Introduction

Mexico is experiencing an evolution in the field of English language teaching (ELT) linked to the increasing role of English in the global economy which Mexico is actively seeking to join, and in this chapter, I present a study which explores the effect this change is having on in-service teacher development as seen through the narrated stories of seven English language teachers whose experiences span almost a quarter of a century at a public university in central Mexico. Their stories illustrate both the how and the why of their in-service professional development as teachers in an evolving profession, revealing some common threads in the fabric woven out of their narratives. These threads tell a story of a winding path from institutionally-promoted teacher training to self-motivated teacher development and a growing sense of professionalism.

The theoretical framework for this study is grounded in sociocultural theory as viewed through a Vygotskian lens. The investigation is developed through a discussion of teacher professional development by beginning at the beginning: How teachers enter the field in Mexico. Teacher development is then viewed as it progresses through a process of teacher socialization into the community and concludes with teacher motivation to develop professionally. The study explores these concepts using a qualitative approach through narrative inquiry, which permits researchers to “make connections through narrative of various things that we’ve been studying about teachers, and about teacher education,” as described by Barkhuizen (Wilson, 2017, p. 5), and thereby relate individual stories with what Barkhuizen calls the “bigger story” (Wilson, 2017). Various techniques were implemented to collect the seven participant stories, including questionnaires, interviews, classroom observations, and a reflective field journal. Once the data was collected, it was then analyzed using a thematic re-storying system to reveal common threads running through the participants’ stories.

Although they have different backgrounds, education, and work experience, threads interwoven from their experiences as English language teachers emerge from the re-storying of the participants’ stories (Clandinin, Steeves, & Caine, 2013, p. XV): becoming a teacher, socialization into an ELT community, and ultimately, motivation to develop professionally. The interplay of the individual and the contextual contained in their stories reveals a fabric connecting the professional development of the individual teachers who participated in the study to the larger context of an evolving profession. I begin with a discussion of relevant theoretical concepts within the field of teacher professional development.

Theoretical Framework

This study adopts a sociocultural perspective in exploring how the experiences of in-service English language teachers at a public university in central Mexico during an evolution in the profession have shaped their development as teachers (Cross, 2010; Golombek & Klager, 2015; Kanno & Stuart, 2011). Grounded in a Vygotskian view that “it is through others that we develop into ourselves” (Vygotsky, 1981, p. 161), the study recognizes that it is the interplay of our internal and external worlds which defines how we develop as individuals (Daniels, Cole, & Wertsch, 2007). Using this framework to illustrate teacher development theory, I consider first how language teachers enter the field in Mexico, then their socialization as teachers, and finally, their motivation to develop professionally.

Becoming an English Teacher

In a university setting such as the context of this study, training and education related to a specific academic subject is generally a requirement to begin teaching the subject, e.g., a math degree serves as a qualification to teach math (Study.com, n.d.). Teaching the English language, on the other hand, has historically required only an ability with the language, such as has been the case with “‘backpackers’ whose only claim to competence is that they grew up in an English-speaking country” (Farmer, 2005, p. 3). Davies (Wilson, 2015) explains that in Mexico, English language teacher training did not exist until the early 1970s (p. 2). This meant that teachers “entered the profession with no prior formal education in teaching the English language” (Lengeling, 2010, p. 26). Schools historically have placed importance on a teacher’s ability to speak the language rather than teacher training or education (Ban, 2009; Hubbard, 1995), and Lengeling (2007) describes this phenomenon of English-speakers entering the profession without training or education specific to language education as “falling into the job” (p. 91).

Requirements for becoming an English language teacher are changing in Mexico and elsewhere in the world, as teachers are now expected to have education specific to teaching a language as well as an ability with the language (Lengeling, Crawford, & Mora-Pablo, 2016). This escalation in teaching qualifications is still relatively new, however, which means that many experienced teachers found themselves in the situation of beginning to teach without realizing the full nature of the job. The affect this “unfledged entry” (Lengeling, 2010, p. 190) has on how teachers perceive themselves within the teaching community is discussed next, as I turn to the process new teachers go through as they join the society of teachers.

Society of Teachers

An important aspect of teacher development is the process teachers go through as they socialize into a community of teachers. The context of that community is an essential consideration in this process. As Tahir, Qadir, and Malik (2014) explain, “Teacher socialization, especially language teacher education, is rooted in a particular culture and community and therefore the studies and practices in non-native English-speaking countries must be viewed differently from those found in native English-speaking countries” (p. 72). This process is dependent not only on the uniqueness of the teaching environment, however, but is also a product of the interplay of that context with the individuality of the teacher.

Although teacher socialization is an on-going process that takes place throughout a teacher’s career (Tahir et al., 2014), researchers have identified three distinct phases in the process: prior to formal teacher education, preservice teacher education, and in-service teaching (Zeichner & Gore, 1990). The first phase finds the greatest influence coming from the experiences and background of the individual, as illustrated by the various models used to describe it: evolutionary theory, child-adult relationship, and Lortie’s (2002) “apprenticeship of observation” (Zeichner & Gore, 1990). The second phase is marked by influence from the student-teacher’s course work and field-based experiences. It is during the final phase when teachers begin teaching that they become socialized into the culture and workplace of their teaching environment, and it is then that their new context— the students, classroom, colleagues, evaluators, social context, and cultural forces— has the greatest impact on this process (Ibid.).

Formal teacher education is what differentiates these phases, as discussed in much of the research. In the Mexican context, where many teachers have fallen into the job thereby skipping the demarcation of formal teacher education, the process teachers go through as they socialize into their teaching communities may necessarily vary as a result. Teacher socialization has not been researched widely in Mexico, although it has been examined fairly extensively in the same context as the subject of this study (Lengeling, 2007, 2010, 2013; Lengeling & Souther, 2014). By missing the preservice teacher education phase, the socialization process in the Mexican context may be seen to take a different route. As “conditions of entry play an important part in socializing members to a given occupation” (Lortie, 2002, p. 55), this “unfledged entry” has been recognized to create a psychological burden for English teachers in Mexico (Lengeling, 2010). This becomes apparent in their subsequent professional development. Within this context, how English teachers manage this burden and what motivates their professional development is discussed next.

