional contexts, especially in this uncertain learning-to-teach setting (Schultz & Ravitch, 2013;
Zhu, 2017b).

Implications for practice

This paper has implications for the structure of EFL teachers’ teaching practicum, particularly in
dealing with the deep-rooted schism between theory and practice or “the missing links in teacher
education design,” as phrased by Russell (2005). Arguably, the structural missing links between theory
and practice, pointed out by Lortie (1975), still pervade in practicum experiences in many preservice
teacher education programs. However, it was seen that when EFL teachers tried to draw on informa­
tion that they had already learned during teacher preparation, which were technically issues of practice
and not directly of theory, the STs struggled. During the teaching practicum period, STs mainly
engaged in professional learning activities, such as developing their professional competence and
building professional relationships. All these practical issues have less to do with abstract theories on
teacher education.
To resolve the dilemma of applying what one has learned to one’s practice, metaphors constructed
by preservice teachers might work as a transformative route of teacher development, which subse­
quently leads to improvements in practice (Ma & Gao, 2017). For teacher educators, the metaphors
composed by the STs could provide frames of reference for them to identify the affordances and
constraints that the STs encounter during the teaching practicum. For instance, Hong et al. (2018)
distinguished early-career teachers’ two types of challenges: coping and managing. Coping refers to
surviving in the educational context without resolving the challenges, and it is “a passive and reactive
response associated with weak sense of agency and decreasing confidence” (p. 252). Managing means
“overcoming or resolving the challenges, turning them to advantage in their teaching and building
a positive sense of efficacy, agency and professional identity” (p. 252). Relating to this study, the
metaphors and the accompanying narratives from the STs might inform teacher educators whether
they were coping or managing their practicum experiences.
As teacher educationists design programs, they might ask themselves whether there are ways to
draw out these facts before the practicum? Are there ways to address these shifts while the practicum is
underway? Further, this study also presented some metaphors that might reveal which STs will
struggle more (e.g., ones that reveal trauma and desperation). Are there ways to monitor those STs
closely?
Prospectiveteachers might also find it useful to identity the metaphors that underlie their EFL
beliefs and pedagogies (Nguyen, 2016). They can then consider whether these metaphors that guide
their practices are the ones they wish to retain in the face of new knowledge and classroom
practice. Cognitive dissonance between old metaphors and new ideas or experiences can lead to
modifications of the ideologies of the young teacher. Simultaneously, cognitive discrepancy is
fraught with professional identity crisis, which can be considered as a potential opportunity for
 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, IDENTITY & EDUCATION 13

facilitating STs’ professional development (Meijer, 2011). In practice, teacher educators might
consider how STs can re-examine the beliefs underpinning their identity perceptions and further
modify their course of actions without losing confidence in their ability to teach (Yuan & Mak,
2018).

Implications for research

The findings of this study also suggest directions for additional research. Specifically, more research is
needed on how to use metaphor work to support beginning teachers. In addition, it would also be
useful from a linguistic perspective to learn more about how teachers with a first language other than
English negotiate the metaphor process as they learn to teach in English and make metaphors across
languages or in cross-cultural contexts. In addition, the metaphors and the narratives from the
participants foster us to examine the learning mechanism when the STs shift at the boundary of
teacher education and placement school (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2011). Boundary crossing experi­
ences occur when STs move from one professional context to another one, which is characterized by
different socio-cultural differences (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011b). Akkerman and Bakker (2011a)
identified four kinds of professional learning at the boundary: identification, coordination, reflection,
and transformation. For future research, it is important to frame how EFL STs create and understand
their metaphoric professional identities from the perspectives of boundary crossing theory. In this
way, we can understand how STs negotiate their boundary crossing experiences and learning
mechanisms.

Limitation of this study

We acknowledge several methodological weaknesses of this study. First, different people may have
different interpretations of the data, and some data could overlap several categories of the classifica­
tion. All these might negatively influence the inter-agreement of the coding process. Second, the data
collection tool mainly focuses on the participants rather than the school-based mentors and the
students in their placement schools, which restricts the enriching perspectives of this study. Third,
the authors did not observe the STs’ instructions in the placement school, which misses another source
of data.

Conclusion
As English instruction continues to grow and evolve in international contexts, it is important to
develop a sophisticated repertoire of strategies for helping teachers develop their identities as
teachers and to accurately perceive their strengths and needs as beginning teachers (Zhu & Zhu,
2018). This study provided a glimpse into the thinking of Chinese EFL teachers before and after
their practicum assignment. The metaphors used are eloquent and interesting glimpses into these
teachers’ feelings about themselves as they participated in the learn-to-teach process. For future
research direction, it is advisable to conduct a longitudinal study on the evolution of the metaphors
used by these participants.

Note
1. In this paper, cooperating teachers are school-based mentors. In some literature, cooperating teacher and school-
based mentors are used interchangeably. In the Chinese educational context, cooperating teachers are usually
experienced teachers who teach one specific subject, such as Chinese language, mathematics, and English. In the
context of teaching practicum, cooperating teachers supervised student teachers’ lesson plans, pedagogical skills,
and other professional responsibilities in the field placements.
2. A frog in a well is a Chinese idiom that describes a situation in which individuals cannot see the big picture
because of their narrow minds.
14 ZHU ET AL.

ORCID
Gang Zhu http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3169-8424
Mary Rice http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8138-512X

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