Phiona Stanley, PhD (2010)

Monash Education PhD student Phiona Stanley started her teaching life as a “backpacker teacher” in Peru. She had worked in various teaching, training and management roles in English language teaching when the inspiration for her research struck.

Having seen a lot of backpacker teachers pass through TESOL (Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages) in South America, Europe, China and Australia, Phiona began to wonder what impact the “travel and teach” phenomenon was having on both the teachers and their students.

“Minimally qualified Western teachers are teaching English mainly in order to be in China, to travel and to have a year out,” she said. “I wondered – what happens to them as people?”

“Teaching English is in every Lonely Planet guide as a way to fund or extend your trip but there is almost no research on this end of the TESOL industry at all.”

Phiona, who has an MA (Hons) in politics from Edinburgh University and a MEd (TESOL) from Sydney University, began searching for an Australian university that could help her conduct her research.

“The fact that I could do my PhD externally at Monash was essential as I live and work in Adelaide.”

Phiona said a Monash Equity Travel grant meant she could go to China and spend three months researching among a group of western teachers at a university there.

Phiona tracked the stories of 10 backpacker teachers over two years, and discovered that their role at the university was really not what she and they might have thought.

“A lot of the role isn’t teaching at all,” she said. “Chinese students seem to want their foreign teachers to perform the role of ‘typical’ foreigners, as the students understand that. That puts pressure on the teachers to be these big, fun, loud outgoing people, because that’s how westerners are imagined to be. Some of the teachers are like that anyway, and they take to TESOL in China like ducks to water. Others are naturally much quieter and they struggle with the identity they’re expected to portray there”.

Phiona also found gender differences in the teachers’ experiences.

After being awarded her PhD in early 2010, Phiona is now writing academic articles about gendered identities in transnational settings. She is also writing a book about the experience of teaching English overseas.