Motivation for Professional Development

Motivation in teacher development has been described as “the driving force behind teacher-learners’ desires and decisions” (Lengeling, 2010, p. 205), and can either come extrinsically, from forces external to the teacher, or intrinsically, from within (Johnson, 2006). The potential for career advancement, for example, is a powerful extrinsic motivator, and through pay increases and promotions, a teaching institution can provide a strong motivation for teacher development (Lengeling, 2010; Lortie, 1998). Although motivation to develop professionally was previously based primarily on an employer´s ideas about teacher training (Lortie, 1998), as the profession has grown, that has evolved so that “English language teachers began to feel the need for some form of self-motivated professional development” (Head & Taylor, 1997, p. 7). The profession has experienced an expansion of English language teaching along with academic courses specific to the field, and as teachers have become “both the subjects and objects of learning and development” (Avalos, 2011, p. 17), they have also become motived to understand the students in their classrooms as well as their role in the learning process.

How these changes in a growing ELT profession affect teacher development has been studied to some extent in other parts of the world (Breshears, 2004; Johnston, 1999; McKnight, 1992; Overbeek, 2014), but research specific to Mexico is limited. Where English language teachers previously fell into the job based on their ability with the language, there is now an apparent escalation in job qualifications due both to a national program in Mexico requiring English language classes from preschool to high school, and an influx of international companies doing business in Mexico (Lengeling, Crawford, & Mora-Pablo, 2016; Muñoz de Cote, Lengeling, & Armenta, 2014). This expansion of English language teaching in Mexico is providing further extrinsic motivation as, more and more, teachers must obtain additional qualifications and education specific to teaching English before they enter the field.

This extrinsic motivation provides only a partial picture in Mexico, however, as those teachers who “fell into the job” begin to recognize that their view of the job may be lacking (Borg, 2004). A realization about the complexity of teaching a language may spawn an intrinsic desire to become “better prepared as an EFL teacher” (Lengeling, 2010, p. 209). Lengeling describes a “common scenario where untrained teachers with several years of experience often felt they were missing something” (Ibid., p. 210), and as a result, sought out education opportunities specific to language teaching. It is their internal desire to become better classroom teachers which motivates them to develop professionally.

As in other parts of the world, teacher development in Mexico has evolved from training promoted and provided by teaching institutions to a desire to develop professionally that comes from within the teachers themselves. This change helps us understand the experiences of teachers as they enter the field, socialize into the teaching community, and choose their own paths to follow as they develop professionally. In this study, common themes related to the theory discussed above are revealed through the use of teacher narratives, as discussed next.

Methodology

This study relies on a qualitative approach to explore the lived experiences of seven in-service teachers through their narrated stories. Qualitative research is not intended to discover “the one true answer”, but rather, the purpose is to help the researcher gain an understanding of what is being studied (Pinnegar & Daynes, 2007). It permits the experiences of teachers to be used as a means of understanding the forces at work on their professional development. As Cross (2010) acknowledges, qualitative methods allow researchers to “understand teachers and their work” (p. 438) as it is through an analysis of what has happened that we may better understand why. If we “‘illuminate’ the life circumstances of individuals and communities” (Squire et al., 2014, p. 74), we may thereby hope to gain an understanding of the English language teaching community. The paths followed by the teachers in this study are therefore key to understanding the impact the evolution in ELT is having on teacher development within the Mexican context.

Narrative inquiry underpins this investigation because, as Barkhuizen (Wilson, 2017) explains, it permits researchers to “make connections through narrative of various things that we’ve been studying about teachers… all the different topics on motivation, and teacher beliefs” (p. 5). Stories told as narrative reveal how our life experiences shape us, and narrative inquiry allows us to examine the complexities and uncertainties involved in that development and provides an understanding of “how personal lives traverse social change” (Squire, Andrews, & Tamboukou, 2013, p. 4). The process of “living and telling, and re-living and re-telling” (Clandinin et al., 2013, p. xv) teachers’ stories serves as a reflection of the cultural context, permitting “connections to the macro-context” described by Barkhuizen (Wilson, 2017, p. 5). This methodology is therefore coherent with a Vygotskian perspective as it recognizes the importance of the contextual as well as the individual on a teacher’s development. With a goal of understanding how the participants’ life experiences have shaped their development as teachers, I began assembling their stories.

Data Collection Techniques

For this study, I collected the individual stories of seven in-service teachers at a public university in central Mexico whose experience levels range from novice to seasoned teachers at or near retirement. The techniques used to collect their stories include: background questionnaire, open-ended questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, unstructured interviews, observation, and a field journal. During the process of collecting data from the seven participants, these techniques underwent their own evolution in response to the participants themselves and the investigative process. A field journal (see Appendix A, Selected Entries from Field Journal) helped me reflect on that process by “engaging with the notion of creating transparency in the research process… hav[ing] concrete effects on the research design” (Ortlipp, 2008, p. 696). In my field journal, I described the results of different techniques as they were implemented, thereby devising modifications after reflection, and then tried them again.

The initial questionnaire (see Appendix B, Background Questionnaire) was emailed to participants as a means of saving time, but turned out to be repetitive during follow-up interviews. Also ineffective was an open-ended questionnaire using a narrative frame (Barkhuizen & Wette, 2008): “How would you complete this: I came to be here because...”. Upon reflection, I recognized that, as Dörnyei (2011) explains, “Questionnaires are not particularly suited for truly qualitative, exploratory research” (p. 107) in providing information, using participant time efficiently, or eliciting responses.

