Asia In-Country Experience: Impact on Teachers

Since 1993, the Asia Education Foundation has offered opportunities for Australian teachers of Studies of Asia to acquire first-hand experience of Asian societies and cultures by undertaking short-term study tours. The study tours continue to be well-subscribed, and schooling sectors across Australia have complemented and extended the range of offerings by conducting their own study tours or other in-country experiences in many instances. This would appear to indicate that Asia in-country experience is considered to be a valuable form of teacher professional development. Yet there has been very little investigation of how individual teacher participants perceive that such experience has impacted on them, both professionally and personally. Through a case study approach, this paper focuses on a study of five teachers, currently working in South Australian schools, who have undertaken an Asia Education Foundation or schooling sector in-country experience program in the Asian region. Utilising qualitative data derived from written narrative accounts, the study enables the voices of the participants to be heard and their perceptions of the impact of their in-country experiences on themselves, as teachers and as individuals, to become apparent. In-country experience, cross-cultural learning, teacher identity.