The First Year in the Classroom: Crossing the Borderland from Being a Student to Being a Teacher

Abstract

The experiences of teachers in their first year in the classroom are currently receiving an increasing amount of attention in the literature on second language teaching. The present study is continuing this focus by investigating the time of entering the English teaching profession by Polish teachers (N = 64), seen as crossing the borderland, a term borrowed from James Gee (1999), during in which novice teachers move from being students to being teachers, and connect their personal selves (subjectivities) brought into the classroom to their inexperienced professional selves. In essence, the paper aims to find answers to five research questions concerning first year teachers: (1) What teachers’ subjectivities are being contributed? (2) What teachers’ subjectivities are being negotiated? (3) What teachers’ subjectivities are being acquired? (4) Which teachers’ subjectivities are maintained? (5) Which teachers’ subjectivities are abandoned? Teachers’ narratives about their first year in the classroom, as well as follow-up interviews were used as the research tool. Findings from the study revealed the existence of several aspects characteristic of teachers in the induction year, and they seem to contribute to a better understanding of novice English teachers’ cognition in the Polish context. The article finishes with future research suggestions concerning first year English teaching.