Exploring How Lived Experiences Shape Technology Beliefs and Teacher Agency: A Study of Novice EFL Teachers

This study examines how novice English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ lived experiences shape their technology beliefs and classroom practices, and how those experiences interact with contextual factors to influence the development and achievement of teacher agency. Drawing on narrative interviews and teaching-related artifacts from four Chinese international graduates who completed postgraduate study abroad and returned to China to teach in higher education, the study traces continuity from past experiences to present instructional decision-making. Findings show that teachers’ technology beliefs and classroom practices were shaped through experiences across academic learning abroad, formal pedagogical preparation, and personal technology consumption. Findings also indicate that teacher agency emerged as a negotiated process rather than a stable individual attribute: teachers attempted to act on their beliefs while responding to institutional policies, collegial dynamics, student reactions, and material conditions such as professional development opportunities and technological infrastructure. Implications are discussed for language teacher education and school leadership, emphasizing the importance of structured reflection on experience, ongoing mentorship, and institutional environments that support agentive and context-responsive technology integration.