Advances and Current Trends in

Language Teacher Identity Research

This book presents the latest research on understanding language teacher identity
and development for both novice and experienced researchers and educators, and
introduces non-experts in language teacher education to key topics in teacher
identity research. It covers a wide range of backgrounds, themes, and subjects
pertaining to language teacher identity and development. Some of these include:

• the effects of apprenticeship in doctoral training on novice teacher identity;

• the impacts of mid-career redundancy on the professional identities of teachers;
• challenges faced by teachers in the construction of their professional identities;
• the emerging professional identity of pre-service teachers;
• teacher identity development of beginning teachers;
• the role of emotions in the professional identities of non-native English
speaking teachers;
• the negotiation of professional identities by female academics.

Advances and Current Trends in Language Teacher Identity Research would

appeal to academics in ELT/TESOL/Applied Linguistics. It will also be useful to
those who are non-experts in language teacher education yet still need to know
about theories and recent advances in the area due to varying reasons including
their affiliation to a teacher training institute; needs to participate in projects on
language teacher education; and teaching a course for pre-service and in-service
language teachers.

Yin Ling Cheung is Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature at

the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Selim Ben Said is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at The

Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR.

Kwanghyun Park is Assistant Professor in the Department of English Language

and Literature at Myongji University, Seoul, Korea.

28984.indb i 24/09/2014 09:40

 Routledge Research in Language Education

The Routledge Research in Language Education series provides a platform for

established and emerging scholars to present their latest research and discuss key
issues in Language Education. This series welcomes books on all areas of language
teaching and learning, including but not limited to language education policy
and politics, multilingualism, literacy, L1, L2 or foreign language acquisition,
curriculum, classroom practice, pedagogy, teaching materials, and language
teacher education and development. Books in the series are not limited to the
discussion of the teaching and learning of English only.
Books in the series include:

Teaching Chinese Literacy in the Early Years

Psychology, pedagogy, and practice
Hui Li

Pronunciation for English as an International Language

From research to practice
Ee-Ling Low

The Role of English Teaching in Modern Japan

Diversity and Multiculturalism through English Language Education in a
Globalized Era
Mieko Yamada

Language, Ideology and Education

The politics of textbooks in language education
Edited by Xiao Lan Curdt-Christiansen and Csilla Weninger

Advances and Current Trends in Language Teacher Identity Research

Edited by Yin Ling Cheung, Selim Ben Said and Kwanghyun Park

28984.indb ii 24/09/2014 09:40

 Advances and Current
Trends in Language
Teacher Identity Research

Edited by Yin Ling Cheung,

Selim Ben Said and Kwanghyun Park

28984.indb iii 24/09/2014 09:40

 First published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2015 Lin Ying Cheung, Selim Ben Said and Kwanghyun Park
The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

ISBN: 978–1–138–02536–3 (hbk)

ISBN: 978–1–315–77513–5 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

28984.indb iv 24/09/2014 09:40

 Contents

List of figures and tables viii

Foreword ix
Expanding the horizon of research in language teacher education:
an introduction xiii
YIN LING CHEUNG, SELIM BEN SAID AND KWANGHYUN PARK

PART I
Theoretical orientations 1

1 Teacher identity as dialogic response: a Bakhtinian perspective 3

HEIDI L. HALLMAN

2 Teacher identity in TESOL: a frames perspective 16

MARTHA C. PENNINGTON

3 Making sense of emotions in NNESTs’ professional identities

and agency 31
DAVI S. REIS

4 Towards a multifaceted, multidimensional framework for

understanding teacher identity 44
JOHN TRENT

PART II
Negotiations and reflexivity 59

5 Identity negotiations of TEFL teachers during a time of uncertainty

and redundancy 61
FATOSH EREN BILGEN AND KEITH RICHARDS

6 What’s in a name? Power, space and the negotiation of identities 74

TRACEY COSTLEY

28984.indb v 24/09/2014 09:40

 vi Contents
7 Neither ‘A complete insider’ nor ‘A complete
outsider’: autoethnographies of two
teacher-educators-in-the-making 86
SREEMALI HERATH AND MARLON VALENCIA

8 In the ivory tower and out of the loop: racialized

and gendered identities of university EFL teachers
in Japan 102
DIANE HAWLEY NAGATOMO

9 Identity matters: an ethnography of two Nonnative

English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) struggling for
legitimate professional participation 116
LAWRENCE JUN ZHANG AND DONGLAN ZHANG

PART III
Tracing identity through narratives 133

10 Tracing reflexivity through a narrative and identity lens 135

PETER DE COSTA

11 Teacher identity development in the midst of

conflicting ideologies 148
SELIM BEN SAID

12 Identity construction through narratives: an analysis of student

teacher discourse 161
ELAINE RIORDAN AND FIONA FARR

13 Teacher identity in ELT / TESOL: a research review 175

YIN LING CHEUNG

14 Tackling multiple identities in an EFL teaching context, Turkey 186

DEMET YAYLI

PART IV
Teacher identity and responding to changing times 201

15 Exploring the multiple identities of L2 writing teachers 203

JUVAL RACELIS AND PAUL KEI MATSUDA

16 Developing professional identities in applied linguistics: from

doctoral study to professional practice 217
RICHARD DONATO, HEATHER HENDRY AND G. RICHARD TUCKER

28984.indb vi 24/09/2014 09:40

 Contents vii
17 Teaching for market-place utility: language teacher identity
and the certification of adult ESL teachers in Ontario 235
BRIAN MORGAN

Subject index 250

Author index 251

28984.indb vii 24/09/2014 09:40

 Figures and tables

Figures
2.1 Frames model of ELT 19
2.2 Frames of teacher identity in TESOL 19
4.1 A multifaceted, multidimensional framework for
investigating teacher identity 47
7.1 Herath’s investment in her professional identities 94
7.2 Valencia’s conflicting claimed and assigned identities 96
7.3 The teacher educator-in-the-making’s journey 98
16.1 Trent’s integrated framework for examining identity
formation (2013) 221

Tables
10.1 Four-semester course load (January 2010–December 2011) 137
12.1 Overview of TED corpus data 165
13.1 Journals reviewed 176
13.2 Categorization of the reviewed papers on language teacher
identity in the 28 selected journals from 2003–2013 177
15.1 Teacher profiles 206

28984.indb viii 24/09/2014 09:40

 Foreword
Christine C. M. Goh

Our understanding of language teacher identity has undergone major shifts in the
last few decades. It is now accepted that a teacher’s identity cannot be viewed as
the aggregation of a set of innate, acquired or ascribed attributes, but should be
conceptualized as a socially constructed, contextually situated and continually
emerging (and changing) sense of self that is influenced by myriad factors. A
teacher’s identity is closely linked to the professional choices they make and their
construction of identity is integral to their process of professional learning. Who
language teachers think they are and how they view their environments and
different interrelated facets of language teaching can influence their students’
learning. On both personal and professional levels, their sense of self can affect
the extent to which teachers are motivated, committed and confident, while their
performance and negotiation of their role(s) as language teachers, as well as
their understanding of curricular and institutional expectations can influence their
pedagogy and classroom practices in English language teaching (Goh et al.,
2005).
Teacher learning is a continual process that begins with formal pre-service or
teacher preparation programs. Because of the centrality of teacher identity in
teacher learning, teacher educators should recognize the impact teacher identity
has on efforts in preparing new language teachers and enhancing the competence
of those who are already teaching. As teachers move through this continuum of
professional learning, some may develop greater self-efficacy but others may also
develop self-doubts. Understanding the shift in teacher identities between pre-
service and the early years of teaching can therefore enhance the design and
conception of teacher education programs (Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009).
Teacher educators can harness the potential that teachers’ beliefs, values and aspi-
rations have for creating greater professional engagement and learning. For this
reason, this volume on teacher identities is an important addition to the literature
on the subject. The collection of articles is a timely and valuable contribution to
our understanding of what it means to be language teachers in the twenty-first
century and how teachers’ construction of their “selves” is situated within the
social, cultural and political contexts they are in.
For some time now a dominant strand in the discourse of teacher identity has
positioned English language teachers as belonging to imagined communities

28984.indb ix 24/09/2014 09:40

 x Foreword
along the lines of nationality, ethnicity and language histories. Situated within the
broader discourse of ownership of the English language, and issues of language
and identity, the distinction between “native” and “non-native speaker” teacher
identities has led to a great deal of soul searching as well as professional discus-
sions within the English language teaching community at large. This distinction
continues to be discussed in this volume, but with new insights and richer contex-
tually nuanced interpretations. This volume also extends our understanding of
teacher identity through studies that examined influences in teachers’ personal
learning as they move through the pre-service and in-service continuum, experi-
ences with new teacher education tools, evolving roles as teacher researchers, and
life as research students. Teachers’ practical knowledge and craft, gender identity,
issues of exclusion and access are also discussed. Readers who would like to go
deeper in the subject of teacher identity will particularly welcome the up-to-date
expositions of theoretical perspectives on teacher identity, the fresh takes on the
use of teacher narratives or stories as a research tool, and the in-depth review of
the literature on teacher identity research.
Understandings about teacher identity will no doubt continue to gain impor-
tance. While researchers can identify practical implications for teacher education,
this alone may not go far enough to benefit teachers directly. Work on teacher
identity must, to my mind, also serve immediate practical purposes. Understanding
of teacher identity is a key to improving and sustaining the standards of teaching
(Day et al., 2006) and it is an important means for the continual professionaliza-
tion of English language teaching. Teachers not only need to understand their
cognitive and affective “selves” that can affect their professional efficiency, but
they should also consider practical responses to areas which they identify to be in
need of attention.
Teachers, like learners, need to engage actively in metacognitive processes –
thinking and strategizing about their work – so as to manage the demands of
teaching and tensions that they may experience. Through reflection, for example,
teachers can explore their self-concept and become more aware of their own
strengths and limitations, understand the nature and demand of the task of teaching
a language in their respective environments and adapt to new ways to become
better at what they are doing. The degree to which teachers negotiate their sense
of self and perform their social, cultural and intellectual roles as professionals
can have a huge influence on their commitment, confidence and competence.
When teachers are encouraged to consider the cognitive, affective and sociocul-
tural factors that influence their performance, they are taking the first steps in
empowering themselves individually and collectively to manage the complexities
in their work.
Such kinds of teacher introspection should be an important component of any
teacher education program. Some tools for teacher identity research can be
adapted for teacher reflections while findings that are relatable to the teachers’
sociocultural contexts can be used as reflection prompts or for awareness-raising
purposes. In this sense, the articles in this volume not only fill an important gap
in research but also have much to offer to teacher educators. By examining the

28984.indb x 24/09/2014 09:40

 Foreword xi
lived experiences of English teachers in the diverse contexts represented here,
the editors and authors have framed the teachers’ words and thoughts and
(re)presented them in ways that can speak directly to teacher education at both the
pre-service/preparatory and in-service levels. Like many strands of applied
linguistics research, language teacher identity research can serve the twin purposes
of enhancing teacher professional learning and improving the quality of teaching
and learning. Ultimately, research on teacher identity will be more meaningful
when the results can find practical applications in any continual efforts for
improving and sustaining teaching quality. It is essential therefore that there are
opportunities for more teacher participants to hear their own voices reflected back
to them through the analytical lens of researchers whom they have welcomed into
their professional lives.

References
Beauchamp, C. and Thomas, L. (2009). Understanding teacher identify: an overview of
issues in the literature and implications for teacher education. Cambridge Journal of
Education, 39(2), 175–189.
Day, C., Kington, A., Stobart, G., and Sammons, P. (2006). The personal and professional
selves of teachers: stable and unstable identities. British Educational Research Journal,
32(4), 601–616.
Goh, C.C.M., Zhang, L. J., Ng, C. H., and Koh, G. H. (2005). Knowledge, Beliefs
and Syllabus Implementation: A Study of English Language Teachers in Singapore.
Singapore: National Institute of Education.

28984.indb xi 24/09/2014 09:40

 Expanding the horizon of research
in language teacher identity
An introduction
Yin Ling Cheung, Selim Ben Said and
Kwanghyun Park

Research on language teacher identity (LTI henceforth) in Applied Linguistics

and ESL/TESOL has been gaining momentum in the last decade (Tsui, 2007;
Varghese et al., 2005). Although our edited volume builds on the existing litera-
ture and research foundations of current LTI research, it is not designed to be
merely another book on teacher identity in general, but rather one that focuses on
specific debates and current perspectives on LTI. In this respect, our collection
takes language and discourse as the essential media through which identity is
constructed, maintained, and negotiated (Gee, 1996; Varghese et al., 2005). As
language and discourse are important elements in the examination of teacher
identities, narratives have become an established methodological approach in the
understanding of how identities are constructed, and particularly in recent ELT/
TESOL literature (e.g., the special issue of TESOL Quarterly on narratives in
2011). When it comes to the research on teachers’ narratives, this tool has imposed
itself as a powerful instrument in providing a clear sense of who teachers are via
the stories they narrate. In order to reflect the importance of this methodological
tool, the large majority of our chapters use narrative analysis for the examination
of LTI.
The inception of this book derives from our conversations on the need to edit a
volume that will be useful and accessible to those who are non-experts in the
language teacher education area yet still need to know about theories and recent
advances in the area due to various reasons including their affiliation to a teacher
training institute, which is our own situation; needs to participate in projects on
language teacher education; teaching a course for pre-service and in-service
language teachers. Arguably, in a teacher training institute, there may be more
non-teacher education experts than those who specialize in the area. Those non-
experts can benefit more from a collection of chapters that show recent advances
in the area and concrete and updated examples of how theories have been applied
in the field, than from a book that offers philosophical debates on the theories or
exploratory insights into the field. As the editors of this volume, we belong to
those groups of non-specialists and we see ourselves as active seekers and critical
consumers of knowledge. We do not want to hear passively what the experts in the
fields determine to offer us; rather, we would like to actively ask the experts to
provide the knowledge that is relevant with what we do as experts in our own

28984.indb xii 24/09/2014 09:40

 Introduction xiii
profession. There are sufficient books on current theories and debates, but that is
not what we propose in our volume. We want to offer most recent case studies,
discussions, and reflections on those theories so that our readers, who are likely to
be non-specialists like ourselves, will find our volume useful for teaching under-
graduate and graduate level courses and collaborating with language teacher
education researchers.
Concerning the theorization of LTI, Varghese et al. (2005, p. 21) mention two
crucial points. First, in spite of the growing body of research on LTI mentioned
above, to the best of our knowledge, very little attention has been paid to the ways
in which teacher identity is theorized. This in itself shows the challenge associated
with developing theories of LTI. Second, and more relevant to our volume, it is
argued that one gains a richer understanding of the processes and contexts involved
in LTI development by adopting multiple theoretical approaches. One of the char-
acteristics of our edited collection is that it precisely garners a range of theoretical
orientations and conceptual models. This allows for an understanding of the proc-
esses involved in LTI development from a wide range of theoretical stances and
perspectives. In this volume, several theoretical models are discussed from the
apprenticeship model, the Bakhtinian theory, the Communities of Practice model,
and Vygotskian sociocultural theory to cite only a few.
Despite this seemingly incoherent array of theoretical stances, there is still
conceptual resonance which reconciles all the chapters in the volume we are
proposing. In fact, most of our contributions reconcile both a conception of teacher
identity as anchored within a situated learning model (Lave and Wenger, 1991)
– which pays more attention to structure and where identity evolves through day-
to-day experiences through participation in “communities of practice” (CoP) –
together with a negotiated perspective on teacher development. The reason why
our volume has not been designed around an all-encompassing and exclusive
theoretical model derives from our will to initiate a “dialogue across theories” and
to provide a spectrum of possible frameworks to our readers whereby identity can
be explored. In this regard, we agree with Varghese et al. (2005) that the juxtapo-
sition of alternative theoretical approaches helps to see: “How different under-
lying assumptions alter our perception both of what is interesting and of what
the research reveals to us (. . .). Much as in other research in applied linguistics
and language education, researchers continue to pursue their work in a given
theoretical paradigm; dialogue across paradigms is extremely rare” (p. 24).
Identity as it is conceptualized in this collection is not a linear, coherent, and
fixed construct but is rather characterized as multiple, shifting, negotiated, and
contingent on external factors and protagonists (e.g., Norton Peirce, 1995). As
identity is a contentious construct, we do not envision this book as a state-of-
the-art collection, which exclusively theorizes identity in a complete and exhaus-
tive way. Rather, this book gathers both theoretical and empirical/data-driven
research papers and examines how the identity of language teachers has been
investigated, studied, and analyzed in the field of English language teaching.
We have framed our chapters around four themes with the following titles:
(1) theoretical orientations; (2) negotiation and reflexivity; (3) tracing identity

28984.indb xiii 24/09/2014 09:40

 xiv Yin Ling Cheung et al.
through narratives; and (4) teacher identity and responding to changing times. The
process of teacher development is a non-linear one and involves the reflexivity
and self-introspection, but also interaction with different subjectivities (e.g.,
peers, students, superiors, parents, etc.). The process of constructing teacher iden-
tity is also shaped by different situations which the teachers face and which require
them to make specific adjustments and develop a variety of skills. These adjust-
ments form part of the socialization process, which progressively initiates teachers
into communities of practice (CoP) (Wenger, 1998; Wenger et al., 2002). As a
corollary to these considerations, in addition to a professional socialization which
entails on-site development of pedagogical know-how and practical skills,
teachers are also socialised into discourse norms, communities, as well as
discipline-based discursive practices (Bartels, 2003; Clarke, 2008; Crookes, 1998;
Freeman, 1994, 1996; Gee, 2004; Gunnarsson, 2009; Hedgcock, 2002, 2009). It is
this negotiated process which is mediated by and through language that we wish
to cast light on in our volume.