I abandoned the use of questionnaires in favor of semi-structured interviews (see Appendix C, Semi-structured Interview Questions) in which I spoke with participants individually and face-to-face, recorded our conversations, and then transcribed the interviews. Flick (2009) describes semi-structured interviews as “shap[ing] conversations arising in the field into interviews” (p. 169), and upon reflection, I felt that my pre-planned questions were unduly shaping the participants’ responses and perhaps even suppressing their voices. As a result, I moved to an entirely unstructured interview format starting with only one question: “How did you get here?” From that point, participants were free to tell their stories as they wished, guided only by questions that arose naturally. According to Coffey and Atkinson (1996), “The chronicling of a life, or part of a life, often starts from a point of ‘how it all happened’ or ‘how I came to be where I am today” (p. 68). In the end, these “grand tour” (Dörnyei, 2011, p.136) unstructured interviews provided exactly the kind of “personal historical account of how a particular phenomenon has developed” (Ibid.) I was looking for, and thereby an understanding of how the participants’ life experiences shaped their development as teachers.

As mentioned previously, my field journal helped me reflect on the process and identify issues as I collected data. As a result of that reflection, I conducted some follow-up interviews and classroom observations in order to clarify or expand on certain aspects that were appearing in the data. The result was a fuller picture of the participants.

Ethical Considerations in Re-storying

The purpose of narrative inquiry is not to present a recitation of fact nor, as explained by Kohler Riessman (1993), should it be seen as “a mirror of a world” (p. 64). Rather, narratives rely on people’s memories, personal perspectives, and personal agendas to provide a glimpse of a narrator’s perception of their lived experiences. The “trustworthiness” of narrative inquiry data, therefore, is not as a historical accounting. Its trustworthiness comes from capturing the narrator’s voice in the re-telling of their story. Ethical considerations in narrative inquiry research therefore require more than obtaining the written consent of participants to conduct an investigation. Ethics also requires participant involvement in the re-telling and re-storying of their own life experiences to ensure a worthy capture of their voice.

The terms story and narrative are used interchangeably in this study to mean a recounting of events in an organized manner which leads to an interpretation with some social significance (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Squire et al., 2014). The vision of what is socially significant is dependent on the selection of which life experiences to re-tell as well as how to re-tell them, and it is inevitable that a researcher’s subjective views will influence this process. To minimize this, a field journal provided reflection on my own thought process during the research with the goal of making the research as open and transparent as possible. Upon reflecting on ways to actively involve the participants in the re-telling of their stories, I involved the participants from the beginning by asking them to choose their own pseudonym to be used in the re-telling of their story as well as member checking the re-telling (Kohler-Riessman, 1993) to both increase the validity and credibility of their narratives and ensure that their individual voices were accurately captured. Finally, the data was coded and a thematic re-storying system (See Appendix D, Thematic Re-storying System Excerpt) implemented in the analysis of the data as “themal coherence” (Kohler-Riessman, 1993, p. 67) further enriches the trustworthiness of the study. Rather than providing facts or history, the goal of narrative inquiry is to provide the bigger story, and by weaving together the common threads of individual stories, a fabric of that bigger story is created. The individual stories are told next as we begin to reveal the tapestry of the participants’ experiences teaching English in Mexico.

Data and Discussion

Although the research described here provides a snapshot of one university setting and is not intended to provide a comprehensive review of the experiences of teachers throughout Mexico, the stories presented lead to an interpretation with some social significance of the bigger story (Squire et al., 2014; Wilson, 2017). I begin with the participants’ stories as it is through the re-telling of their stories that an image of their experiences teaching English in Mexico emerges, and it is the tapestry woven from their stories which then allows an analysis of the bigger story, provided in the second part of this section.

Teacher Stories

Allow me to introduce the seven participant teachers in this research: Vanessa, the atypical backpacker teacher; Lilly, the nontraditional teacher; Megan, the accidental teacher; Grace, the vagabond teacher; Leonor, the proud Mexican teacher; Luke, the noble teacher; and Yoda, the reluctant teacher. Their experiences range from one semester to twenty-three years at a public university in central Mexico. I begin this section by re-storying the tales of how they became English language teachers, how they socialized into the community of teachers, and how they developed as teachers. Here are their stories.

Vanessa, the atypical backpacker teacher

I first arrived here as a tourist. I came here to study Spanish 23 years ago. My plan was just to learn more Spanish and then travel all the way to the tip of Chile. The reason I got my job was the Director at that time came up to me and said, “Do you speak English?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you going to be here next semester?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to teach?”

“Yeah.”

I wasn’t a teacher. I never was a teacher. I had never taught. I studied business administration, so I had no teaching background at all. In those days, that was what it was like. There was no question of, “Do you have a teaching certificate?”, “Do you have a bachelor’s?”, “Do you have a master’s?” In the language school at least it was, “Can you speak English?” and “Will you be here?”

I didn’t plan to stay. I really just thought I would see if I liked it. But then I started getting connected with people that live here, and I had a boyfriend, and then I actually really started liking teaching… I had no idea.

They handed me a book and said, “Just follow the teacher’s book.”

At first, I felt kind of scared. I thought, “Can I really do this?” I took it really seriously because I thought, “I can’t mess up.” It was pretty grammar oriented then, and I remember one of the coordinators yelled at me, “What are you doing teaching here? It’s not ‘less people’, it’s ‘fewer people!’”

I felt kind of intimidated at first. I’m not dumb, I picked up a grammar book, and I would read stuff and prepare myself, and then I guess I felt like a teacher. People were calling me teacher on the street anyway.

In those days, they would send us to the Best of British Council once a year, in Mexico City or Guadalajara. They wanted everybody to improve.

I don’t think anybody had a degree in teaching, no one really knew what to do. They wanted us to become educated. I was collaborating with other teachers and going to these conferences because none of the other teachers were really that aware of what should happen in the classroom. I’d hear that so-and-so did something like this, and they had a game… and I thought, “Wow! How did they do that?”

