Yue Zhang

The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

Kenan Dikilitaş

University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

Abstract

Understanding teachers’ digital literacies involving generative AI (GenAI) from a critical perspective, this article reports the findings of a multiple-case study of two Hong Kong novice teachers of different sociocultural and educational backgrounds. Drawing on the model of L2 investment, we triangulate the data from individual in-depth interviews and artifacts and examine the diverse critical digital literacies of two novice teachers, who acquire varying levels of symbolic and material resources and negotiate multiple teacher and social identities in their current and imagined teacher communities as different ideological spaces. A conceptual model that links the model of L2 investment and the notion of critical digital literacies involving GenAI is proposed to understand L2 teachers’ investment in their learning-to-teach practices in the era of GenAI. The findings illustrate a need for stakeholders involved in L2 teacher education to include critical digital literacies involving GenAI as a pedagogical goal and recognize and support the complex development of novice teachers’ intertwined identities, beliefs, and values as they engage with GenAI.

Keywords

Novice teacher, GenAI, GenAI literacies, critical digital literacies, teacher identity, generative AI, ideology