Contradictions as catalysts: An autoethnography of a TESOL teacher’s professional learning at an English language centre in China

Abstract

This autoethnographic study investigates a TESOL teacher’s professional learning (PL) in a group setting, such as workshops, in Chinese English Language Centres (ELCs) from a sociocultural perspective. Drawing on a self-interview, entries from a twelve-month reflective diary, and institutional documents, including PL training documents and training notifications, the analysis highlights the tensions between PL activities—often fragmented, repetitive, and oriented toward test preparation—and the teacher’s broader professional aspiration. These tensions became productive sites of PL through the teacher’s ongoing efforts to navigate them, such as individual adaptation, reflective practice, and informal peer collaboration, shaped by personal, social, and technological factors. Specifically, contradictions related to institutional commercial goals, standardised teaching tools, and overwhelming workload not only constrained but also stimulated growth in the teacher’s learning. The findings suggest that teacher learning in marketised ELCs emerges through the negotiation of competing educational and commercial priorities across time. At the same time, the adaptive responses that supported learning also helped manage and absorb systemic tensions, contributing to the reproduction of existing organisational arrangements. The study contributes to understanding group-based PL in for-profit ELCs, a largely underexplored setting, and highlights the need for more collaborative, context-sensitive, and sustainable frameworks that involve both teachers and institutions in supporting teachers’ PL, which is essential for responding to the unique contradictions and competing demands shaping teachers’ PL in commercialised ELC contexts.