I took all of the classes for a Master in TESOL¹ at the University of London as a distance program. I finished all of the papers and I got really good grades, and then at the end, I didn’t like it anymore. I didn’t see the connection between the theory and teaching. I’m more of a practical person. At that time, I was having problems with my boyfriend, so I thought, “I’ll just do it later.” What really made me not want to finish was when they started the BA program here. In order to teach in the BA, you had to have a master’s, and I didn’t want to teach in the BA. The more time passed, the less I cared about it. I’m not interested in teaching theory and how to teach. I want to teach. To me it’s very different.

The people who are studying in the BA program now didn’t just fall into it like I did because they’re making a decision to study for a long time. You have to have standards and you have to have hiring requirements. Someone can’t get hired without certain prerequisites, or background, or whatever you want to call it. If they had had that when I first came here, I wouldn’t have been hired!

Lilly, the nontraditional teacher

When I was a student in London, I had a Mexican boyfriend. He was doing a doctorate, and when he finished, we came here. My Spanish wasn’t very developed at that point. I had studied history and I really wanted to continue, but my Spanish was not good enough to do a master’s or anything like that. So, I thought, “Well, I’ll teach English for a while until my Spanish improves and then I’ll do something in history.” But, of course, the rest is history.

That was 22 years ago, and at that time, it was fairly clear that if you had any reasonable general education and you were a native speaker, you could get a job teaching English. Actually, it was hard for me in the beginning. I was kind of a shy personality, and I never had any experience or any thought towards teaching before, so I was kind of thrown into it without any preparation. I didn’t have any idea what I was doing. I think I had been teaching a week, and I thought, “I can’t do this!” I remember going to the Language School Director and saying, “I’m just not made to be a teacher!” She took me out for a beer and said, “Hang on. Be patient. Give it some more time.” Eventually, I started working at the CAADI² as well as teaching. I felt very comfortable there right from the beginning. Some of the same issues that were a problem for me when I first started teaching, the idea of being a controller and all that, never sat very well with me. That was never very comfortable to me. I probably feel the role of teacher less than others because my personality is that way

At the beginning, of course, you depend on the book a lot more because you need some kind of structure or some kind of guide. People were always very supportive and helpful here. At the end and the beginning of the semester, we used to have internal workshops with people who were working here or with visitors. For a long time, it was like that.

There’s been a general change in the University and in society. Specifically, with languages. Languages tended to be sort of sidetracked, but especially in the last ten years, languages have become more and more important in education. In the early years, it was considered kind of an extra. I used to have a lot of women students who seemed to be studying languages for fun with the intention of going shopping in Houston and things like that. Nowadays, we have more women university students than men. Now, languages have a fundamental role in education.

Our status as teachers has changed also. In the early days, the legality of our work situation was kind of rough and ready. People just kind of worked it out any old way. When we first started, we were just thrown into it and probably we weren’t great teachers at the beginning. But we worked our way through the process. These days, it’s more professional, a lot more organized. I think something has been lost as well as gained. The fact that we came in with world experiences of different kinds brought a lot to our teaching.

I did a distance Master in TESOL through Canterbury because the University was becoming much more formal. All the universities, not just here. Everything is becoming more academic. There are more demands on everybody for formal education and training. I finished all the classes, but I didn’t write the thesis. Sad, but I was single by then and had two kids… it was kind of my mistake in a way because it was, in theory, the best time to become more professional and do the master’s. But emotionally, I wasn’t in a very good place for it. The program was distance and very hands-off in terms of the relationship with the tutors. I kind of hid away too much and wasn’t connected enough with Canterbury. I let things go on too long without finishing them up. Even so, I think I learned a lot from it, I really did. I mean, I did all the classes, I finished all the classes, and I did learn a lot.

I never pushed the option of finishing the master’s or doing doctorates and tenure and all that. But in myself personally, I feel like I’ve worked well with a lot of people in a lot of different circumstances, and I feel like I can do a lot of different things. Personally, I feel like I’ve done some of the things I wanted to do.

Grace, the vagabond teacher

I met my ex-husband more than 19 years ago in England where he was studying. The deal was for us to come back here to the University because he had to repay his time for the scholarship to do his graduate studies. I started working two weeks after I arrived here, really quickly. I had to go through an interview, but they just wanted to check the experience I had teaching English in Brazil. I did my professional practice there for six months as part of my first degree in fashion, but they don’t pay you for that. I had to find something to pay the rent and eat, so I started teaching English. That’s how I started teaching.

When I finished my degree in fashion, I took a six-month course in teaching English language at a community college in England. I thought, “This might well come in handy one day.” But that was just a backup plan, it wasn’t my intention, it wasn’t my long-term goal. No way! I gave myself a year or two years to teach, to learn Spanish, and then get back into fashion. I just landed in it, I didn’t plan to do it. But that’s what I did, and then I just continued doing it because I liked it. After three years, I had my son and I thought, “Oh, I’m not going to start my own fashion business with a baby.”

I didn’t know any Spanish when I got here 18 years ago, and my first students didn’t know any English, so we had a great time using sign language. I remember one of my first students from that first semester said to me, “Can I give you a kiss, teacher?”, because we were practicing “can”. And I said, “No, you can’t!” I still see him, and he’s married with kids now.

When I started teaching here, there were around seven teachers in English, about one-third the number now. We were from all over the place: Mexican, American, Canadian, me and another Brit. I think some of them just kind of landed in it, like me. Back then it was more flexible. Tenure positions were easier to get, and that kind of thing. I thought about getting other training in English teaching, but when I started having kids, I didn’t get around to doing that. Then they offered me a scholarship to do a distance master’s in management from Southern Oregon University, so I guess I kind of bypassed that and went into administration more. I did my thesis in education management, I focused on that. It’s been kicked back in my face several times because I didn’t go into English language teaching. I went into management and that’s not worth a lot around here. But I like both, teaching and administration.

