Inspiring English Teachers in China and Indonesia: Implications for Indian Teacher Educators?

Inspiration is at the heart of good educational practice, yet it is an almost entirely unresearched phenomenon. This paper reports a research project that set out to explore inspiring English teaching in the state school systems of China and Indonesia. Learners of English aged 14–22 were invited to recall and describe inspiring teachers they had had, and a number of individual teachers were identified and observed at work in their schools. It was found that, though quite rare, inspiring teaching did exist and that teachers could have profound long-term effects on some learners’ motivation to study English. However, the way teachers inspired their learners was quite different in Chinese and Indonesian classrooms, reflecting local educational cultures and practices. This suggests that teacher educators have an important role in helping early-career teachers to shape their pedagogy in such a way that the maximum number of learners can be inspired.