Chapters in the book

Part I: Theoretical orientations includes four chapters. Hallman’s chapter exam-
ines how teacher identity must be theorized in a reciprocal relationship to students’
identity, as teachers form their identity as a response, in part, to the students they
teach. Using a Bakhtinian perspective as a tool to illuminate important considera-
tions about teacher identity, Hallman argues that Bakhtin’s (1990) understanding
of the relationship between “self” and “other” assists in understanding the impetus
for teachers’ questioning of “self” through a relationship with “other”. Pennington
adopts an innovative frames perspective to studying teacher identity in TESOL.
Pennington illustrates how teacher identity can be examined from the perspectives
of two types of frames: namely practice-centered, including instructional, disci-
plinary, professional, vocational, and economic frames; and contextual, including
global, local, and sociocultural frames. Her findings suggest that the frames
analysis can raise awareness of the different facets of teacher identity and offer
directions for teacher education and development. Reis’s chapter promotes a
conceptualization of emotions and affect as an integral part of the professional
identity construction of Non-Native English Speaking Teachers (NNESTs). By
drawing from the body of literature on the professional lives of NNESTs, and
sociocultural theory, Reis examines the role of emotions in the professional lives
and identities of NNESTs. Reis’s data are based on previously published personal
and professional narratives authored by NNESTs. He found that the use of narra-
tives and narrative inquiry provide NNESTs with an opportunity to re-envision
themselves both personally and professionally by reflecting on and sharing their
emotions with their larger imagined communities. Trent examines current under-
standings of teacher identity, arguing that there is a need for both theoretical and
empirical research capable of capturing the multifaceted and multilevel nature of
teachers’ identity work. He describes a robust framework that can be used to
analyze the ways in which teachers in diverse educational contexts construct their

28984.indb xiv 24/09/2014 09:40

 Introduction xv
professional identities in discourse and practice. His study investigates how this
framework can be applied in practice by examining the challenges faced by one
group of native-speaking English language teachers (NETs) as they sought to
construct identities as professional language teachers in Hong Kong.
Part II: Negotiations and reflexivity includes five chapters. Bilgen and Richards
focus on the impact of redundancy on teachers’ lives and identities. Drawing on
narrative interviews with two teachers who faced mid-career redundancy at a
higher education institution in Northern Cyprus, they examine the ways in which
professional changes impacted on the personal and professional identities of the
teachers involved. The narratives of these teachers demonstrate how negative
experiences such as redundancies can have a major impact on identity shifts and
reconstruction. They suggest that redundancy as a lived experience is perceived
differently depending on professional and personal circumstances and perspec-
tives. Costley’s chapter focuses on how teachers work with/in and between the
labels (teacher, classroom teacher, classroom assistant, and teaching assistant) in
the course of their day-to-day actions and interactions within the schools and
classrooms of which they are part. Drawing from interview and observation data
in South London, she illustrates the strategies the focal teacher employed to
construct and maintain her position and identity within the school. Costley’s study
provides useful insights into how teachers carve out spaces for themselves within
school and classroom settings and as understanding how they operate within the
larger structures of national policy. Herath and Valencia’s study, drawing on
Campbell’s (1968) hero’s mythological journey as a metaphor, discusses how two
doctoral students working on language teacher education negotiate their multiple
and shifting identities as researchers, students, and teachers. Data is based on
electronic journals and critical conversations between them on the topic of their
shifting identities. Their findings reveal that teacher-researchers’ identities are not
coherent constructions, but are constantly constructed and reconstructed. They
enacted multiple and diverse identity positions in relation to the immediate as well
as the larger sociopolitical contexts they were situated in. Nagatomo’s chapter
examines the relationship between gender and professional identity in 38 foreign
female teachers of English in Japanese higher education. Data were collected
through a questionnaire, email exchanges, and an e-group, and qualitatively
analyzed using Wenger’s (1998) theory of identity. Nagatomo suggests that these
women’s professional identities were shaped by the degree of stability determined
by their employment status as standard (tenured) or non-standard (part-time or
contracted) teachers. It was also shaped by gendered attitudes (held by both
Japanese and non-Japanese male colleagues) that view women primarily as family
caretakers and not as working professionals. She argues that some women engage
in research productivity and own professional development as a means to enhance
their careers and as an attempt to battle institutional and gendered isolation. Zhang
and Zhang investigate how two NNESTs struggled for legitimate professional
participation. Using an ethnographic case study approach, they argue that, in the
fields of TESOL, Applied Linguistics, or language education in general, it is
important to examine NNEST identity with reference to how NNESTs exercise

28984.indb xv 24/09/2014 09:40

 xvi Yin Ling Cheung et al.
their agency in professional and social settings, taking stock of their expertise in
the subject matter.
Part III: Tracing identity through narratives features several chapters where
narrative research is emphasized as a prism though which language teacher iden-
tity is explored. De Costa examines the political and ideological dimensions of
becoming a teacher. Specifically, using reflexive thinking, as well as written and
spoken narratives, he investigates the progressive transition of Natasha into the
comfort zone of a proficient teacher, transcending the ideologies of native-
speakerism and subverting her former pedagogical constraints. Ben Said reports
on the challenges experienced by a Singaporean primary teacher and her resist-
ance to the emotional perspectives and opinions voiced by family, peers, and
mentors, which discredit the teaching profession. This chapter provides a discur-
sive outlook on how identity is co-constructed and negotiated in the midst of
conflicting discourses and ideologies. Riordan and Farr analyze the formation of
student teachers’ discourse using Labovian narrative analysis. They examine
qualitatively discussions between student teachers and their tutors in an MA
program. Using a discourse analytic approach, this chapter reveals that student-
tutor discussions may serve as a locus of emerging professional development
and an enhanced understanding of their professional identities as teachers.
Cheung’s chapter gives a review on selected journal papers published between
2003 and 2013 that are related to the topic of language-teacher identity and narra-
tives. She discusses the results of the selected research in terms of the following
areas: understanding teacher’s identity, factors affecting the construction and
re-construction of the identity, perspectives of nonnative teachers of English of
multilingual backgrounds, perspectives of novice teachers of English, and impor-
tance of environments on the perspectives of teachers. She summarizes the contri-
butions made by the subject research on LTI, and highlights gaps in existing work
that future research on professional teacher identity needs to address. Yayli
explores the emerging identity of a group of EFL teachers in Turkey. Through the
analysis of teachers’ prior influences, initial teacher training and practice, as well
as contexts of teaching. The chapter also emphasizes the importance of national
(i.e. Turkish) and religious (i.e. Muslim) identities in the construction of teachers’
professional voice, particularly when teaching a language (English) reported to be
sometimes at odds with local principles and cultural norms.
Part IV: Teacher identity and responding to changing times presents new and
timely perspectives in LTI research. Racelis and Matsuda examine the multiple
identities of L2 writing teachers in university composition classrooms in the
United States as expressed through discussions of course goals and practices.
Analysis of individual interviews with seven composition teachers revealed three
overarching identities: (1) general writing teacher identity; (2) language teacher
identity; and (3) L2 writing teacher identity. Their findings suggest various rela-
tionships among these identities, with some teachers maintaining a balance among
multiple identities and others experiencing their identity in conflict. The findings
shed light on how different identity positions and their relationship to subject
matter knowledge are connected to how teachers conceptualize their practice and

28984.indb xvi 24/09/2014 09:40

 Introduction xvii
the needs of their students. Donato, Hendry, and Tucker trace a trajectory of the
changing identity of ten applied linguists over time in an apprenticeship model of
doctoral program. Their chapter focuses on how professional expertise and identi-
ties emerged during the program and connects their experience to the current
instructional practices. The transition of identities between boundaries of different
professional contexts are the major challenges that these applied linguists need to
meet and the chapter provides an interesting description of how they met the chal-
lenges and cope with identity conflicts through the experience in the apprentice-
ship model. Morgan argues that a focus on the “inner world” of the teacher may
be insufficient to address “market place utility” (Corson, 2002) and its constraints
on teacher agency. Drawing on Polanyi and Foucault, a historical analysis of
economistic and bureaucratic origins is linked to contemporary concerns and the
accreditation process of adult ESL teachers in Ontario. His chapter concludes
with data from a recent survey of instructors in this jurisdiction and discusses its
implications for LTI work in the field.

References
Bakhtin, M. (1990). Art and answerability: Early philosophical essays. In M. Holquist
(Ed.), Dialogism. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Bartels, N. (2003). How teachers and researchers read academic articles. Teaching and
Teacher Education, 19, 737–753.
Campbell, J. (1968). The Hero with a Thousand Faces (2nd edn). Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Clarke, M. (2008). Language Teacher Identities: Co-constructing Discourse and Commu-
nity. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Corson, D. (2002). Teaching and learning for market-place utility. International Journal of
Leadership in Education, 1, 1–13.
Crookes, G. (1998). The relationship between second and foreign language teachers and
research. TESOL Journal, 7, 6–11.
Foucault, M. (2008). The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France (trans.
G. Burchell). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Freeman, D. (1994). Knowing into doing: Teacher education and the problem of transfer.
In D. C. S. Li, D. Mahoney, and J. C. Richards (Eds), Exploring Second Language
Teacher Development. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Freeman, D. (1996). “To take them at the word”: Language data in the study of teachers’
knowledge. Harvard Educational Review, 66(4), 732–761.
Gee, J. P. (2004). Learning language as a matter of learning social languages within
Discourses. In M. R. Hawkins (Ed.), Language Learning and Teacher Education:
A Sociocultural Approach. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Gunnarsson, B. L. (2009). Professional Discourse. London: Continuum.
Hedgcock, J. S. (2002). Toward a socioliterate approach to second language teacher educa-
tion. Modern Language Journal, 86(3), 299–317.
Hedgcock, J. S. (2009). Acquiring knowledge of discourse conventions in teacher educa-
tion. In A. Burns and J. C. Richards (Eds), The Cambridge Guide to Second Language
Teacher Education. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

28984.indb xvii 24/09/2014 09:40

 xviii Yin Ling Cheung et al.
Norton Peirce, B. (1995). Social identity investment, and language learning. TESOL
Quarterly, 29(1), 9–31.
Polanyi, K. (1944/1957). The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins
of our Time. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Tsui, A. B. M. (2007). Complexities of identity formation: A narrative inquiry of an EFL
teacher. TESOL Quarterly, 41(4), 657–680.
Varghese, M., Morgan, B., Johnston, B., and Johnson, K. (2005). Theorizing language
teacher identity: Three perspectives and beyond. Journal of Language, Identity and
Education, 4, 21–44.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Wenger, E., McDermott, R. and Snyder, W. C. (2002). Cultivating Communities of
Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School
Press.

28984.indb xviii 24/09/2014 09:40

 Part I

Theoretical orientations

28984.indb 1 24/09/2014 09:40

28984.indb 2 24/09/2014 09:40
 1 Teacher identity as dialogic
response
A Bakhtinian perspective
Heidi L. Hallman

Identity, as a theoretical concept, has been discussed in the research literature as

fluid and complex, as well as inherently ‘social’ (e.g., Alsup, 2006; Britzman,
1991; Gee, 1999, 2001). Holland et al. (1998) discuss the premise that “identities,
the imaginings of self in worlds of action, [are] . . . lived in and through activity
and so must be conceptualized as they develop in social practice” (p. 5). This
chapter explores how teachers construct themselves as “particular types of profes-
sionals” (Zembylas, 2008, p. 124, italics in the original), and take up their teacher
identity as a project of continuous “becoming” (Gomez et al., 2007) over time.
Furthermore, teachers mediate their stories of self with the cultural and institu-
tional expectations of what it means to be a teacher. In addition to being constructed
as particular types of professionals, teachers must locate their process of
“becoming” within a specific context, time, and place, and negotiate this identity
within multiple learning spaces (Danielewicz, 2001). Though identity formation
is a personal process, researchers (Alsup, 2006; Brouwer and Korthagen, 2005)
have stressed that teacher preparation programs can influence prospective
teachers’ identity formation.
Yet, teacher identity must be theorized in a reciprocal relationship to others’
identities, as teachers form their narratives of self as responses, in part, to the
students they teach, the administrators they work with, and the university-based
faculty responsible for teacher training, among others. Early twentieth-century
Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin’s (1990) understanding of the relationship
between “self” and “other” provides a framework for understanding the impetus
for teachers’ questioning of “self” in relationship with “other,” and tenets of a
Bakhtinian perspective can illuminate important considerations in researchers’
ongoing understanding of teacher identity.
Conceptualizing teacher identity through a Bakhtinian framework is premised
on a dialogic approach to studying the relationship between “self” and “other”. A
dialogic approach bridges the self/other divide and views all iterations of ‘self’ as
response to an intended “ ‘other”. Bakhtin’s work (Holquist, 1990) employs tools
that consider the relationship between speaker/writer, text, and audience and
the theoretical tools that Bakhtin presents are helpful in understanding the “fluid
and complex” nature of identity itself. Throughout this chapter, the following
questions are explored:

28984.indb 3 24/09/2014 09:40

 4 Heidi L. Hallman

• In what ways can we understand teacher identity as dialogic, meaning that it

is always situated in response to an intended ‘other’?
• In turn, how does a Bakhtinian conceptual framework assist in illuminating
tenets of teacher identity as dialogic?