I think of myself as a vagabond, someone who likes to be everywhere, doing everything, and not just teaching, not just researching, not just doing administrative things. I like to have my fingers in all kinds of pies because if I don’t, I get frustrated. If I’m just teaching, I feel like I’m losing my brain. And if I’m just sitting here in my office, I feel like I’m just sitting here wasting trees. So, I like to be part of everything.

I don’t believe in regrets and such. You’ve got to get on with things. But before my son was born, I had plans to do other things. Sometimes I think, “Would my life be different if I’d done other things?” But I have kids, so I wouldn’t change anything because of that. They’re my priority, and I wouldn’t give them up for anything.

Megan, the accidental teacher

When I was a child growing up in rural Mexico, the only option for girls was to be a teacher: The Normal Superior for girls; for boys, it was either become a miner or to go to Texas to work. Because of the place where I lived, teachers had to travel to teach and it was difficult. We had five different teachers one year, and I thought, “No, I don’t want to be a teacher. I don’t want to be a teacher!” All my childhood, I felt like, “Teacher? No. Teacher? No, never. Never!”

So, it was an accident that I became a teacher. I was studying business administration and a teacher asked me if I spoke English. I said, “I think so.”

She said, “Wouldn’t you like to be a teacher?”

I was like, “No! I can’t!”

She said, “Yes, if you speak English you can be a teacher. Go. I already arranged a meeting with the Director. He’s going to wait for you.”

They gave me an exam. But they gave me an exam with the answers, by mistake. So, I started teaching without knowing what I was doing. I started teaching, and I discovered that I liked it. A lot. I taught elementary school kids and I felt like, “Well, if I’m going to do this, I need to know what I’m doing.” I found an English teaching certificate, and I took it. Then one day, my father showed me a newspaper ad for a Diplomado en la enseñanza del inglés. He said, “I think you should take it.” So, I did.

I heard they were looking for a teacher at the University. I met with the coordinators, who had been my teachers in the Diplomado, so they knew me, and I started teaching at the University. One of the teachers told me, “Okay, now you should take the COTE³.” I was in a position where I thought, “Yeah, I can do it. My kids aren’t babies and it isn’t every weekend.” It was good because I didn’t have to pay. It was part of teaching at the University. When I finished the COTE, I applied for the BA in TESOL at the University. I really don’t know why I did it, and right now, I don’t know how I did it because it was every Friday and Saturday, and I was teaching from 8-12, Monday to Friday. Well, I just did it. When I finished the BA, the Director asked, “What are your plans after this?” I hadn’t been thinking about doing an MA right away, but I thought, “Yeah, let’s do it.” So, then I did the MA here at the University through the University of Auckland. All the major decisions in my life were made by others. I was just like, “Yeah, okay, I’ll do it!”

I thought I would enjoy the BA because in the past, I hadn’t finished my major, so I didn’t belong to a group or anything. It seemed to me that I was going to be part of a group with the BA. Most of us were already working as English teachers. I had heard about MEXTESOL and those things, and I thought it would be like a community. When I started the BA, it was strange because my co-workers were my teachers at the same time. In the end, I wasn’t part of any group. Even now, after 14 years, I don’t have much contact with my colleagues because of where my office is. The other teachers? I don’t know them. I arrive in my office, I go teach, and I come back to my office.

The term teacher… I have my issues with this word. I think it goes back to when I started teaching because they called me teacher, or in Spanish, maestra, and I thought, “No! No soy maestra! I’m not a teacher! I am a liar!” When I was teaching kids, they couldn’t say “teacher,” and so they would call me, “Peacher! Peacher!” I said, “You know what? You can call me Megan.” The word “teacher” sounds like it’s something very strong, I think. When I started teaching, well, it was a fake thing. I wasn’t a teacher. I don’t feel like a teacher. I tell my students, “Call me Megan. Don’t call me teacher.” No, I don’t see myself as a teacher. I see myself more as a helper, like a facilitator. When I meet people, I say, “I teach English.” I never say, “I am an English teacher.”

I think most of us started teaching because we knew the language, but without any formal training or anything. It was easier to get a job when I started. I was already working at the University, so I didn’t have to pay anything when I started the BA or the master’s. It was easier in all aspects. Now, it has changed. You need to at least have a BA in teaching. Now, if you want to study a PhD or something, it’s like, “Do you have tenure? No? Okay, so don’t even think about it.” Even though I’m thinking about it.

Leonor, the proud Mexican teacher

A friend who owned a school needed an English teacher. He asked me if I wanted to teach English and he told me the salary. I said, “Wow, of course!” I didn’t think twice, I just said, “Yeah!”

It was a tragic experience because I didn’t take many things into account. It was really irresponsible of me to take that position only because I was learning English. There are too many things behind being an English teacher. I basically did it because of the money and it was wrong. I actually suffered a lot, because, can you imagine that? All of the sudden to be there? I didn’t have any idea. I didn’t have any training.

But there were publishers who gave workshops to buy the books and somehow I went to those training sessions. In those sessions was everything I got. I learned a little bit about the profession. I decided to go observe, to see how kids would react or behave. Using those sessions, helped me to grasp ideas like: Kids learn by moving around. So, I started to build up teacher knowledge, I would say, little by little. I got support from the teachers and I followed the teacher’s book 100%. That was my planning, to follow what it said: “Teacher greets students, then teacher writes on the board…” I followed that at first.

After a year, besides enjoying the pay, I realized I had fallen in love with the job. I had developed some teaching strategies by instinct, but I thought, “Okay. Now I have to be a real teacher, a qualified teacher.” That’s why I studied the BA in TESOL. I like to learn. In the BA, I was the best student in my class for four years in a row because I just knew that was what I wanted in life. I was very serious when I started to study the BA. And the next step for me, that was obvious: to study an MA was the logical step. I would like to study a Ph.D., but right now I have to concentrate on the present, on finishing the MA in applied linguistics.

