Author Description

I began this inquiry by asking how I lost and regained my motivation for teaching during my cross-cultural teaching and learning process. To investigate this question, I chose a narrative methodology to understand and interpret my and my participant's cross-cultural ESL/EFL teaching experiences. By looking for themes and tensions about loss and regaining of motivation from our journals, autobiographical writings, interview and emails, I identified three main elements---the personal, the contextual, and the socio-political and cultural---have influenced my motivation to teach and helped me deeply understand my EFL/ESL teaching practices and the process of learning to teaching EFL/ESL.I sincerely hope this study will help teachers in China and other countries, who are new in the profession to find fulfillment in teaching. I also hope this study may lead ESL/EFL program administrators and teacher educators to explore effective ways to help teachers adjust to changing circumstances as needed.