The premise behind the development of teacher identity is the urge to action.
Teachers shape their identity in order to act – on themselves, on others, or on their
practice. Bakhtin (Holquist, 1990) believed that we, as humans, are always inti-
mately connected to the spatial and temporal contexts in which we live and these
connections are how we articulate who we are, as well as our relationship to
others.
Through elaboration of a case study of one prospective teacher, Veronica
Wheelock (pseudonym), I explore the ways that Veronica’s Teaching Philosophy
statement, written near the completion of her teacher preparation program,
provides a forum for investigating how one beginning teacher negotiated her
teacher identity. Drawing on the text of Veronica’s Teaching Philosophy state-
ment, I highlight the following Bakhtinian concepts as important to investigating
teacher identity: dialogical rhetoric and the relationship between self/other; heter-
oglossia, or the “many-voicedness” of teacher identity, and genre and the role it
plays in articulating an identity.

Teacher identity as “text”

Throughout this chapter, I also situate the concept of identity within a sociocul-
tural lens of literacy and learning (Gee, 1999, 2001). This means that identity is
viewed as constructed through interactions between people and identity work
is accomplished by individuals staking claims about who they are in relationship
to others. Identity is intimately tied to literacy, as literacy is positioned as a
vehicle by which individuals can make such claims. Further, one’s identity is
always connected with one’s use of Discourses (Gee, 1999), which act as “ ‘iden-
tity kits’ and come complete with the appropriate costume and instructions
on how to act, talk, and often write, so as to take on a particular role that
others will recognize” (Gee, 2001, p. 526). Discourses become conceptual forums
from which individuals assert their affiliations and undertake identity work.
Through such a view, one’s “self”, or identity, does not exist as an individually
created entity, but rather is formed within a nexus of social relationships and
affiliations. Moreover, one’s identity, because of being situated within a social
context, is subject to change over time. As contexts and affiliations change, so
does one’s identity. Identity, as Hall (2000) asserts, is something which is “not
already ‘there’; [but] rather, . . . a production, emergent in process. It [identity] is
situational – it shifts from context to context” (p. xi). As a consequence, identity
work is undertaken as a fluid process – one is never finished with constructing his
or her identity.
This understanding of identity creates the possibility for teachers’ identities to
become “texts” in which teachers author themselves and others are positioned as

28984.indb 4 24/09/2014 09:40

 Teacher identity as dialogic response 5
“readers” of the text. Identity, inhabited by Discourses, becomes a performance
and also becomes visible, therefore giving rise to the possibility for multiple
interpretations by readers. In crafting identity as “text,” teachers create a portrait
of “self”. This portrait is created through a variety of means, including teachers’
actions, teachers’ interactions with others, and teachers’ writing.
This chapter looks specifically at how a written text that a prospective teacher
authored supports her ongoing identity development as a teacher. Though it is
possible to study teachers’ performances in the classroom as identity texts in
a similar fashion, situating a discussion of identity within the description of one
prospective teacher’s Teaching Philosophy statement assists in explicating how
tenets of a Bakhtinian framework can illuminate facets of teacher identity. To
begin, I provide an overview of Bakhtin’s conceptual framework and then move
forward in illustrating how this framework can support a discussion of teacher
identity.

A Bakhtinian conceptual framework

First, Bakhtin’s (1990) understanding of the relationship between “self” and
“other” helps us understand the impetus for teachers’ questioning of “self” through
a relationship with “other”. Bakhtin (1990) believed that the “self” always resides
in two spaces at once: the space that is “I” and the space that is “other”. These two
spaces are always in relation to each other and are continually referenced in the
creation of “self”. Bakhtin referenced this when he said:

in order to see ourselves, we must appropriate the vision of others . . . I see

myself as others might see it. In order to forge a self, I must do so from
outside. In other words, I author myself.
(Holquist, 1990, p. 28)

In a Bakhtinian sense, then, teachers involved in the teaching act must author
themselves as future teachers, in part, through authoring the relationship they
have with the “other” – stakeholders in the teaching act. Teachers create reci-
procity in relationships with others that allows them to continually negotiate who
they are in the moment.
A Bakhtinian conceptual framework is synonymous with what many have
come to know as dialogism, or the premise that “utterances” (Bakhtin’s term), are
always responsive in nature. Dialogism is primarily concerned with the idea that
all language is produced as response to other language. Thus, a central tenet of
viewing text as dialogic highlights the “action” utterances within one text make in
relation to other texts. Nystrand et al. (1997) articulate a dialogic view of text and
utterances as:

fundamentally different from the common view that utterances are the inde-
pendent expressions of thoughts by speakers, an account that starts with
thoughts and ends with words and verbal articulation. Rather, because they

28984.indb 5 24/09/2014 09:40

 6 Heidi L. Hallman
respond to at the same time that they anticipate other utterances, they are
“sequentially contingent” upon each other.
(p. 10)

Nystrand et al. (1997) emphasize the responsive, and therefore, dialogic quality of
all text. The responsive nature of utterances situates all language in a chain of
response, and focuses on the contingency of all utterances. Bakhtin (1986) notes
this when he asserts that “the single utterance, with all its individuality and crea-
tivity, can in no way be regarded as a completely free combination of forms of
language” (p. 81). Utterances, then, respond to and adhere to various language
forms, or genres, and at the same time, remain active agents in re-shaping these
genres.

Dialogical rhetoric
Dialogical rhetoric, as a concept, is an umbrella term from which to consider all
text as interactive in nature. Though Bakhtin’s statements concerning the term
“rhetoric” are, at times, not wholly positive, as they link rhetoric to an Aristotelian
tradition laden with formality and epideictic speeches (1981, pp. 271), Bakhtin
urges an understanding of a dialogic view of rhetoric. Bakhtin’s analysis does
not discard the term rhetoric, but reconsiders how rhetoric is conceptualized,
cautioning against rhetoric’s tendency to become a merely abstract, formal,
logical mode of analysis. The larger context in which Bakhtin situates his
discussion of rhetoric suggests rhetoric as dialogic. Reinterpreting rhetoric as
dialogic recognizes that all discourse occurs within a complex arena of human
interaction. Dialogical rhetoric, then, is conceptualized by Bakhtin to be not
merely about a speaker’s intentions, but about the exchange between speakers.
This focus on interaction situates rhetoric itself to be a dialogue between
conversants.
Bakhtin understood that individuals are persuaded by conversants who have
“authority” – whether these authorities are in the form of another individual or the
larger society. He refers to these normalizing discourses as producing internally
persuasive discourses, thus establishing a dialectic between oneself and intended
“other”. Bakhtin (1981) notes the shared sense of discourse between individual
and conversant by stating, “The word in language is half someone else’s. It
becomes ‘one’s own’ only when the speaker populates it with one’s own inten-
tions, his own accent, when he appropriates the word, adapting it to his own
semantic and expressive intention” (p. 293).

Heteroglossia
Bakhtin’s term, heteroglossia, means “many-voicedness,” and recognizes that all
language is ideologically saturated and stratified. Heteroglossia describes the
push-pull between an author and intended “other” and Bakhtin (1981) writes that
heteroglossia is alive as long as language is alive. He states:

28984.indb 6 24/09/2014 09:40

 Teacher identity as dialogic response 7
But this occurs in the midst of heteroglossia, which grows as long as language
is alive. Every concrete utterance of a speaking subject serves as a point
where centrifugal as well as centripetal forces are brought to bear. The proc-
esses of centralization and decentralization, of unification and disunification,
intersect in the utterance; the utterance not only answers the requirements of
its own language as an individualized embodiment of a speech act, but it
answers the requirements of heteroglossia as well; it is in fact an active
participant in such speech diversity.
(p. 272)

Language exhibits heteroglossic characteristics; this quality is not a dissonance,

or unnatural, but a part of language. As language references the multiple layers of
contexts in which a speaker resides, it is normal that these contextual spheres are
overlapping, and, at times, conflicting with each other. Recognizing this heter-
oglossic quality of language assists us in understanding that all language is respon-
sive, and responsive to multiple audiences.

Genre
The term genre becomes a key concept in attending to the nature of local-level
influences, as genre refers to not just the forms of texts, but the work these texts
actually do in discourse communities. Disposing of a notion of genre as merely
form and text type, and instead embracing a new conception of genre – a newness
that Devitt (1993) calls the “dynamic patterning of human experience” (573) –
shifts the notion of genre. This moves the conception of genre from a focus on the
formal features of a text to the sources of those features. Text and textual meaning
are no longer objective and static, but formed based on the interaction between
speaker/writer, text, and audience. Furthermore, viewing genre as only form of
text divorces form and content, and a rhetorical framing of genre adheres to
Bakhtin’s (1981) description of genre as a space where “form and content in
discourse are one” (p. 259). Genre, then, becomes the site where the writer of a
text comes into dialogue with others. Genre unites process and product and
becomes what Bakhtin (1986) calls “the whole of the utterance” (p. 60).
In considering teacher identity as “text,” I now move into a discussion of how
dialogical rhetoric, heteroglossia, and genre are at work in one prospective
teacher’s identity negotiations.

Context and method

To illustrate the relevance of dialogical rhetoric, heteroglossia, and genre in the
discussion of teacher identity, I draw on the reflections of one prospective teacher
in English education named Veronica Wheelock (all names of people and places
are pseudonyms). Veronica was representative of the majority of secondary
education majors enrolled at State University, a large regional institution in the
Midwest United States. A student in her early 20s and a native of the state in

28984.indb 7 24/09/2014 09:40

 8 Heidi L. Hallman
which State University was located, Veronica was white and well prepared in her
content area, English.
Veronica Wheelock was quite familiar with the school districts in the
surrounding area to State University and she had a defined idea of where she
would like to teach and what the student population would be like in this school
district. The district that she attended as a K–12 student – and also hoped to teach
within as an English teacher – was an affluent district in comparison to others
in the state, and Veronica envisioned herself as a teacher to students who had
backgrounds similar to her own.
Throughout this chapter, I draw on data collection from a larger study that
investigated how a cohort of beginning teachers negotiated the movement between
student teacher and first-year teacher. Veronica Wheelock was a member of this
cohort of students and I situate this chapter as a case study (Stake, 1995) of this
particular individual. Through case study, this chapter is able to attend to the
interplay between the written artifacts that Veronica authored for her teaching
portfolio and the ways in which these artifacts speak to her identity as a beginning
teacher.
Data generation for the larger study used a qualitative research protocol (Patton,
2002), and consisted of collecting an array of artifacts (journal entries, lesson and
unit plans, Teaching Philosophy statements) that beginning teachers used within
their teaching portfolio to showcase themselves as teachers. Though I collected
several artifacts that revealed the ways in which Veronica reflected on her
teaching, the Teaching Philosophy statement, created in the final semester of
Veronica’s teacher preparation program, is highlighted in this chapter as a vehicle
for understanding how a Bakhtinian framework applies to Veronica’s construc-
tion of her teacher identity. I chose the artifact of the Teaching Philosophy state-
ment as one that is common across many teacher preparation programs in the
United States. The Teaching Philosophy statement is often included in prospec-
tive teachers’ portfolios as a text that describes classroom teaching philosophy
and classroom management style, as well as provides a forum for the discussion
of “self”. Oftentimes, beginning teachers craft the teaching philosophy statement
for an intended audience of administrators and fellow teachers and use the
Teaching Philosophy statement as a key text for pursuing their job search after
the completion of their teacher preparation program. Situated as both a text for
university teacher educators and future employers, prospective teachers strive to
position the teaching philosophy text in ways that will meet both audiences
(Hallman, 2007).

Veronica’s teaching philosophy statement

I organize a discussion of Veronica’s teacher identity as depicted within her
Teaching Philosophy Statement (see Appendix 1: Veronica’s teaching philosophy
statement) in the following manner: (1) teachers’ identity texts as examples of
dialogical rhetoric; (2) teachers’ identity texts are heteroglossic, or “many-
voiced”; (3) teachers’ identity texts employ the use of genre: Responsive, fluid,

28984.indb 8 24/09/2014 09:40

 Teacher identity as dialogic response 9
and contextual. Through these Bakhinian tenets, Veronica’s process of becoming
a teacher is situated as a “telling case” (Ellen, 1984) and garners evidence for
viewing teacher identity as dialogic, an approach that shifts the conversation
about teacher identity to one that is always in relationship to others, always
contextual, and always “many-voiced.”

Teachers’ identity texts as examples of dialogical rhetoric

In a Bakhtinian sense, text is viewed as always in relation to and in response to an
intended “other.” Text as dialogically rhetorical articulates a new relationship
between speaker/writer, text, and audience. This is in contrast to an Aristotelian,
or “traditional” notion of rhetoric, as in Aristotelian view, the author of text is
situated as the primary “director” of text or utterance, and is therefore viewed as
intentional and deliberate in his/her language production. The author’s words are
considered as individual and purposeful, although not necessarily in dialogue
with an intended conversant. Bakhtin (1981) responds to an Aristotelian view of
rhetoric by claiming that the author of a text may not be the primary director of a
text, as this uni-direction on the author’s part suggests an author’s removal from
his/her context. In actuality, an author is a producer of text as a method of being
responsive to human difference.
When we look at Veronica’s Teaching Philosophy statement to consider how a
notion of dialogical rhetoric is relevant to her process of “becoming” a teacher
(Gomez, 2007), we notice her focus on an intended “other”, for her Teaching
Philosophy statement worked to bridge the two environments in which she took
part – her student teaching site and State University’s English Education program.
Appendix 1 is the text of Veronica’s Teaching Philosophy statement as it appeared
on Veronica’s teaching portfolio. The way Veronica frames ongoing inquiry into
her teaching practice is evident in the content of the second paragraph, and the
third paragraph works to bring the interactions between teacher and students into
consideration when crafting a philosophy of teaching.
Veronica recognizes the complexity involved in crafting a single text – such as
the teaching portfolio – for multiple audiences, while also being aware of what this
may mean for her process of becoming a teacher. At times, Veronica mentioned
that it would be easier to create two portfolios – one for university professors and
one for future employers. This negotiation, or process of shape-shifting, is not new.
Teachers have always negotiated how identities change in different spaces.
However, by suggesting that prospective teachers must create two separate port-
folios, one for future employers and one for professors and instructors at the
university, Veronica indicates that there is something different about crafting her
teacher identity within the space of the teaching portfolio. Instead of being able
to negotiate how language is dependent on context, prospective teachers appear to
face a new dilemma when thinking about how to represent themselves and their
practice in textual space intended for multiple purposes and audiences.
As a prospective teacher, Veronica perceives the expectations from her future
employer and also to her instructors at State University and adapts to these,

28984.indb 9 24/09/2014 09:40

 10 Heidi L. Hallman
forging a dialogue with her as one of the primary functions of her identity text. For
example, when Veronica writes in her Teaching Philosophy statement that
“student-centered classrooms allow students to take control of and vest interest in
their own education. I prefer to give students choices in the classroom,” she
reflects a clear mission of State University’s teacher education mission statement:
that students must “vest interest in their own education” (Student Teaching
Handbook, p. 1). By reflecting on this mission statement within her Teaching
Philosophy statement, Veronica demonstrates Bakhtin’s notion of dialogical
rhetoric. Her intentions for creating a classroom such as the one she describes are
her own, but they are also responsive to others – particularly her instructors at
State University who have “authority” within this realm of her education. Bakhtin
stresses that rhetoric is not only about one’s own intentions, but about creating a
response, or a dialogue, with others.