When I started to teach seven years ago, I didn’t even dare say I was a teacher because that was a title I hadn’t obtained at school. I see it with my boyfriend and with some other peers. Sometimes people say, “You can teach just because you speak the language.” That makes sense because in the past, people who spoke the language were considered teachers. So now, are you an English teacher because you speak the language or are you an English teacher because you have a degree?

That is something really important to me because I realized that I was in charge of education in Mexico. I love Mexico, I love being Mexican, and I thought, “I need to be serious.” A profession needs to be respected. I fulfill the standards that I have in my head, like having a degree, being committed to the profession, being prepared in every single class, being on time, keep learning, have a degree, contribute to education. And I try to portray that in my classroom. Sometimes I don’t do that in every single class, although I try to be prepared, to be professional. By accident or by choice, we teach. And that’s a very humanistic thing.

Luke, the noble teacher

I was studying at the University of Limerick—I’m Irish—and I applied to teach English as part of my cooperative education requirement. They said, “Okay, you can go to China or Mexico.” So, I chose Mexico because I was always interested in pyramids when I was a kid and I knew they had pyramids here. I was working at a school for six months and I ended up falling in love with the coordinator, and we got married.

We went back to Ireland so I could finish my degree, but I really liked living in Mexico: the culture, the environment, the weather, the people, the food. So, we came back to Mexico. I didn’t necessarily plan on being a teacher. When I started three years ago, I felt thrown into the deep end. It was like, “Oh, this is how you do a lesson plan.” I was kind of nervous about it, but really it was just, “Here’s a book, go in there and teach.” It was crazy because I had never formally been taught as a teacher. I just had a kind of roundabout learning experience about teaching. Until you get feedback, you get observed or an evaluation, you’re like, “Jesus Christ, am I even doing it correctly?” Especially without the formal training.

What kind of spurred me on is my mother is a teacher as well. When I saw her doing that, her spirit was kind of enlivened again. It was great to see someone really and truly happy about their job, really positive and upbeat. She always says, “I’m paid from the neck up.” It’s like she’s paid for her brain.

I’d like to do a master’s in English teaching and I’d love to do a Ph.D. eventually, but at the moment I’m starting a family, and I’m starting a new life here. I’m one of those poor immigrants, so I have to work a lot. I’d like to do the advanced degree thing because I feel like I’m worth it, just to add something to my profession here, to help me with my career. I haven’t actually had any formal training in teaching, so obviously that would help if I wanted to get a better position in the University. And I’m kind of ambitious to climb the chain.

Especially in Mexico, I feel teaching English is a very noble profession because if you’re teaching someone how to drive, then they learn how to drive. That’s it. If you’re teaching engineering, or whatever, they’ll do it. But if you’re teaching someone a second language, it’s really a noble profession because you’re improving their life, you’re making sure that their kids have a better education and a better outlook on life. After about two or three weeks, I thought, “Why are all of these people coming to a class an hour and a half before they start work? Or coming to a two-hour class after a ten-hour day in an office?” I realized it’s because it’s so important to have another language, especially in Mexico, a developing country. I feel like you should feel professional because it’s a big responsibility. Think about it as if you’ve got someone’s profession in your hands.

Yoda, the reluctant teacher

When I came to Mexico seven years ago my family here was telling me “You should be an English teacher. Just teach. Just ask somebody to let you borrow a class and show everybody that you can do it. And that’s it. You don’t even need a document that says you know how to teach.”

That wasn’t my mindset at that time. I felt that if you’re going to teach something, you have to be good at it, and actually have the knowledge and background that supports what you are going to do. And I felt I wasn’t ready. I felt like teaching was not my thing, at the time.

I remembered my old teachers, and sometimes I said when I was younger that I never wanted to be a teacher because they are boring. They don’t have a life because they’re always giving us homework, and they’re always wanting to grade, so they don’t have a life. I felt teaching was not a well-respected career by the students because my mother is actually a teacher, and growing up I always heard her problems at school: Her students didn’t pay attention, they didn’t care, they wanted the easy way out, for the teachers to give the answers for the tests. And I said, “Why do I want to come home every day with a problem?”

But then I decided to come to this career because I felt I have English, but I need to get polished. I’m trying to be a great teacher, that’s why I’m studying. I did not want to start off teaching English just for the hell of it, learning from there. I think teaching is a way of life because you take home all the problems. You take home all the mental problems you’ve had, all the things you saw in class that you liked or didn’t like. You have to bring it home and sometimes you have to talk about it with your girlfriend or whatever person you have next to you. We take it home.

Actually, my plan was to finish my four years in the BA and then teach. But the BA pushes you to teach before. When I started teaching here last semester, I was scared because I felt that I needed the other years to finish a BA in order for me to know everything there is to know about teaching. But I found that was the wrong way of thinking. You are expected to put the theories into practice and learn from the practice, the mistakes, and the adjustments you have to make as a teacher.

I know I don’t want to be a teacher forever. My future is a moving future. I don’t have something stable. I know I’ll get married one day. I know I’ll have kids. I’ll stay in Mexico. That’s what I’m sure about so far. But I don’t know what to say regarding my future. Right now, I want to see what I have to offer here as a teacher, and eventually check what else I can do for someone else.

Discussion

By weaving these individual stories together, a fabric emerges, revealing a picture of the English language teacher in Mexico and providing an understanding of how an evolution in ELT shapes and motivates teacher development. Although these seven teachers come from varying backgrounds, have varying education, varied work experience prior to becoming English teachers, and varied years of experience teaching, some common threads were pulled and plucked at in the re-living, telling and re-telling of their stories: falling into the job and feeling unprepared to teach; difficulties joining their teaching community; and developing professionally as a result of both extrinsic and intrinsic motives. These threads are examined next.

