From Student to Teacher: A Narrative Discourse Analysis of Chinese Pre-service Teachers

Abstract

Teacher identity construction is a dynamic process which takes place even as individuals begin their training. Using narrative discourse analysis as an analytical lens, this study examines the professional identity construction of Chinese pre-service English teachers – how identity is linguistically realised through their accounts of teaching experiences during their practicum. While teacher identity has been explored across various dimensions, relatively little research has examined the narratives of pre-service teachers, particularly those from non-native English-speaking contexts, through a linguistic and discourse-analytic perspective. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 20 pre-service English teachers, the study adopts a narrative discourse framework to analyse how participants represent themselves, position others, and articulate their evolving roles as teachers. Attention is paid to linguistic features such as stance-taking, pronoun use, evaluative language, and temporal structuring, which illustrate how identity is performed and negotiated in talk. Findings reveal that participants’ narratives reflect a complex process of becoming, shaped by tensions between institutional expectations, classroom realities, and their own perceptions of competence and growth. Through discursive positioning, they move from uncertain novices to more agentive and reflective educators, signalling shifts in their self-understanding and professional alignment. This study contributes to applied linguistics research on identity by demonstrating how narrative discourse can be used to trace the formation of professional teacher identity in context. It also offers practical insights for language teacher education, particularly in supporting non-native English-speaking pre-service teachers through identity-aware pedagogical approaches.