Teachers’ identity texts as heteroglossic, or “many-voiced”

The term heteroglossia points to the multiple layers of audiences that a speaker
must address through the language that they use. Prospective teachers negotiate
the ways spoken and written text portray their identities as teachers. Their audi-
ences – for example, the ones Veronica articulates as “the university and the
public school interviewers” – are the intended readers of her teaching portfolio.
However, prospective teachers also state that shifting their language depending on
context is not as possible in a written text as it is in spoken discourse. Consequently,
they feel likely have a more difficult time constructing their identity as beginning
teachers within the written text of a teaching portfolio. Veronica often asked who
the primary audience of her teaching portfolio was – was it the audience of her
university professors or the audience of future employers? She wanted to be aware
of this so she could be cognizant of writing for multiple and sometimes conflicting
audiences.
Veronica’s Teaching Philosophy statement can be considered as an instrument
designed to transmit information about her teaching practices and teacher identity.
In an electronic form, no longer is it necessary that a physical document of repre-
sentation, such as a hard copy or paper portfolio, be sent to a future employer
when an electronic document can be accessed. Conceptualized at State University
as a tool that can move between audiences, the teaching portfolio is viewed as a
conduit that takes information from one forum to another. Framed by teacher
education standards mandated by the university and that reference university
coursework, the teaching portfolio also endorses the showcasing of lesson plans
that prospective teachers used in practicums and student teaching classrooms.
This display of these various documents situates the teaching portfolio as a kind
of virtually-paved road between the sites of the university and the schools. It
assumes that the work produced by beginning teachers in both sites can merge
fluidly.
Veronica clearly recognizes that, while writing about the teaching of English
within her Teaching Philosophy statement, the way in which she reflects about

28984.indb 10 24/09/2014 09:40

 Teacher identity as dialogic response 11
teaching use her many teaching voices in order to address different audiences. The
heteroglossic – or many-voiced quality – of Veronica’s reflections on teaching
English is a feature of her teaching portfolio that she notes as producing a divide
in herself. She also notes that:

Teachers are asked to do different things in different spaces. Like here at the
university I am a critic. My voice in my journal for my professors critiques
myself. But in presenting myself to future employers, I am the confident
beginning teacher with good ideas for my lesson plans.

The heteroglossic quality that Veronica identifies in her own Teaching Philosophy
statement is, at first, troubling, as she recognizes how she has to inhabit many
voices. As Veronica increasingly recognizes that her language always exhibits
heteroglossic characteristics, she views this quality not as dissonance, or as
unnatural, but as part of language. Her Teaching Philosophy statement, in being
heteroglossic, gives credibility to this diversity of language and demonstrates an
ability to act within multiple contexts.

Teachers’ identity texts as genre: responsive, fluid,

and contextual
As we view Veronica shifting her writing in ways that attend to the influences
of an intended ‘other’ – in her case, her university professors and her future
employers – we also look to the mechanisms by which this shift occurs. Genre is
this mechanism. Genre refers not simply to text form as some have conceived of
it in a literary sense, but genre, at its core, is concerned with function and purpose
within a text and how writers draw on genres in order to accomplish intended
purposes.
Veronica’s Teaching Philosophy statement, as previously mentioned, was
electronic, and was housed on a website. The portfolio – sometimes referred to as
an “e-portfolio” (“e” for “electronic”) – meant that Veronica would be able to
continually revise her work for her intended audience. Veronica recognized that
genre shifting would be the way that her portfolio could be dynamic as opposed to
static and she could position and re-position herself depending on her intended
audience. Although Veronica found it difficult to see how the content of her
teaching portfolio could move smoothly from the School of Education to a
hiring committee, she still aimed to position her teaching portfolio in both spaces,
deliberating which positioning would serve her best. Much like choosing spoken
language dependent on one’s context, Veronica was aware that written text is
filled with the politics of knowing how one’s words will be perceived in different
arenas.
For example, Veronica stressed that “at the beginning of each course I find out
what the students want to learn in the course, what aspects of the course worry
them, and how they prefer to learn” (Teaching Philosophy statement, third para-
graph). Veronica knew that this survey of her students’ learning at the beginning

28984.indb 11 24/09/2014 09:40

 12 Heidi L. Hallman
of each course was highly valued by one of the professors who would be reviewing
her portfolio and, though she endorsed it as her own practice, she also recognized
that it resonated with at least one of her instructors.
Devitt (1993) writes that “genres develop, then, because they respond appropri-
ately to situations that writers encounter repeatedly” (p. 576). Veronica’s approach
to discussing her classroom management style, for example, within her Teaching
Philosophy Statement was a response in dialogue with what one of her evaluators
(a professor in one of her current classes) had suggested. Her shift to purposefully
focus on a discussion of classroom management is a demonstration of genre, as
Devitt (1993), in outlining a rhetorical notion of genre, says that the “new concep-
tion of genre shifts the focus from effects (formal features, text classifications) to
sources of those effects” (p. 573). The source, then, of the effects was the critique
offered by one of Veronica’s professors.
The sources of these effects propel Veronica to focus on management in her
Teaching Philosophy statement. Whether motivation for a better grade by her
university professor or for ease/appease of her other, multiple evaluators,
Veronica’s Teaching Philosophy statement addresses the topic of classroom
management. Teachers, such as Veronica, find a solution to residing in this bind
of critique through genre, in that they attend deliberately to the contextual quality
of the texts they produce.
Veronica also understands that she is able to shift the focus in her Teaching
Philosophy statement, or shift genre, when writing for her university professors,
people who desire to see an improvement in her classroom management
philosophy. By shifting genres, then, prospective teachers reinforce the identity
texts they produce as responsive, fluid, and contextual, therefore making genre
shifts when appropriate.

Conclusions
Dialogical rhetoric, genre, and heteroglossia, as part of a Bakhtinian conceptual
framework, exist as theoretical tools that can assist teacher educators and researchers
in more fully recognizing the construction of teacher identity as dialogic. Yet, what
does a shift in the way we consider teacher identity as dialogic offer the field? First,
using Bakhtinian tools allows the acknowledgement of an explicit connection
between the local-level influences on teachers’ identity texts and more global-level
influences, or Discourses (Gee, 2001), in which they are situated. A connection
between the local and the global is expressed by Bakhtin (1981) when he discusses
the conflict between two forces inherent in discourse: the centripetal force which
works at centralizing and unifying meaning and the centrifugal force (what Bakhtin
calls the force of heteroglossia) which fragments ideological thought into diverse
and multiple views. Sometimes referred to as a push-pull relationship between
speaker and intended “other”, recognizing this quality of heteroglossia as an inherent
feature of language and language use indicates that teacher identity is always multi-
dimensional. In fact, the heteroglossic quality of language underscores all identity
texts as in relation with an intended “other”.

28984.indb 12 24/09/2014 09:40

 Teacher identity as dialogic response 13
Second, applying a Bakhtinian conceptual framework to the concept of teacher
identity emphasizes a specific focus on utterances and language as the system
under investigation. This is not to place language as superior to other phenomena,
but as a system that ventriloquates1 other systems. Teacher educators and
researchers taking up a Bakhtinian conceptual framework are able to understand
how teachers’ rhetorical moves within the artifacts they author are, indeed,
purposeful. Viewing teacher identity as always a “text” in process urges teachers
to continually re-evaluate the choices they make.
Teacher education programs, in understanding teacher identity as “text” could
be prompted to more thoroughly consider asking beginning teachers to grapple
with and re-think the texts they produce. Instead of viewing assignments/texts as
solely about content, texts can also be viewed in light of an ongoing formation of
one’s identity. If viewed in such a fashion, beginning teachers are encouraged to
ask what texts also say about themselves as future teachers. At the core of
Bakhtin’s work was an understanding that texts help authors negotiate and stake
claims about the world around them. Stressing this can also persuade beginning
teachers to see value in the processes of revision.
Finally, understanding the conception of teacher identity as dialogic dispels the
myth that identity is purely about “self”. Identity creation is really, at its core, a
response to others. As Veronica Wheelock’s Teaching Philosophy statement
reveals, teachers’ identity texts are responses to intended “others”. All identity
texts are prompts to action, thereby urging teachers and teacher educators to
continue to view the construction and discussion of teacher identity as an impor-
tant facet of prospective teachers’ growth.

Note
1 Ventriloquation, in a Bakhtinian sense (1981, 1986) means “one voice speaking through
another.” Also referred to as “refraction.”

References
Alsup, J. (2006). Teacher Identity Discourses: Negotiating Personal and Professional
Spaces. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Bakhtin, M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (M. Holquist (Ed.)) Austin,
TX: University of Texas Press.
Bakhtin, M. (1986). Speech Genres and Other Late Essays (C. Emerson and M. Holquist
(Eds.) Austin, TX: University of Texas.
Bakhtin, M. (1990). Art and answerability: Early philosophical essays. In M. Holquist
(Ed.), Dialogism. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Britzman, D.P. (1991). Practice Makes Practice: A Critical Study of Learning to Teach.
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Brouwer, N. and Korthagen, F. (2005). Can teacher education make a difference?
American Education Research Journal, 42, 153–224.
Danielewicz, J. (2001). Teaching Selves: Identity, Pedagogy, and Teacher Education.
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

28984.indb 13 24/09/2014 09:40

 14 Heidi L. Hallman
Devitt, A. J. (1993). Generalizing about genre: New conceptions of an old concept. College
Composition and Communication, 44(4), 573–586.
Ellen, R. F. (1984). Ethnographic Research: A Guide to General Conduct. London:
Academic.
Gee, J. P. (1999). An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. New York:
Routledge.
Gee, J. P. (2001). Literacy, discourse, and linguistics: Introduction. In E. Cushman, M.
Rose, B. Kroll, and E. R. Kintgen (Eds), Literacy: A Critical Sourcebook (pp. 525–544).
Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
Gomez, M. L. (2007). Seeing our lives intertwined: Teacher education for cultural inclu-
sion. Language Arts, 84(4), 365–374.
Gomez, M. L., Black, R.W. and Allen, A. (2007). “Becoming” a teacher. Teachers College
Record, 109(9), 2107–2135.
Hall, S. (2000). Foreword. In D. A. Yon, Elusive Culture: Schooling, Race, and Identity in
Global Times (pp. ix–xii). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Hallman, H. L. (2007). Negotiating teacher identity: Exploring the use of electronic
teaching portfolios with pre-service English teachers. Journal of Adolescent and Adult
Literacy, 50(6), 474–485.
Holland, D., Lachicotte, W., Skinner, D. and Cain, C. (1998). Identity and Agency in
Cultural Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Holquist, M. (1990). Dialogism. New York: Routledge.
Nystrand, M., Gamoran, A., Kachur, R., and Prendergast, C. (1997). Opening Dialogue:
Understanding the Dynamics of Language and Learning in the English Classroom. New
York: Teachers College Press.
Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods, (3rd edn). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Stake, R. E. (1995). The Art of Case Study Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Student Teaching Handbook. (2005). State University.
Zembylas, M. (2008). Interrogating “Teacher identity”: Emotion, resistance and self-formation.
Educational Theory, 58(1), 107–127.

Appendix 1 Veronica’s Teaching Philosophy Statement

I remember the day that I got my acceptance letter to the School of Education at
State University was one of the most gratifying days of my life. I was so excited
that I started shaking and screaming – I could not help thinking “I actually made
it into the program. I am going to be a teacher.” Of course, my first instinct was to
start telephoning people and telling them the news. Everyone seemed genuinely
excited for me, except one friend. She asked me: “Are you sure you want to go
through with this? You’re smart enough to be a doctor, why don’t you keep going
with that?” This one statement completely tempered my excitement. I was imme-
diately filled with self-doubt – was I making the wrong decision? Is teaching
really for me? Will I be fulfilled? Can I handle the fact that most people seem to
still believe teaching is a career one settles for, not one a person would actually
choose? Despite my doubts, I enrolled in the program, and from the moment I
walked into a classroom, I was certain that I chose the only career that will prove
fulfilling and challenging for the rest of my life.

28984.indb 14 24/09/2014 09:40

 Teacher identity as dialogic response 15
I believe that teachers need to have a passion for what they are doing. Teachers
must feel that they can make a difference in students’ lives and they need to love
working with youth. I have a passion for teaching and each day I student teach I
feel that passion growing. With that passion comes a strong desire to constantly
reflect on my teaching and continue to learn new teaching methods. I feel that it is
very important for teachers to constantly be learning and trying new approaches
to teaching. One never knows what might be missed if you do not try new things.
I feel that this process of learning and trying new things keeps me fresh and
excited about teaching. I have observed too many educators who have decided
they know the best way to teach and therefore fall into a rut. They teach the same
way day in and day out, which is boring for the students and the teacher.
Throughout my time in the School of Education, I have realized that I believe
in two fundamental aspects of education: 1.) My first priority is meeting the needs
of my students and creating a student-centered classroom 2.) 1 cannot achieve my
first goal if I do not help my students create a community of respect. Student-
centered classrooms allow students to take control of and vest interest in their own
education. I prefer to give students choices in the classroom. At the beginning of
each course I find out what the students want to learn in the course, what aspects
of the course worry them, and how they prefer to learn – i.e. group work, discus-
sion, reading, writing, etc. After thoroughly examining the students’ responses, I
alter the course where I can to meet the needs and expectations of the students and
specifically point out to the students the changes that I made. This initial activity
allows the students to see that their opinions and goals do matter to me and they
will always be taken into account. To establish community in my classroom, I also
start each course with a discussion about my only behavior rule in the class: have
respect for yourself, your peers and the teacher. As a class we decide what this
rule means and how we will work as a group to stick to the rule. Again, this
activity allows the students to see that their opinions are important and help the
students feel they are part of a community. From this foundation, I work with my
students to create an environment that is academically rigorous, while at the same
time, meeting and respecting the various needs of individuals.

28984.indb 15 24/09/2014 09:41

 2 Teacher identity in TESOL
A frames perspective
Martha C. Pennington

Introduction
The notion of framing has proved useful for conceptualizing and describing social
structures and practices, such as in the analysis of communicative acts (e.g., Bateson,
1955/1973; Goffman, 1974; Tannen, 1993) and of business and educational organi-
zations (e.g., Bolman and Deal, 2003). Frames can be considered different “windows,
maps, tools, lenses, orientations, and perspectives” (Bolman and Deal, 2003, p. 12)
that can be used to examine, to characterize, and to understand a phenomenon or
object of interest. Different framings of one and the same thing are not necessarily
mutually exclusive and, as different perspectives, can be complementary angles of
vision or can simply represent different aspects or facets of one thing.
Work can be framed in many different ways, such as in terms of its economic
value or its value in fulfilling personal and social needs (Pennington, 1991, 1997).
A particular job or career may be framed in different ways by different people, or
in multiple ways at different times or even at the same time by one individual. In
this chapter, I describe different aspects of teacher identity in TESOL in terms of
a frames model, building on related prior applications of the notion of framing to
English language teaching and to program development and management
(Pennington, 2013; Pennington and Hoekje, 2010, 2013).