Beginning to teach: “We were just thrown into it”

In sharing their stories, the participants in this study relate how the requirement for becoming an English language teacher in Mexico historically has been based on an ability with the language rather than teacher training or education. The impact of this “unfledged entry” into the profession is also a part of their stories.

The phenomenon of “falling into the job” is not uncommon in Mexico (Lengeling, 2010), and as Vanessa describes, the requirements for teaching in the Language School when she arrived in the 1990s were: “‘Can you speak English?’ and ‘Will you be here?’” Vanessa may have been a “backpacker teacher” as described by Farmer (2005), but Lilly and Grace encountered the same requirements, and both found themselves teaching within weeks of coming to Mexico from England. According to Lilly, “If you had any reasonable general education, and you were a native speaker, you could get a job teaching.” What was true in the 1990s appears to have been true a few decades later when, as a native speaker with a degree in literature from Ireland, Luke was offered a teaching position without any prior education or training in teaching a language, and only minimal teaching experience during a school exchange program. For Megan and Leonor, although they are not “native speakers,” it was similarly their ability with the language that gave them entry into English language teaching. As Megan was told, “If you speak English, you can be a teacher.” They “fell into the job” because they spoke the language.

Of the seven teachers who participated in this study, only Yoda entered the profession while he was in the process of studying a BA specific to TESOL. He also describes, however, being told that native speakers “don’t even need a document that says you know how to teach.” It was Yoda’s personal belief that it is necessary to “actually have the knowledge and background that supports what you are going to do” that led him to begin a BA in TESOL prior to obtaining a position as an English language teacher.

This mode of entry into English teaching, as seen among most of these participants, is not uncommon in Mexico. Their lived experiences illustrate the ramifications of their “unfledged entry” into the profession. When describing their early teaching days, uncertainty and insecurity were common emotions among the participants. Vanessa recalls being “yelled at” by a coordinator, and Megan believes “it was an accident that I became a teacher.” For Lilly, this meant she felt “just thrown into it,” as does Luke, who similarly describes feeling “thrown into the deep end,” as well as Grace, who says she and the other teachers “just landed in it.” For Leonor, “It was a tragic experience… I actually suffered a lot, because, can you imagine that? All of the sudden to be there. I didn’t have any idea. I didn’t have any training.” In contrast, although Yoda says he “was scared” when he started teaching while studying the BA, he now realizes that it was an opportunity to “put the theories into practice, and learn from the practice, the mistakes, and the adjustments you have to make as a teacher.” For the other teachers, however, their “unfledged entry” into English language teaching left them feeling unqualified to teach. As Megan describes, she felt like “a liar.” We see through their narratives the impact this experience had on them as they joined the teaching community.

Socializing into the teaching community: “Don’t call me teacher”

How teachers enter the teaching profession affects their socialization into the teaching community as both a teacher’s environment as well as the individuality of the teacher are found to be critical in the socialization process (Tahir et al., 2014). The feelings of being unqualified and unprepared to teach, as described above, seem to have become barriers in that process as these teachers began their teaching careers.

A difference can be noted in the words the participants use to describe themselves, and the distinction they make between what they do and who they are. Megan tells her students, “Don’t call me teacher,” and explains, “I don’t feel like a teacher… When I meet people, I say, ‘I teach English.’ I never say, ‘I am an English teacher.’” Leonor similarly recalls, “I didn’t even dare say I was a teacher because that was a title I didn’t obtain at school.” This idea is echoed by Lilly, who describes herself as “feel[ing] the role of teacher less than others.” Both Vanessa and Grace seem to have rejected, or perhaps felt rejected by, their teaching community. Vanessa explains her motive for not finishing her master’s studies was to avoid teaching in a BA program in her department, and Grace describes her choice of studying a master’s in education management rather than language teaching as being “kicked back in my face.”

As Lortie (2002) explains, “conditions of entry” into teaching are important factors in a teacher’s ability to socialize into the teaching community. Feelings of uncertainty accompanied several of the participants as they began teaching, and their insecurities seem to have hindered their ability to fully socialize into their teaching community. When teachers “fall into the job” without any training, what motivates them to develop professionally is discussed next.

Motivation to develop professionally: “I need to be serious about this profession if I’m going to do it.”

What motivates a teacher to develop professionally comes both from within the teacher as well as from external forces, and these participants’ stories describe their own intrinsic desires as well as outside pressures to develop as teachers. What began with teacher training promoted by the institution ultimately evolved into institutional pressure for development through academic credentials. Along that path, however, is evidence that what motivates some of these teachers to develop professionally is highly personal.

During the 1990s, the University took steps to train its English teachers through institutionally promoted workshops, as both Vanessa and Lilly describe. Vanessa explains, “They wanted everybody to improve. They wanted us to become educated.” During these early years, professional development appears to have been primarily extrinsically motivated (Lengeling et al., 2016), which Lortie (1998) notes historically has provided a powerful motivation for teacher development. The participants here have experienced an evolution from teacher training to academic development, with an increasing pressure for ever-higher levels of academic degrees, a trend recognized by Muñoz de Cote et al. (2014). Lilly explains, “Everything was becoming more academic, with more demands on everybody for formal education, and training, and all the rest of it.” With financial help from the University, Vanessa, Lilly, and Megan enrolled in Master in TESOL programs, while Grace chose to enter a master’s program in education management, also with financial help from the University. Neither Vanessa nor Lilly completed their programs, however, and Grace feels her choice of advanced degree has been “kicked back in my face.” Although their own intrinsic motivation for professional development may have provided some of the impetus to enter these programs, it appears that pressure from the University may have been their primary motivation.

