Narratives of Social Construction: A Sociocultural Inquiry into Thai School Administrators' View on Filipino EFL Teachers

Aim. As Asian schools employ increasingly diverse teaching staff, understanding the communication dynamics between administrators and teachers from different cultural backgrounds is crucial to fostering effective educational environments. This study explores the narratives of two Thai school administrators managing English-Program schools, focusing on their views of Filipino EFL teachers and how these views shape intercultural communication. Methods. The study employs the sociocultural tradition of Communication Theory as its theoretical framework, which posits that communication creates, sustains, and transforms social reality (Craig, 1999). It also uses narrative inquiry as the methodological approach, conducting in-depth interviews to capture the administrators’ experiences and insights. Results. The findings reveal that the administrators' view of Filipino EFL teachers as “Embracing of the Filipino EFL teachers’ skills and teaching standards,” describing the latter as valuable assets. This perspective has shaped communicative practices, including (1) assigning Filipino teachers to coach local students for English competitions, (2) enhancing collaboration between Filipino and local teachers, and (3) utilising Filipino teachers to create engaging teaching materials. Conclusions. It can be concluded that this research suggests that embracing intercultural communication fosters better collaboration and resource utilisation in multicultural school environments.