Defining identity
A person’s identity can be defined as the set of characteristics uniquely associated
with that person. Identity is not singular or unitary but plural; a person has multiple
identities, or identity facets (Cummins, 2011, p. 191), within a composite identity.
Some facets of identity are given at birth, based on genetics, while some develop
over time, through learning and interactions with others. Some are attributed or
conferred by others, through election or appointment to a position, while some,
such as affiliation to various groups, are a matter of choice. Identity is complex
and changes over time; it is “dynamic rather than stable, a constantly evolving
phenomenon” (Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009, p. 177).
Identity is “situated within the mind” but also exists “within a social context”
(Heisey, 2011, p. 81). It is the concept of the self that one has but also involves “that

28984.indb 16 24/09/2014 09:41

 Teacher identity in TESOL 17
self within an outside context” (Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009, p. 178) in which
identity is defined relative to the perceptions and characteristics of others. A person’s
self-concept is not merely the self as it exists at a particular point in time, nor is it an
entirely concrete set of uniquely identifying characteristics. Rather, a self-concept is
a mental model that incorporates abstract images of the self as a person together
with projections of what the person aspires to be and to have as desirable character-
istics, relative to specific criteria of what is valued (e.g., kindness, wealth, academic
success). Beyond the self-concept, a person’s identity further incorporates charac-
teristics and traits which others perceive in or ascribe to that person.
Rather than thinking of identity as a set of identifying characteristics, it can be
thought of as a type of performance, an enacting and positioning of the self within
specific contexts and within society (Davies and Harré, 1990; Hall, 1990; 1992;
1997). From this perspective, identities can be viewed as “socially constructed, self-
conscious, ongoing narratives that individuals perform, interpret and project in dress,
bodily movements, actions and language” (Block, 2008, p. 27) through deliberate
“acts of identity” (Le Page and Tabouret-Keller, 1985). Since a person’s identity is
formed in interaction with context and with other people, it will always be shaped by
influences outside the self, as a process of negotiation, positioning, and counter-
positioning relative to perceived contextual characteristics and the positions of others.

Teacher identity
Teacher identity is a construct, mental image, or model of what “being a teacher”
means that guides teachers’ practices as they aim to enact “being a teacher”
through specific “acts of teacher identity.” A specific construct or model of teacher
identity is associated with each teaching field as what teachers who work in that
field need to know and be able to do; and individual teachers have their own
internal model of what it means to be a teacher in their chosen field. This internal
model of teacher identity should connect individual teachers to the model of
teacher identity within the larger field and collective of teachers of a specific
subject. The students, content, and methods that one teaches define specific facets
of a teacher identity as created in interaction with the teacher’s autobiographical
identity and specific educational and teaching experiences, including those in
teacher education programs. The identity which a teacher develops creates that
teacher’s self-image as the kind of teacher s/he is or aspires to be and affects
the teacher’s choices as to classroom roles and instructional emphases in content
and methods. It also affects the teacher’s positioning in relation to, and hence
interactions with, students, colleagues, and the larger teaching profession.
Teaching is “a socially constructed activity that requires the interpretation and
negotiation of meanings embedded within the context of the classroom” (Johnson,
1996, p. 24). This process of interpretation and negotiation continually shapes, and
may redefine, a teacher’s identity, some aspects of which will, at any given time, be
in flux or development: “teacher identity is not something that is fixed nor is it
imposed; rather it is negotiated through experience and the sense that is made of that
experience” (Sachs, 2005, p. 15). As summarized by Olsen (2008), teacher identity is:

28984.indb 17 24/09/2014 09:41

 18 Martha C. Pennington
the collection of influences and effects from immediate contexts, prior
constructs of self, social positioning, and meaning systems (each itself a fluid
influence and all together an ever-changing construct) that become inter-
twined inside the flow of activity as a teacher simultaneously reacts to and
negotiates given contexts and human relationships at given moments.
(p. 15)

The collection of such influences and effects results in a teacher identity that is
complex, multi-faceted, and ever-evolving. Given the complexity and the
changing nature of teacher identity, it is inevitable that the degree of investment
(Norton, 2000) which teachers have in different aspects of their work will vary
with time and circumstance.

Teacher identity in TESOL from a frames perspective

Pennington and Hoekje (2010) created a frames perspective on the management
of English language programs which has been further developed (Pennington,
2013; Pennington and Hoekje, 2013) as a frames model of English language
teaching (ELT) with two main categories, each with multiple components. The
first category represents different perspectives on or facets of ELT work, and the
second category represents different aspects of the context within which ELT
work takes place. This model is useful for describing the nature of English
language teaching in comparison to other kinds of academic work, the state
of English language teaching at a particular point in time or in a particular
institution or locality (community or country), and the evolution of English
language teaching over time. Figure 2.1 presents the categories and components
of the model along with a listing of the key concerns or areas addressed in each
frame:
The previous discussions have applied the notion of frames at the level of the
individual English language program or teaching unit and that of the field of
English language teaching as a whole. In this chapter, I draw on and adapt the prior
discussions by applying the model at the level of the individual teacher working
in the field which commonly goes by the acronym of TESOL. Modeling teacher
identity in TESOL from a frames perspective can raise awareness of the complex
nature and multiple facets of that identity. It can also offer directions for teacher
education and for ongoing professional development in terms of mapping a course
for change and evolution in the various dimensions of a career in the TESOL field.
For this chapter, the two categories of the model above are revised as Practice-
centered/Contextual Frames of Teacher Identity in TESOL, with other compo-
nents revised as shown in Figure 2.2.
Each of the different practice-centered and contextual frames can be considered
to represent different facets of teacher identity in TESOL which together make up
a composite identity of TESOL educator and define how an individual who works
in the TESOL field conceptualizes and performs “being a teacher.” In what
follows, each of these different ways of framing teacher identity in TESOL is

28984.indb 18 24/09/2014 09:41

 Teacher identity in TESOL 19

Frames of ELT work

Instruction teaching content, methods, materials, and technologies; teacher
roles, teacher–student relationship
Disciplinary field academic affiliation; academic qualifications; areas of teacher
knowledge; research and scholarship
Profession ethics and standards; teacher education and development;
working conditions; political influence and power; collegial
relations
Business income; accountability and efficiency; cost-effectiveness;
customer satisfaction; recruitment and promotion
Service client care; helper role; meeting student needs; voluntary labor;
support of department, institution, and field

ELT context frames

Global international orientation; practices related to global flows of
people, money, technology, information, ideologies, languages
Local situatedness of practice in department, institution, community,
nation; specific teacher and student groups in a particular locale
Sociocultural linguistic and ethnic backgrounds of teachers and students;
demographics of administrators, teachers, students

Figure 2.1 Frames model of ELT.

Practice-centered frames
Instructional
Disciplinary
Professional
Vocational
Economic

Contextual frames
Global
Local
Sociocultural

Figure 2.2 Frames of teacher identity in TESOL.

described and analyzed with implications drawn for TESOL teacher education
and development.

Practice-centered frames
The first set of frames represents teacher identity in TESOL in terms of different
orientations to the practices involved in TESOL work.

28984.indb 19 24/09/2014 09:41

 20 Martha C. Pennington
Instructional
A person’s instructional identity is central to identity as a teacher in a particular
field, including both the content and methods of instruction and capturing the
specific way that the individual conceptualizes and performs teaching acts. A
teacher’s instructional identity defines the teacher’s classroom persona and the
roles s/he enacts in carrying out acts of teaching, such as facilitator, disciplinarian,
or subject-matter expert. It also determines the type of teacher–student relation-
ship that s/he establishes. Being a TESOL teacher means constructing an identity
which incorporates certain types of instructional practices connected to the
specific requirements of teaching English to speakers of other languages and to
the approaches and methods taught in TESOL teacher education programs and
supported by the field.
The instructional approaches of teaching English to speakers of other languages
are unique in some ways as contrasted with the teaching approaches of other
fields, though they overlap those of the teaching of English to first-language (L1)
English speakers and the teaching of foreign languages. Underpinning instruc-
tional approaches to TESOL are notions that those learning an additional or
second language (L2) beyond the L1: (a) face specific cognitive and sociocultural
difficulties; and (b) have real-life purposes driving their language learning.
Specific teaching approaches for TESOL have emphasized contrast with L1,
motivation, learning processes and strategies, communication, cultural context,
learner needs, and the specific content and genres in different areas of study.
Certain teaching approaches and orientations have been associated with the
TESOL field at different times, notably: audiolingualism, notional-functional
language teaching, communicative language teaching, task-based learning,
English for Specific Purposes (ESP), focus on the learner, focus on form, and
critical pedagogy. As the field and its instructional orientations change, these
changes may impact the practices of individual teachers, who may alter their
instructional identity as they master new teaching methods, materials, curriculum
content, and technologies toward developing a skilled level of performance and
diversified teaching repertoire.

Disciplinary
A teacher’s disciplinary identity connects the teacher to a specific field and its
areas of knowledge and research. The disciplinary identity of the TESOL field is
not set but rather varies for individual teachers, whose affinity may be with
linguistics, applied linguistics, education, or other fields. The disciplinary heritage
of TESOL is multiplex, including linguistics, psychology, and education.
According to a well-known classification system for academic disciplines (Becher,
1989; Becher and Trowler, 2001; Neumann, 2003), whereas linguistics and
psychology include both “pure” (“hard”) science and “applied” social (“soft”)
science, education is generally classified as a “soft–applied” discipline or field.
The heritage of TESOL therefore links it to both “pure” and “hard” disciplinary

28984.indb 20 24/09/2014 09:41

 Teacher identity in TESOL 21
activity, but it is recognized as itself falling, like education, into the “soft–applied”
category. Like education, the status and position of TESOL is lower than that of
other academic fields, and, to a greater extent than education, TESOL does not
have a recognized disciplinary status. Shulman (1988) maintained that education
is properly termed not an academic discipline but a “field of study” (p. 5), and
Freeman and Johnson have stated that TESOL should properly be classified as a
“field of activity” (Freeman and Johnson, 2004, p. 125).
While Freeman and Johnson (2004) have emphasized linkages of TESOL with
education, Davies (1999) has placed the teaching of English to speakers of other
languages within a discussion of the disciplinary status of the larger field of
applied linguistics. Applied linguistics is generally differentiated from second
language acquisition (SLA), which many SLA researchers consider to have a
stronger linkage to TESOL but which, though clearly a field of study, is not gener-
ally regarded as an independent academic discipline. Given the lack of agreement
on the proper disciplinary linkage of TESOL, the knowledge base which underlies
its practices and should be acquired by its practitioners has been much debated
(see, e.g., Bartels, 2004; Freeman and Johnson, 1998, 2004, 2005; Muchisky and
Yates, 2004; Richards, 1991; 2002; 2008; Yates and Muchisky, 2003), especially
the extent to which it should include research methods and the “pure” study of
English language.
Disciplinary identity in TESOL relates to one’s academic qualifications, in
terms of both the level of qualification and the area of study. A PhD or other
Doctoral degree grants a certain disciplinary status that a lesser degree does not.
However, Doctorates in TESOL are not common, so those who acquire a PhD or
other Doctoral degree would likely be qualified in linguistics, applied linguistics,
SLA, or education. A Master’s degree in TESOL represents a different discipli-
nary identity than a Master’s in English or linguistics, and in some cases applied
linguistics, although a degree in the latter field is sometimes identical in content to
a TESOL degree. The area of study and the qualification of a higher degree
strongly impact one’s academic affiliation and disciplinary identity, though long
experience in TESOL can also create a strong sense of disciplinary identity with
the TESOL field, even in the absence of a TESOL degree.
A TESOL educator’s disciplinary identity is also related to the type of depart-
ment or other academic unit that s/he is affiliated with. Affiliation within a depart-
ment such as English or Linguistics representing a recognized academic discipline
confers greater academic legitimacy and power than non-disciplinary affiliations,
and it also affords more opportunities for research to enhance academic status.
Those who have positions within departments that are not focused on TESOL or
applied linguistics, as well as those who do not have affiliations within any
academic department, may build a disciplinary identity based on their degree
program and their affiliation with the extra-institutional field of TESOL, applied
linguistics, SLA, education, or another field related to their academic or job focus.
A final component of disciplinary identity relates to whether one’s work in
TESOL includes research. Those whose work has a research component are central
to a discipline as they are involved in creating and disseminating disciplinary

28984.indb 21 24/09/2014 09:41

 22 Martha C. Pennington
knowledge. Whatever one’s role in TESOL, whether classroom teacher or program
director, being involved in research creates a strong disciplinary connection and
helps to build the knowledge and research base of the field and therefore its status
in academia.

Professional
A professional identity in TESOL is a unique blend of individual teacher charac-
teristics within the disciplinary knowledge, standards, and practices of the field.
That professional identity develops over time as an individual interpretation of
disciplinary knowledge, standards, and practices acquired through education and
experience in work contexts.

In this “professional” conception, teacher knowledge includes a universal

component which must be (a) situated in and adapted to a specific teaching
context and (b) given a personal interpretation as part of an individual teach-
er’s schema for thinking and acting. The universal component can be viewed
as a broad-scale schematic grid or conceptual network which teacher educa-
tors aim to construct through formal teacher preparation that is then refined
and elaborated in a specific teaching context in interaction with an individual
teacher’s characteristics.
(Pennington, 1999, p. 101)

This way of defining professional identity allows for individual differences within
a wide range of variation and adaptation to context and circumstance, but at the
same time restricts any claim to a professional identity in TESOL to those who
meet certain general or universal standards and professional competencies for the
field.
A teacher’s professional identity in TESOL connects the teacher to professional
bodies – such as TESOL, Inc., IATEFL, and their national and local affiliates –
that oversee standards; advocate for recognition, status, and good working condi-
tions; promote and disseminate research; and provide professional development
opportunities for members to acquire and share expertise, such as through confer-
ences, websites, and professional publications. Connecting to TESOL as profes-
sion strengthens teacher identity by conferring credibility and status as well as
political influence and power. In addition to connecting an individual teacher to a
larger field and to professional bodies that provide support as well as collective
knowledge and opportunities for professional development, a teacher’s profes-
sional identity in TESOL incorporates connections to various groups of colleagues,
those in the local and in the wider context of language teaching. Collegial rela-
tions at these different levels offer a valuable network of influences feeding into
an individual teacher’s values, practices, and understandings of those practices
which underpin the teacher’s professional identity.
A teacher’s educational experience and degree should be the starting point for
developing a professional identity which continues to evolve over an entire

28984.indb 22 24/09/2014 09:41

 Teacher identity in TESOL 23
teaching career, through creating a positive concept of the self as a teacher and
images of an ideal teacher-self, through classroom experiences and interactions
with changing groups of students, and through ongoing interactions with
colleagues and the larger field – all of which can spur continued learning and
reflective practice. In the best case, a teacher’s professional identity is never set
but rather maintains a dialectic interaction between the subjective or individual
aspects of teaching (practitioner level) and the intersubjective or collective aspects
(field or discipline level) through the teacher’s activities within the site of prac-
tice, including teaching, collegial interactions, applied research, and reflective
pedagogy (Farrell, 2007; Richards and Lockhart, 1994). Such interactions develop
the kinds of skilled performance and higher-order values and understandings of
teaching that are recognized as professional expertise in TESOL.

Vocational
A teacher’s vocational identity encompasses the strength of commitment and
attachment to teaching work and/or to teaching in a specific field or context.
Teacher commitment, which is a teacher’s dedication to the students and to the
teaching job (Firestone and Pennell, 1993), includes an affective component
related to the intrinsic satisfaction obtained from serving and helping others to
meet their needs. Research by Deci and Ryan (1985) demonstrated that work
satisfaction is driven more by intrinsic enjoyment of the work itself than by
extrinsic motivators such as compensation, and research has shown that those
in the TESOL field, like other teachers, are motivated by the intrinsic rewards
of their work more than by money or other external rewards (Pennington,
1991, 1997). A large component of enjoyment of the teaching job for many
people is helping students achieve their goals. This motivation is highly relevant
to teaching English to speakers of other languages, who may need or request more
help than other students, thus engendering an empathic response in a dedicated
teacher.
As a helping profession, teaching requires caring and empathy for students and
seeks to foster these qualities in its graduates as part of their vocational identifica-
tion as educators. Often connected to the view of teaching as a helping profession
is a strong service orientation that is also a vocational quality emphasized in
teacher education programs. These same orientations apply to TESOL as a
teaching field, which can be characterized as having both a humanistic and a
service orientation as realized in:

A focus on relationships;
A focus on satisfaction of needs;
An idealistic, even altruistic, view of people;
Facilitative and supportive, not directive, attitudes and actions towards
students;
Cooperative and interactive decision-making and power-sharing.
(adapted from Pennington and Hoekje, 2010, p. 52)

28984.indb 23 24/09/2014 09:41

 24 Martha C. Pennington
These qualities of humanism and service to others are ones which teacher educa-
tion programs with a TESOL emphasis generally seek to develop in practitioners
as a sense of their identification with TESOL as a vocation. While helping and
serving others provides a strong basis for intrinsic satisfaction with TESOL work,
this type of vocational commitment needs to be balanced against other aspects of
teacher education and identity as a TESOL practitioner that provide different sorts
of intrinsic and extrinsic satisfactions, such as intellectual stimulation, a sense of
achievement, recognition for achievement, and financial rewards.

