Learning to teach: cross-cultural internship teaching of a mainland Chinese Master's student in a Macao university

Abstract

Purpose – This paper examines the cross-cultural internship teaching experience of a mainland Chinese student of a Master's program on adult education in a Macao university. Design/methodology/approach – Using autobiography, the data were collected from the teaching journals, biographical notes, and deep reflections of the student teacher, tracking the whole process of cross-cultural internship teaching. The data were analyzed in a grounded way, by scrutinizing the process to overcome the difficulties and challenges encountered in the two-month internship teaching period. Findings – Three key themes were identified: (a) constructing relationship with mentor teacher as the key condition; (b) classroom interaction as an important influencing factor; (c) professional identity as the result of the learning-to-teach process. Furthermore, this paper reveals an adaptation process during the internship, where the student teacher went through three phases, namely, novice anxiety, adjustment, and ability acquisition. Originality/value – This paper’s analysis on the internship teaching experience reflecting practical issues in the process has extended the literature of academic adaptation in internship learning of non-local students. Based on this cross-cultural student case under the unique mainland China-Macao cross-border context, some suggestions are provided for university policy makers and educators in Macao.

Keywords

• Cross-cultural internship teaching
• Student teacher
• Academic adaptation
• Macao SAR