The academic reality in universities has continued to evolve so that institutional involvement in teacher development has become more limited, placing the responsibility on teachers themselves. Johnston (2003) explains, “In ELT at least, teacher development is something that teachers themselves undertake and that is guided by the teachers concerned” (p. 95; see also Avalos, 2011; Head & Taylor, 1997; Mann, 2005; Wallace, 1991). What has motivated both Megan and Leonor to develop professionally has been purely personal. Megan’s story reveals how her self-doubts about her ability to teach led her to look for teacher development opportunities because she felt, “Well, if I’m going to do this, I need to know what I’m doing.” As a result, she obtained a number of certificates and degrees as she looked for ways to feel more like a teacher as well as to be “part of a group.” Similarly, without a degree, Leonor says, “I didn’t even dare say I was a teacher.” She decided she wanted “to be a real teacher, a qualified teacher” because, as she explains, “I just knew that was what I wanted in life.” A sense of vocation, a “call of profession” (Lengeling, 2010, pp. 206-207), may have been what motivated this desire for formal education specific to the profession.

This sense of responsibility to the profession is echoed by other participants in what Overbeek (2014) describes as “innate professionalism” (para. 7). For Leonor, teaching English “is something really important… because I realized that I was in charge of education in Mexico. I love Mexico, I love being Mexican, and I thought, ‘I need to be serious about this profession if I’m going to do it.’” Lilly notes that English has developed so that it now has “a fundamental role in students’ education,” while Luke describes teaching English as “a very noble profession.” The only participant in this study to have pursued formal education in TESOL prior to entering the field is Yoda, who sees teaching as “a way of life.” This sentiment is recognized by Mann (2005), who describes teaching as “having an inherent personal, ethical and moral dimension” (p. 105). As Leonor says, “By accident or by choice, we teach. And that’s a very humanistic thing.”

As we have seen, with the exception of Yoda, the professional development here has occurred while the participants were in-service teachers, after they started teaching English. They have been motivated by external forces coming from the University, as well as by their own very personal reasons, including a shared perception of the importance of teaching English to students in Mexico and a commitment to the profession, even within a community that they may not have fully joined.

Findings and Conclusion

In this chapter, the stories of seven English teachers who agreed to share their experiences provide an understanding of how an evolution in ELT shapes and motivates teacher development. “Narratives are stories of experience, and stories lived and told are the core of any narrative research activity” (Barkhuizen & Wette, 2008, p. 373). The participants in this study describe the world they found when they entered the profession and the steps taken along their various paths to develop as teachers. In the re-living, telling, and re-telling of their stories, common threads emerge that unify their experiences and illustrate how changes in the English language teaching profession have impacted their development as teachers. These threads ultimately allow us to view teacher development in light of the changes that have taken place in the English teaching profession at this University in particular, in Mexico, and generally around the world.

The fabric woven from their stories illustrates a common phenomenon of “falling into the job” based on their ability with the English language, which left them feeling unprepared and unsure as new teachers. Some relied on “the apprenticeship of observation” to help them negotiate through those beginning stages as teachers, while others were motivated to develop within their profession. Their motives to develop as teachers have been at times intrinsic, stemming from feelings of self-doubt and a desire to be a “real teacher”, as well as extrinsic, based on the “academic reality” of university professors which requires formal education. Whether or not teachers feel that they are perceived by others to be members of a profession, all of these teachers expressed the idea that what they do is important and requires their commitment. This appears to be the principle thread which binds all of them together, and may be one of the primary factors motivating them as teachers.

Footnote

¹ Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL).

² Centro de Autoaprendizaje de Idiomas (CAADI).

³ Certificate of Overseas Teachers of English (COTE), University of Cambridge.

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Appendix A

Selected Entries from Field Journal

Appendix B

Background Questionnaire

1. Where are you from?


2. How long have you lived in Guanajuato?


3. What is your educational history? Where did you study, when, what degrees/certificates have you obtained?


4. Where was your first job teaching English? When?


5. How old were you when you started teaching English?


6. What background/education did you have when you first started teaching English?


7. What additional education have you received since then?


8. How long have you been teaching at the university?


9. What levels of English/programs have you taught at the university? What are you teaching now?

Appendix C

Semi-structured Interview Questions

1. Why did you choose your field of study? (See Questionnaire answer #3)


2. How did you become a teacher? (See Questionnaire answer #4)


3. Are you a member of any teacher organization? Have you published?


4. Are you doing anything to grow professionally now? What?


5. What do you want to do professionally in the future?


6. What do you think the pressures are on teachers in Mexico?


7. Do you consider teaching English to be a profession?
   
   
   1. Do you think of yourself as a professional?
   
   
   2. Do you see EFL as a profession?
   
   
   3. What does it mean to be a professional?
   
   
   4. How do you define profession?
   
   

Appendix D

Thematic Re-storying System Excerpt

RSR TECH	RAW DATA	TOPIC	INTERPRETATION	POSSIBLE THEME	POSSIBLE OUTCOME	LITERATURE	NOTES OBSERVATIONS
Semiestruct Interv	"I didn't even dare say I was a teacher." (Leonor)	Motivation	Felt unqualified as Ter because of entry into profession	"Unfledged entry"	Led to intrinsic motivation	Lengeling 2007, 2010; Johnston, 2003, Borg, 2011	Beginning to teach w/0 qualification motivated professional development
Unstr Interv	"I know I dont't want to be a teacher forever." (Yoda)	Socialization	perhaps stems from childhood exp., negative societal views of Tings; no desire to join community of Ters. Strong contextual influence.	Negative impressionre. Ting	Has not socialized into English Ting profession	Clandinin et al, 2006; Norton Peirce, 1995	No commitment to Ting profession, rejects community of Ters, keeping his options open for a different future
Unstr Interv	"I had no teaching background at all." (Vanessa)	Falling into the job	Felt unprepared to teach	"Unfledged entry"	Entry to Ting may impede socialization	Lengeling, 2007, 2010	May not have socialized into Ting community because of method of entry into profession.