Economic
For those who work in TESOL, as in any field, a facet of their work-related iden-
tity is economic. Whether the work one does is driven by economic necessity or
choice, and whether it is felt to be fairly rewarded, are considerations that impact
a teacher’s level of satisfaction and identification with TESOL work, in both a
particular job and in the TESOL field. Another aspect of the economic identity of
those in TESOL is the extent to which one participates, and how successfully, in
other kinds of academic marketplaces, such as that for publication of books and
journal articles, which help to create one’s academic and economic position in the
field. This kind of “academic capital” can be of considerable intrinsic value to an
educator’s work satisfaction and self-image, and it also reaps tangible rewards in
terms of position and compensation.
Everyone connected to TESOL is part of a huge and still expanding globalized
market for goods and services involving the teaching of English which includes:
the available workforce of teachers, administrators, and others connected to
English language programs and international education; university-based and
private English language centers and programs; K–12 ESOL support services;
certificate and degree courses in TESOL, applied linguistics, and educational
linguistics; teaching materials in the way of books, software, prepackaged and
online courses; and linked businesses recruiting students to universities and in
some cases providing housing, immigration services, language instruction, and
content instruction as well (for discussion and examples, see Winkle, 2014). No
matter in which sector of TESOL a person works, the job that the person takes has
an impact on the TESOL teacher market, affecting how much competition there is
for available jobs and how much teachers are paid.
TESOL work is not well-compensated in comparison to many other kinds of
work for which a Master’s degree is the standard qualification, and in general does
not offer the financial security of academic tenure or long-term contracts; lack of
fair compensation and benefits is an aspect of TESOL educators’ perception of
their work (Pennington, 1991, 1997). Thus, while they generally experience high
satisfaction in terms of the intrinsic rewards of performing TESOL work, their
perceived low or mediocre economic status may have a negative impact on their
self-image and hence on their identity as a TESOL educator. Matters of pay, bene-
fits, and job security are of particular concern for those who have selected TESOL
as a long-term career. Such career-oriented educators are those who are likely to

28984.indb 24 24/09/2014 09:41

 Teacher identity in TESOL 25
have their work-related identity invested in TESOL as both profession and voca-
tion. Their professionally invested identity may make them advocate for improved
compensation for TESOL work even as their vocationally invested identity and
the internal rewards connected to that identity make them continue in TESOL
work that they do not consider to be adequately compensated in terms of external
rewards.

Contextual frames
The second set of frames represents teacher identity in TESOL in terms of different
aspects of the context of TESOL work, showing how context influences teachers’
practices as described in the first set of frames.

Global
The global facet of teacher identity in TESOL refers to the extent to which the
teacher has an international orientation and experience related to global trends.
These trends can be described in terms of the global scapes and flows identified by
Appadurai (1996) of people (ethnoscape), money (financescape), technology
(technoscape), information (mediascape), and ideologies (ideoscape), along with
Pennington and Hoekje’s (2010) additional global scape of languages (linguas-
cape). In particular, the spread of English as a world language, the internationali-
zation of education, the increase in movement of people through international
travel and migration, and the interconnectedness of people worldwide through the
internet are all aspects of the global context of the teaching of English to speakers
of other languages in the current day. TESOL educators can be expected to incor-
porate knowledge of and participation in global scapes and trends into their class-
room content and methods, thereby widening their pedagogy by connecting their
instructional identity to a global identity.
The global facet of TESOL teacher identity connects to both content and peda-
gogical knowledge, as it requires the teacher to be knowledgeable about different
varieties of English and conscious of what variety (or varieties) of English is (or
are) being taught and how it is (or they are) being taught. Thus, the global facet of
identity in TESOL requires knowing about English as an international language
(EIL) or lingua franca (ELF), and how an EIL or ELF orientation impacts teaching
(for descriptions and discussion, see Jenkins, 2003, 2006, 2012; Seidlhofer, 2007,
2011). It also suggests the value of knowing about World Englishes (Kachru,
1992), the different indigenized varieties of English that have developed in many
countries, as well as the other languages which students speak and the need to
consider students’ multilingual competence in instruction.
Beyond matters involving language and the teacher’s awareness of and
incorporation of worldwide trends into instruction, a global identity in TESOL
is also built on up-to-date knowledge and usage of media and technology in
the classroom and the teacher’s own life. Part of the TESOL teacher’s interna-
tional or global orientation is moreover a valuing of diverse ideologies, cultures,

28984.indb 25 24/09/2014 09:41

 26 Martha C. Pennington
ethnicities, and languages that is reflected in the teacher’s attitude to students and,
further, in the content and methods of instruction. Additionally, a global identity
relates a teacher’s own practice to that of the larger community of practice
(Wenger, 1998) of TESOL educators and scholars around the world and thereby
connects to both professional and disciplinary identity. Matters of global context
further connect a TESOL educator to the context of international education and
business within which the field is situated, thereby linking to the vocational and
economic facets of teacher identity.

Local
As an aspect of the context in which a TESOL teacher lives and works, the teach-
er’s identity will include a local orientation and experience. The teacher’s local
identity relates to the situatedness of practice in departmental, institutional,
community, and national contexts, and the teacher’s awareness of constraints and
consideration of priorities and appropriate actions in each of those contexts.
Factors within these different levels of local context and sites of practice can
impact the teacher’s instructional, disciplinary, professional, vocational, and
economic identity as a TESOL educator. In the best case, a teacher’s local identity
is complementary rather than contradictory to that teacher’s global identity.
However, it is common (and also understandable) for local concerns to occupy
most of a teacher’s time and so for these concerns to dominate over the concerns
of more distant contexts.
The characteristics and the realities of the local context may shape one’s iden-
tity as a teacher to a greater extent than factors in the wider context, as the teacher
makes efforts to contextualize understandings, values, and practices so they are
effective within specific communities, cultures, and institutions, and with specific
groups of students. For example, Sharkey’s (2004) investigation of ESL teachers
in a US elementary school revealed that all of the teachers’ decisions and practices
regarding curriculum were mediated in relation to immediate local and national
context factors in the classroom, the school, the school district, and higher state
and national levels of education, in addition to the national professional organiza-
tion. In his study of English language teaching in China, Hu (2005) found that
while “[t]he availability of modern educational hardware encourages new concep-
tions of education and facilitates new teacher-student relationships as well as new
instructional practices . . ., in the disadvantaged areas, . . . [t]he general lack of
adequate teaching facilities compels many teachers to take a textbook-dependent,
teacher-centered, and transmission-oriented approach” (pp. 650–651).
Physical facilities together with social and political factors impact teacher iden-
tity in local contexts. The local context of a teacher identity in TESOL incorpo-
rates the position which teachers of English language and the TESOL field occupy
in a particular institution, community, and country as well as individual teachers’
positioning within their local sites of practice relative to the perceptions and
characteristics of the others with whom they work and interact. Because of their
immediacy and constancy, local factors have a powerful effect on all aspects of

28984.indb 26 24/09/2014 09:41

 Teacher identity in TESOL 27
teacher identity in TESOL, as explored in many of the chapters in a new collection
by Ben Said and Zhang (2013).

Sociocultural
A teacher’s sociocultural identity relates the teacher’s sociocultural characteris-
tics to those of other people, including students, other teachers, employers, and the
wider society and teaching field. A teacher’s sociocultural identity in TESOL also
incorporates the teacher’s applications of knowledge of sociocultural dimensions
of the field and sociocultural factors that impact teaching and learning in the
teacher’s own practice. Sociocultural dimensions include linguistic, ethnic, racial,
and gender features of identity which are operative in the teaching context, such
as the presence of a particular linguistic, ethnic, racial, and gender mix or profile
in the administration, the teaching faculty, and the student body. The TESOL field
has sought to be inclusive of all types of sociocultural identity on the basis of
language, ethnicity, race, and gender identity, and so a teacher’s sociocultural
identity as a TESOL educator should reflect a valuing of such inclusivity and
diversity.
Sociocultural identity involves positioning the self within a social construction
of people’s affiliations and the groups they belong to, as formed in interaction
with others in different contexts. Within TESOL, L1 vs. L2 or native vs. non-
native speaker status has historically been a central construct defining criteria for
linguistic achievement and classifying speakers, including teachers and students,
into different groups. This dichotomy is recognized to be problematic (Rampton,
1990), especially in consideration of the many varieties of English which exist in
what Kachru (1992) has called the “outer circle” and “expanding circle” countries
where indigenized varieties of English are widespread. More complex views of
identity recognize multiple linguistic and group affiliations which are relevant to
students and teachers as they position themselves socioculturally in relation to
others in global and local contexts.

Implications for TESOL teacher education and development

The investment which TESOL educators have in different aspects of their work-
related identity, and hence the type of focus they have in their work, will vary,
depending on both personal and contextual factors, as certain aspects of the
teaching job assume greater or lesser importance at different times and in
different circumstances. The different framings of TESOL work offer different
perspectives from which both future teachers and those already teaching can
examine aspects of their work-related identity and map a course for change and
career development. For this purpose, those studying to be teachers or already
holding teaching jobs can be introduced to the model of identity in TESOL
described here and use it as a basis for reflecting on their teaching-related beliefs
and priorities and their career history and trajectory, such as through the activities
below:

28984.indb 27 24/09/2014 09:41

 28 Martha C. Pennington
1 Examine the extent to which their teacher identity – both their self-image and
their performance of “being a teacher” – incorporates or is invested in each
of the different facets of TESOL work in its instructional, disciplinary,
professional, vocational, and economic aspects and in its global, local, and
sociocultural contexts.
2 Consider the ways in which these different facets of their teacher identity are
realized in their practices.
3 Compare their actual teaching behavior to their ideal practice with respect to
each of the frames of TESOL teacher identity.
4 Reflect on the causes and reasons that their teacher identity has evolved as it
has.
5 Map a course for change to get a closer match of actual to ideal practices.
6 Develop specific strategies and actions for implementing changes.
7 Create an action research plan incorporating research and reflection to
examine the effects and effectiveness of the planned strategies and actions,
possibly together with others.
8 Implement and recursively adjust steps 4–7 on a regular basis to continue
developmental progress.
9 Revisit steps 1–3 on a yearly basis to make note of evolutionary changes in
teacher identity.

Through such reflection and action, those working in the TESOL field can become
more aware of the different facets of their teacher identity and how these can be
deliberately constructed, performed, and modified in different teaching circum-
stances over an entire career.

References
Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minne-
apolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Bartels, N. (2004). Another reader reacts . . . Linguistics imperialism. TESOL Quarterly,
38(1), 128–133.
Bateson, G. (1955/1973). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. London: Paladin.
Beauchamp, C., and Thomas, L. (2009). Understanding teacher identity: An overview of
issues in the literature and implications for teacher education. Cambridge Journal of
Education, 39, 175–189.
Becher, T. (1989). Academic Tribes and Territories. Buckingham, UK: Open University.
Becher, T. and Trowler, P. R. (2001). Academic Tribes and Territories (2nd edn). Buck-
ingham, UK: The Society for Research and Higher Education and Open University Press.
Ben Said, S., and Zhang, L. J. (2013). Language Teachers and Teaching: Global Perspec-
tives, Local Initiatives. New York: Routledge.
Block, D. (2008). Second Language Identities. London: Continuum.
Bolman, L. G. and Deal, T. E. (2003). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and
Leadership. (3rd edn). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Cummins, J. (2011). Identity matters: From evidence-free to evidence-based policies for
promoting achievement among students from marginalized social groups. Writing &
Pedagogy, 3(2), 189–216.

28984.indb 28 24/09/2014 09:41

 Teacher identity in TESOL 29
Davies, A. (1999). An Introduction to Applied Linguistics: From Practice to Theory. Edin-
burgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Davies, B., and Harré, R. (1990). Positioning: The discursive production of selves. Journal
for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 20(1), 43–63.
Deci, E. L. and Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic Motivation and Self-determination in Human
Behavior. New York: Plenum Press.
Farrell, T. S. C. (2007). Reflective Language Teaching: From Research to Practice.
London: Continuum Press.
Firestone, W. A. and Pennell, J. R. (1993). Teacher commitment, working conditions, and
differential incentive policies. Review of Educational Research, 63, 489–525.
Freeman, D. and Johnson, K. (1998). Reconceptualizing the knowledge-base of language
teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 32(4), 397–417.
Freeman, D. and Johnson, K. (2004). Readers react . . . Common misconceptions about the
quiet revolution. TESOL Quarterly, 38(1), 119–127.
Freeman, D. and Johnson, K. (2005). Response to “Language teacher-learning and student
language learning: Shaping the knowledge base.” In D. J. Tedick (Ed.), Language
teacher Education: International Perspectives on Research and Practice (pp. 25–32).
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. New
York: Harper & Row.
Heisey, D. R. (2011). International perspectives on cultural identity. The Review of
Communication, 11(1), 66–82.
Hall, S. (1990). Cultural identity and diaspora. In J. Rutherford (Ed.), Identity, Community,
Culture, Difference. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
Hall, S. (1992). New ethnicities. In A. Rattansi and J. Donald (Eds), ‘Race’, Culture and
Difference (pp. 252–259). London: Sage/Open University.
Hall, S. (1997). Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices.
London: Sage.
Hu, G. (2005). Contextual influences on instructional practices: A Chinese case for an
ecological approach to ELT. TESOL Quarterly, 39, 635–660.
Jenkins, J. (2003). World Englishes: A Resource Book for Students. London: Routledge.
Jenkins, J. (2006). Current perspective on teaching World Englishes and English as a
lingua franca. TESOL Quarterly, 40, 157–181.
Jenkins, J. (2012). English as a lingua franca from the classroom to the classroom. English
Language Teaching Journal, 66(4), 486–494.
Johnson, K. E. (1996). Cognitive apprenticeship in second language teacher education. In
G. Tinker Sachs, M. Brock, and R. Lo (Eds), Directions in Second Language Teacher
Education (pp. 23–36). Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong.
Kachru, B. (1992). Teaching world Englishes. In B. Kachru (Ed.), The Other Tongue:
English Across Cultures (2nd edn) (pp. 355–366). Chicago, IL: University of Illinois
Press.
Le Page, R. B. and Tabouret-Keller, A. (1985). Acts of Identity: Creole-based Approaches
to Language and Ethnicity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Muchisky, D. and Yates, R. (2004). The authors respond . . . Defending the discipline,
field, and profession. TESOL Quarterly, 38(1), 134–140.
Neumann, R. (2003). A disciplinary perspective on university teaching and learning. In
M. Tight (Ed.), Access and Exclusion (pp. 217–245). Oxford: Elsevier.
Norton, B. (2000). Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational
Change. Harlow: Pearson Education Longman.

