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Description
Research on teachers’ life stories have demonstrated the notable impact that life experiences have on what teachers think and do (Borg, 2003); yet, in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts, this impact is relatively. This paper draws on biographical data from a larger project investigating the relationship between the beliefs of five Vietnamese EFL novice teachers and their implementation of communicative language teaching (CLT) in their secondary school classrooms. It specifically focuses on how their life stories influenced their current knowledge and practices in relation to teaching EFL. The biographical data was derived from semi-structured interviews, and classroom observations followed by stimulated recall interviews. Data analyses revealed the strong influence that school-based language learning, teacher education, and the socio-cultural context in which they lived and taught had on their beliefs about teaching and learning English. It also highlighted how these beliefs changed as they transitioned from university to emerge as novice teachers. The findings further demonstrate how teaching in classrooms challenged their beliefs about the value of a more communicative approach to teaching a second language, subsequently changing their practices to accommodate this shift in beliefs.