28984.indb 29 24/09/2014 09:41

 30 Martha C. Pennington
Olsen, B. (2008). Teaching What They Learn, Learning What They Live. Boulder, CO:
Paradigm Press.
Pennington, M. C. (1991). Work satisfaction and the ESL profession. Language, Culture
and Curriculum, 4(1), 59–86.
Pennington, M. C. (1997). Improving Work Satisfaction, Motivation, and Commitment in
the Teaching of English as a Second Language. ERIC Document ED 404850.
Pennington, M. C. (1999). Rules to break and rules to play by: Implications of different
conceptions of teaching for language teacher development. In H. Trappes–Lomax and I.
McGrath (Eds), Theory in Language Teacher Education (pp. 99–108). Harlow:
Longman.
Pennington, M. C. (2013, June) What is this thing called ELT? – It all depends on how you
look at it. Opening plenary presented at the English Language Centre Symposium 2013.
City University of Hong Kong.
Pennington, M. C. and Hoekje, B. J. (2010). Language Program Leadership in a Changing
World: An Ecological Model. Bingley: Emerald/Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.
Pennington, M. C. and Hoekje, B. J. (2013). Framing English language teaching. Unpub-
lished ms. submitted for publication.
Rampton, B. (1990). Displacing the “native speaker”: Expertise, affiliation and inheritance.
ELT Journal, 44, 97–101.
Richards, J. C. (1991). Content Knowledge and Instructional Practice in Second Language
Teacher Education. Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics
(pp. 76–99). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Richards, J. C. (2002). 30 years of TESOL: A personal reflection. RELC Journal, 33(2),
1–36.
Richards, J. C. (2008). Second language teacher education today. RELC Journal, 39(2),
158–176.
Richards, J. C. and Lockhart, C. (1994). Reflective Teaching in Second Language Class-
rooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sachs, J. (2005). Teacher education and the development of professional identity: Learning
to be a teacher. In P. Denicolo and M. Kompf (Eds), Connecting Policy and Practice:
Challenges for Teaching and Learning in Schools and Universities (pp. 5–21). Oxford:
Routledge.
Seidlhofer, B. (2007). Explaining English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Seidlhofer, B. (2011). Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Sharkey, J. (2004). ESOL teachers’ knowledge of context as critical mediator in
curriculum development. TESOL Quarterly, 38, 279–299.
Shulman, L. (1988). Disciplines of inquiry in education. In R. Jager (Ed.), Complementary
Methods for Research in Education (pp. 3–17). Washington, DC: American Educational
Research Association.
Tannen, D. (1993). Framing in Discourse. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Winkle, C. A. (2014). University Partnerships with the Corporate Sector: Faculty
Experiences with For-profit Matriculation Pathway Programs. Leiden: Brill.
Yates, R. and Muchisky, D. (2003). On reconceptualizing teacher education. TESOL
Quarterly, 37(1), 135–147.

28984.indb 30 24/09/2014 09:41

 3 Making sense of emotions in
NNESTs’ professional identities
and agency
Davi S. Reis

Emotions play a key role in the formation, maintenance, and performance of

professional identities in all professions. Yet, perhaps because emotions are inher-
ently complex, untidy, and personal, they are often deemed to fall outside of what
is considered “professional.” Although emotions are readily felt and experienced
by English Language Teaching (ELT) professionals; and although they influence
teaching, they have been under theorized in TESOL. Yet, how teachers make
sense of their emotions and how well they are able to regulate them greatly impacts
their professional lives, how they interact with others, and how they come to think
about their professional identities, roles, and even self-worth. Despite the growing
number of works in education and ELT that focus on teacher identity, scholarly
discussion about the interrelationships between emotions and one’s identities
are rare.
In this chapter, I argue that the emotions felt and experienced by teachers
impact how they conceptualize their teaching and the very essence of their peda-
gogical practices. Further, and as an example, I argue that in order to effectively
prepare non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) in TESOL, teacher
educators should understand how various emotions experienced by NNESTs
impact their professional identities and their teaching. Theorizing the role of
emotions in the professional lives of NNESTs is critical because NNESTs often
struggle to feel confident and legitimate as TESOL professionals. Much of this
struggle is due to the pervasive native speaker (NS) myth, the notion that native
speakers of a language are inherently the best teachers of that language. Whether
“real” or perceived, threats to NNESTs’ sense of professional worth and
legitimacy can greatly impact their confidence as TESOL professionals and, by
extension, the very efficacy of their teaching and instruction.

Literature review

The relevance of emotions for teachers and teaching

The influence of emotions on teachers’ lives remains largely understudied. Yet,
there is growing and compelling support for the notion that teachers’ emotions
strongly influence how they conceptualize teaching and how they teach (Day,

28984.indb 31 24/09/2014 09:41

 32 Davi S. Reis
2012; Day and Lee, 2011). Day (2012), for example, has argued that “[t]he extent
to which teachers are able to understand emotions within themselves and others is
related to their ability to lead and manage teaching and learning” (p. 19); and that
“[t]o achieve and sustain a healthy state of well-being, teachers need to manage
successfully a range of cognitive and emotional challenges” (p. 17). Teachers’
emotions, then, seem inextricably linked to their professional practices.
In ELT, at least two works make very compelling cases for understanding the
role of emotions in teachers’ lives. The first of these is Golombek’s (1998) study
of two in-service ESL teachers’ personal practical knowledge (PPK). It offers
convincing evidence of the link between ESL teachers’ emotional, moral, and
ethical lives and concerns and their instructional practices. Furthermore, Golombek
argues that in trying to fully understand language teachers’ practices, their self-
authored narratives provide a valuable glimpse into “how teachers perceive the
moral and affective consequences of L2 instruction for themselves and their
students” (p. 449). Based on various sources of qualitative data, Golombek
concluded that ESL teachers’ PPK is “personally relevant, situational, oriented
toward practice, dialectical, and dynamic as well as moralistic, emotional, and
consequential” (p. 452), being “bound up in how they place themselves in relation
to others and how their actions affect themselves as well as others” (p. 460). In
this view, teachers’ emotions are more than just ‘feelings’ and are instead integral
to understanding teacher knowledge and practice.
The second work is Benesch’s (2012) ground-breaking and extensive explora-
tion of emotions in critical ELT. Based on her investigation of how emotions have
been theorized in a variety of fields, she argues that:

1. Emotions have mainly been ignored in scholarship, in part because they have
been seen as subjective, irrational, exclusively female, and hard to capture; in
ELT they have been constructed, for the most part, as exclusively cognitive;
(. . .)
4. Intuitively and anecdotally emotions seem to factor into teaching and
learning so it would be useful to understand them better.
(p. 133)

In perhaps overly simplistic terms, Benesch argues that teachers’ sense of

emotional (im)balance informs how they understand their practice and how they
attempt to rebalance their emotions through their practice. Both of these works
seem to support the idea that understanding the complex relationships between
teachers’ emotions and their teaching can provide a framework for supporting
teachers in reconciling their emotions with their professional identities and roles
(see also Postareff and Lindblom-Ylänne, 2011).

The relevance of emotions for NNESTs

By most accounts, NNESTs make up most of the teaching force in ELT world-
wide, with scholarly inquiry into the professional lives of NNESTs increasing

28984.indb 32 24/09/2014 09:41

 Making sense of emotions 33
exponentially (Braine, 2010). NNESTs comprise a very diverse group of
individuals encompassing many types of professional training, expertise, experi-
ences, and contexts; as well as languages spoken, language ability, professional
self-esteem and confidence. Despite being large in numbers and garnering
increased attention in the field, NNESTs continue to grapple with the native
speaker ideology. Much of the literature on NNESTs has focused on issues of
language proficiency (in all areas, particularly pronunciation due to the perception
of accents as liabilities – see Lippi-Green, 1997), knowledge of teaching, and
practical strategies for supporting NNESTs in the profession (see Moussu and
Llurda, 2008 for a state-of-the-art article on NNESTs research). But a less promi-
nent side of this research has also tackled the lived experiences of NNESTs and
the affective aspects of being an NNEST in TESOL. Yet, to the best of my knowl-
edge at the time of writing, there have been no attempts to systematically theorize
the role of emotions in NNESTs’ professional preparation, growth, and develop-
ment. In addition, very few studies are longitudinal in nature (for a notable excep-
tion, see Samimy et al., 2011), making it even more difficult to theorize the issue.
NNESTs occupy a unique place in ELT. Despite being numerous, they have
been largely silenced by disempowering discourses of NS superiority. These
discourses can damage NNESTs both psychologically (e.g., lack of confidence)
and materially (e.g., finding a job). Although there is reason to be optimistic,
NNESTs still encounter prejudice and discrimination worldwide, with a signifi-
cant number of NNESTs experiencing serious emotional distress arising from
their professional position and experiences. NNESTs experience situations when
their professional authority (Subtirelu, 2011) and legitimacy (Golombek and
Jordan, 2005) are questioned by students, parents, administrators, and even
colleagues. Indeed, “NNESTs frequently experience anxiety, apprehension, fear,
isolation, and a sense of inferiority while in training and in teaching” (Wu et al.,
2010, p. 203), facing challenges that “. . . can be simultaneously racial and polit-
ical, linguistic and instructional, interpersonal and intrapersonal” (p. 202). In
addition, because identities are constructed in and through discourse, as well as
semiotically, NNESTs are at a disadvantage when their phenotypes and accents
are viewed as a liability (Lippi-Green, 1997). Lee (2004), for example, documents
how the Hong Kong government’s push for English language proficiency
prompted the local media to erode the public’s confidence in NNESTs’ ability to
speak and teach English, leading her NNES student teachers to believe that,
compared to NESTs, they will face numerous and difficult challenges.
Although NNESTs make up the majority of ELT professionals in the world
today, “it seems reasonable to assume that if others have made us feel linguisti-
cally less than competent, we will be more likely to mistrust our own language
production” (Swain et al., 2010, p. 85). The NNEST literature provides countless
examples of personal accounts detailing the emotional toll exerted by the NS myth
in the lives of NNESTs (see Moussu and Llurda, 2008). In addition, as an NNEST
myself and having both worked with and studied the professional lives of other
NNESTs for the past 17 years, I have experienced firsthand and documented how
fear, anxiety, low professional self-esteem, and an inferiority complex are all

28984.indb 33 24/09/2014 09:41

 34 Davi S. Reis
likely to negatively influence the nature of NNESTs’ instructional practices (Reis,
2010, 2011a, 2011b, 2012).
This underscores the need to take NNESTs’ fears and concerns seriously in
TESOL and to provide support in the area of “affective management” (Wu et al.,
2010, p. 213). Although many scholars have argued against the NS myth and
native speakerism based on various theoretical and ideological positions (Braine,
1999; 2010; Canagarajah, 1999; Cook, 2005; Ruecker, 2011) and for the inclusion
of course work, seminars, and professional development experiences to support
NNESTs in deconstructing the NS myth and claiming professional legitimacy
(Brutt-Griffler and Samimy, 1999; Cook, 2005, Pavlenko, 2003; Reis, 2010,
2011a, 2011b, 2012, 2013a, 2013b), more needs to be done to understand how
NNESTs’ emotions affect their practices. Furthermore, if ESL/EFL students at
large repeatedly encounter ESL/EFL teachers whose practices are heavily influ-
enced by their fears and insecurities, the vicious cycle of powerlessness in face of
the NS myth is likely to continue.

A sociocultural perspective on emotions

For Vygotsky, affect and cognition are intricately interconnected as two subcom-
ponents of consciousness (Mahn and John-Steiner, 2002; Smagorinsky, 2011;
Wertsch, 1985). He argued that:

Thought is not begotten by thought; it is engendered by motivation, i.e., by

our desires and needs, our interests and emotions. Behind every thought there
is an affective-volitional tendency, which holds the answer to the last “why”
in the analysis of thinking. A true and full understanding of another’s thought
is possible only when we understand its affective-volitional basis.
(Vygotsky, 1986, p. 252)

So in order to fully account for the ZPD, we must understand the role of affective
factors in learning (Mahn and John-Steiner, 2002), since “[l]earning in the ZPD
involves all aspects of the learner – acting, thinking, and feeling” (Wells, 1999,
cited in Mahn and John-Steiner, 2002, pp. 46–47). In this view, when “negative
affective factors such as fear or anxiety are present, the zone in which effective
teaching/learning occurs is diminished” (Mahn and John-Steiner, 2002, p. 49).
But rather than viewed as isolated, intrapsychological events disconnected from
an individual’s social relations, emotions must be understood as embedded in
social life and in relation to social relationships and social practices (Mahn and
John-Steiner, 2002). Thus, individuals require assistance from others in learning
to regulate their emotions by appropriating emotional support (Mahn and John-
Steiner, 2002).
Emotions stand in complex relationships with one’s professional identity and
action. In order to teach to the best of their abilities, teachers must see themselves
as legitimate professionals (a sense of identity) and feel empowered to make a
difference (a sense of agency); (see Day, 2012). In Vygotskian sociocultural

28984.indb 34 24/09/2014 09:41

 Making sense of emotions 35
theory (SCT), “emotion[s] [are] a fundamental aspect of thinking and acting in the
world” (Smagorinsky, 2011, p. 338). Day argues that teachers have a

sense of purpose and well-being which are so intimately connected with their
positive sense of professional identity and which enable them to draw upon,
deploy and manage the inherently dynamic emotionally vulnerable contexts
of teaching in which they teach and in which their pupils learn.
(Day, 2012, p. 17)

As an example of the relationship of influence between emotions, identity, and

agency, Verity (2000) wrote about her own struggles as she lost her confidence
and expertise after moving to Japan to work as an EFL teacher. Though until then
she considered herself an expert teacher, she realized that she felt like a novice in
her new setting. In order to regain her expertise in Japan, she used a daily journal
of her teaching to reorganize her knowledge and reconcile her cognitions and
emotions.

Though I had the emotions of a novice, I still had, or believed I had, the
cognition of an expert. These simultaneous and often conflicting modes of
perception made me behave in ways that felt fragmented and aimless at first;
by the end of the semester, I had managed to construct and pursue a new goal,
one that had never been necessary before: the reintegration of cognitive with
affective proficiency at a level, previously taken for granted, which allowed
me once again to enjoy teaching and derive creative satisfaction from it.
(p. 183)

The dialectical unity between cognition and emotion mentioned earlier is also
emphasized by Vygotsky’s work in his use of the Russian term perezhivanie1 to
represent this relationship (sometimes translated as “lived experience” or
“emotional experience”; Daniels, 2008, p. 43). In Vygotsky’s thinking:

[t]he emotional experience [perezhivanie] arising from any situation or from

any aspect of his environment determines what kind of influence this situation
or this environment will have on the child. Therefore, it is not any of the
factors themselves (if taken without the reference of the child) which deter-
mines how they will influence the future course of his development, but the
same factors refracted through the prism of the child’s emotional experience.
(Vygotsky, 1994, p. 339, cited in Daniels, 2008, p. 44)

In using this word and concept, Vygotsky emphasized the notion that an individ-
ual’s contexts and experiences should be understood not as they are present
outside of the individual, but rather how they are framed and experienced by the
individual once they are filtered through that individual’s emotional lenses.
Perezhivanie thus “account[s] for the central role of affect in framing and
interpreting human experience” and “is grounded in the process of emotional

28984.indb 35 24/09/2014 09:41

 36 Davi S. Reis
response to experience” (Smagorinsky, 2011, pp. 336–337). It “describes the
affective processes though which interactions in the ZPD are individually
perceived, appropriated and represented by the participants” (Mahn and John-
Steiner, 2002, p. 49).
Finally, an important distinction is made between a word’s “meaning” and
“sense” in sociocultural theory. The meaning of a word is its public, shared defini-
tion and understandings of what it means (e.g., the agreed-upon definition). The
sense of a word, in turn, is the integration between the meaning of a word and its
relevance for a particular individual or group of people. For example, the word
“ship” carries a unique and more significant weight to a castaway than it does to a
dock employee). This is important to point out because the sense of a word has a
higher degree of influence on an individual’s thinking and feeling than its meaning:
“A word’s sense is the aggregate of all psychological facts that arise in our
consciousness as a result of the word. Sense is a dynamic, fluid, and complex
formation that has several zones that vary in their stability” (Vyotsky, 1934/1987,
p. 276, cited in Mahn and John-Steiner, 2002, p. 51). For many NNESTs, the
subtractive nature of the term ‘non-native’ itself, along with experiences of preju-
dice and discrimination, highlight a power imbalance that becomes the “sense” of
the word “non-native”. Thus, the resulting perehzivanjia (“lived/emotional expe-
riences”) of NNESTs are often marked by self-doubt, lack of agency and influ-
ence, low confidence in self and the profession, and the feeling of being second-rate
professionals both in name and in occupation. Due to the strong relationship of
influence between NNESTs emotions and how they teach, and given the number
of NNESTs in ELT, this becomes a serious issue.

Discussion
In order to claim and construct more empowering identities, NNESTs “must
bravely step out of self-consciousness, self-defencism, and negative self-
perception, and be convicted, perseverant, resilient, and eager to reach out for
others and to serve the community” (Wu et al., 2010, p. 213). Yet, how to support
NNESTs in doing so has not been fully theorized in TESOL. But attempting to
make sense of NNESTs’ challenges and professional needs in light of the theo-
retical discussions above can help highlight the importance of emotions for
NNESTs and illuminate the processes through which NNESTs can be supported
in becoming professionally confident. In addition, there may be more to gain by
conceptualizing confidence, competence, and expertise as context-dependent,
relative, and distributed, and by acknowledging that in order to work on the edge
of their competence teachers must have adequate confidence (see Tsui, 2003).
In their professional trajectories and contexts, NNESTs encounter a variety of
disempowering discourses and labels carrying negative connotations. Of these,
the NS myth and the term “non-native (speaker)” are perhaps the most damaging
and pervasive. Although various scholars have proposed alternative discourses
and terms, the NS myth continues to feed the notion that an ideal and all-knowing
native speaker who speaks a dominant, desirable, and rule-providing variety of

28984.indb 36 24/09/2014 09:41

 Making sense of emotions 37
English is an inherently better teacher than a non-native speaker. The fact that
several job advertisements continue to express (sometimes explicitly) preference
for “native speakers” of specific English-dominant countries (e.g., England, the
US, Australia, New Zealand) compounds this issue. And although pride in being
a NNEST and attempts to claim the label as a sign of resistance have been docu-
mented, these attempts can be ideologically overwhelmed by the pervasiveness of
the disempowering discourses that abound in the ELT profession worldwide. This
is a significant point because, as a professional community, NNESTs are likely to
begin and grow in their careers under the spell of a self-defeating myth (especially
if their experiences as learners of ESL/EFL were also strongly influenced by the
NS myth, depending on their particular contexts).
The pervasiveness of the NS myth and the influence of emotions on teachers’
instructional practices highlight the need for ongoing support and mentoring for
NNESTs. But how we conceptualize the nature of this support must be informed
by what we know about the relationship between cognition and emotions. From a
sociocultural theoretical perspective, both cognitions and emotions are first shared
interpsychologically before they can be internalized as intrapsychological func-
tions. This means that meaningful interaction about professionally-relevant topics
must be a regular occurrence in NNESTs’ professional development journeys.
These interactions may be as simple as the lending of a sympathetic ear or as
complex as the concerted effort to support NNESTs in coming to more empow-
ering ways of thinking about oneself (individually and collectively as an imagined
community) by verbalizing, acknowledging, appropriating, and externalizing
emotions. In other words, NNESTs need support from peers and more expert
others in order to construe empowering/counter narratives vis-à-vis the NS myth
and other colonial discourses. Because individual NNESTs will be at various
levels of cognitive and emotional self-regulation, they will need appropriate
“emotional scaffolding” (Mahn and John-Steiner, 2002, p. 52) in order to learn
how to regulate their emotions vis-à-vis their professional lives.
Traditionally, professional training and development for ESL/EFL teachers
have focused on the content knowledge and technical skills deemed necessary by
the profession. The emotional aspects of working as an ESL/EFL teacher are
usually not given as much prominence in training and NNESTs are left to navigate
disempowering discourses on their own. But from a sociocultural theoretical
perspective, cognition and emotions must be seen as one dialectical unit – they
cannot be separated as one is always influencing the other. Thus, to create and
maintain a supportive and transformative ZPD, teacher educators must strategi-
cally integrate both thinking and feeling in relation to NNESTs’ social and profes-
sional lives and against the broader sociocultural milieu in which they live and
work. Competence and confidence go hand-in-hand in allowing NNESTs to
reconcile their thinking with their emotions as they tackle the NS myth in ways
both large and small. Having the knowledge and skills to successfully teach ESL/
EFL and support student learning cannot be seen as detached from the ability to
assess one’s emotions and how they influence one’s instructional philosophy and
practices. A highly qualified NNEST may, for example, fail to regain composure

28984.indb 37 24/09/2014 09:41

 38 Davi S. Reis
after being publicly challenged by a student regarding her/his ability to teach
English as a non-native speaker. NNESTs encounter daily situations that are both
cognitively challenging and emotionally charged. Disregarding either side of their
work is counter-productive.
A compelling tool for supporting teachers in integrating both cognition and
affect in their professional development journeys is narrative inquiry (Johnson
and Golombek, 2002; see also Schön, 1983). In order to continue to grow and
develop as professionals, NNESTs need regular and ongoing opportunities to
externalize and give voice to their thoughts and emotions. Even expert teachers
will experience overwhelming feelings based on changing personal circumstances
and sociocultural realities that test their ability to regulate their own emotions (see
Verity, 2000). Narrative inquiry, as a powerful tool for self-reflection and explora-
tion, can be used to guide NNESTs in exploring and deconstructing their perezhiv-
anija. By inquiring into their own experiences through (guided) reflective writing,
NNESTs can name and externalize their feelings and reflect on the personal rele-
vance and “sense” of terms such as “(non-)native,” “(lack of) confidence,” and
“professional (il)legitimacy.” Narrative inquiry has the power to enable NNESTs
to name their emotions, deconstruct disempowering discourses, and conceive of
and appropriate more empowering subjectivities.
When identified, validated, and understood, NNESTs’ emotions can become a
strong catalyst for positive change in their personal and professional lives. In
giving voice to their emotions (that is, identifying, sharing, and validating their
own feelings), NNESTs create the opportunity to learn how to regulate their own
emotional states. This process happens at the interpsychological level until the
ability to self-regulate is internalized and appropriated at the intrapsychological
plane. A notable example of this process comes from Park (2012), in which Xia,
a Chinese NNEST in an MA-TESL program, began to overcome her lack of confi-
dence as a teacher and to see herself as a legitimate NNEST through a mentoring
process with her cooperating teacher (a more expert mentor). In this long and
arduous process, she went from feeling confident in her English language skills; to
unimportant and powerless as a user and teacher of English (“I am powerless
because [I] am just a traveler or an immigrant],” p. 137); to upset when readily
discounted as an ESL teacher by a friend; to unconfident in her ability to produce
AmSE [American Standard English]; to hopeful when considering an ethics of
care for her students; and finally to “kind of proud” (p. 141, my emphasis) to be
an NNEST. Without having the opportunity and proper scaffolding to identify,
acknowledge, validate, and regulate these emotions, Xia may not have been able
to identify and appropriate more empowering subjectivity for herself.
Another example is reported in Reis (2011a) in a discussion of how engage-
ment in professional development experiences specifically designed for NNESTs
helped Karina (a young ESL teacher from Russia) the opportunity to explore more
empowering identities for herself:

I think I I began to feel more comfortable <laughter> with being NNS, like I
understand there_ there are other people like- as me, with the same back-

28984.indb 38 24/09/2014 09:41

 Making sense of emotions 39
ground (those things) and being, I don’t know, effective teachers. so I think I
feel a little bit more confident and comfortable with that, yeah.
(p. 41, emphasis in the original)

Although Karina’s level of confidence in her skills as an ESL instructor and as a

non-native speaker of English fluctuated throughout the study, the opportunity to
explore her emotions allowed her to begin to envision other ways of thinking,
feeling, and acting in regards to the NS myth and her role in TESOL:

I became aware not only of new “content”—what is the whole issue all about,
but also found a new perspective [sic] to look at things, in a different way that
I’m used to. E.g., caring not for the accuracy and/or idiomaticity of students’
language, but also considering their desire to express their identities in L2,
get across their meaning, etc. I also realized that I’m not alone. That there is
NNEST and other teachers going through similar experiences as me.
(p. 45, emphasis in the original)

Again, without the opportunity and support to identify, acknowledge, validate,

and regulate her emotions, Karina may not have been able to envision more
empowering subjectivities for herself.

Implications
The main implications for pre- and in-service teacher preparation and develop-
ment arising from the above discussion involve the inclusion of NNEST-related
topics, ongoing support, and pedagogical experiences relevant to the needs of
NNESTs.
For many NNESTs, the inclusion of NNEST-related topics in graduate course
work or professional development activities offers the first opportunity to become
aware of the collective plight of NNESTs as a professional community and to
learn of alternative discourses to the NS myth. Because the English learning
trajectories of many NNESTs are strongly influenced by the NS myth, many of
them internalize the very sort of racial and linguistic prejudice that we wish to
dismantle as a field. This highlights the importance of including topics in seminars
for NNESTs that tackle issues of “power, race, gender, accent, self-image, and
self-perceptions as NNESs” (Samimy et al., 2011, p. 564) as well as “issues
related to discrimination against NNES professionals and power inequality in the
TESOL communities” (Samimy et al., 2011, p. 570).
In addition to learning about the NS myth and alternative discourses, NNESTs
need the “caring support” (Mahn and John-Steiner, 2002, p. 46) of peers and more
expert others in order to begin challenging disempowering discourses. Ongoing
support can offer the types of personally-relevant and socially-meaningful inter-
actions needed to explore the connections between cognition, emotions, and
action. Peers and expert others can co-construct a “dynamic ZPD [which involves]
providing the metalanguage that relates to the processes of learning, including the

28984.indb 39 24/09/2014 09:41

 40 Davi S. Reis
affective processes, and not focusing solely on the skills” (Mahn and John-Steiner,
2002, p. 58). This is critical to NNESTs, as their work as ESL/EFL teachers
working amidst strong disempowering discourses is hardly free of emotionally-
straining contexts and situations.
Finally, NNESTs also need to experiment with practical tools and strategies for
challenging the NS myth in ways both big and small. One of these powerful tools,
as mentioned earlier, is narrative inquiry, which enables teachers to “pursue self-
exploration to discern how emotions and moral beliefs influence their sense-
making processes” (Golombek, 1998, p. 462). Taniguchi’s (2010) narrative is a
compelling example of how rewriting one’s experiences can support them in
addressing their emotions and cognitions in productive ways that lead to more
empowered understandings of self (that is, as an “identity resource”; Wertsch,
2002, p. 96).
Another pedagogical strategy is to arrange guided ‘encounters’ between
NNESTs and NESTs to discuss the NS myth. There is much to be gained from
these interactions, as NNESTs tend to idealize NSs as “perfect” and fail to
realize that “many NSs fe[el] just as nervous, tongue-tied, or insecure as they
d[o]” (Morita, 2000, p. 305). These encounters can also help bridge the NEST-
NNEST divide by incorporating the voices of NESTs who have experienced
prejudice and discrimination. Javier (2010), for example, speaks of the difficult
situations she has encountered as a visible minority when teaching, as students
tend to assume she is a NNEST based on her phenotype. As a Canadian-Filipino
teacher, Javier has had to assert her identity as a qualified TESOL professional to
students who questioned her legitimacy as a proficient speaker and qualified
teacher.
In addition to guided encounters, NNESTs can benefit from specific skills and
strategies on how to translate what they learn about alternative discourses into
actual practice, both in discourse and action. Among other coping strategies, Wu
et al. (2010) suggest “develop[ing] a positive self-image” (p. 206): “If you have
any doubt about your self-identity, self-worth, and professional credentials, (. . .),
examine your thoughts critically” (p. 206). The authors offer practical advice,
such as “Instead of thinking . . . ‘They are not going to hire me because I
am a non-native speaker.’ Think positively that . . . ‘They are going to hire me
because of my extensive educational and professional background’ ” (Wu et al.,
2010, p. 206). I have also offered some reminders that NNESTs should
keep in mind for improving their confidence (Reis, 2013a; 2013b). For example,
one often-mentioned, yet under-explored point is that NNESTs make up
the majority of English teachers globally. As a simple statistic or piece of
information, this may not mean much for NNESTs. But once it is internalized
as evidence of NNESTs’ collective voice, it can potentially change how
NNESTs see themselves and their role in the TESOL profession. Given that
emotions are a major driving force in teacher change and development
(Johnson, 2009; Sato, 2002; Verity, 2000), salient emotions in NNESTs’
professional development trajectory should be validated, externalized, reflected
upon, and shared.

28984.indb 40 24/09/2014 09:41

 Making sense of emotions 41
Conclusion
In order for NNESTs to “develop the [type of] confidence that engenders compe-
tence” (Mahn and John-Steiner, 2002, p. 46), they must have the opportunity to
name and validate their emotions, share and explore their professional insecuri-
ties, and learn new ways to respond to their feelings and anxieties. They must,
both individually and collectively, harness the fear of self-doubt and use it as a
catalyst for positive change. Indeed, if cognitive learning and development start
in the social sphere (i.e., the interpsychological plane), so too does the learning
of various emotional responses and reactions. Identifying and acknowledging
one’s emotions, naming them, and reflecting on them, are all part of the process
of learning to regulate them. Regulation of one’s affective states is thus
more likely to occur if NNESTs can learn about and experience such type of
regulation collectively. Consider how much better off the TESOL field would
be if the majority of its work force (i.e., NNESTs) were not struggling with
emotions on their own and rather had a more concerted opportunity to process
their feelings. As argued by Ruecker (2011), “[d]iscussions of difference tend to
foster a sense of unease and stir emotions, which is precisely why they must
occur” (p. 416). Therefore, the processes of learning to successfully alter and
regulate one’s feelings must leave the complete privacy of NNESTs’ inner worlds
and into the realm of socially mediated and supported professional development
opportunities.

Note
1 The singular form of this term is perezhivanie, while the plural form is perezhivanija
(see Mahn and John-Steiner, 2002).

References
Benesch, S. (2012). Considering Emotions in Critical English Language Teaching:
Theories and Praxis. New York: by Routledge.
Braine, G. (2010). Nonnative Speaker English Teachers: Research, Pedagogy, and
Professional Growth. New York and London: Routledge.
Braine, G. (Ed.). (1999). Non-native Educators in English Language Teaching. Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Brutt-Griffler, J., and Samimy, K. (1999). Revisiting the colonial in the postcolonial:
Critical praxis for nonnative-English-speaking teachers in a TESOL Program. TESOL
Quarterly, 33, 413–431. doi:10.2307/3587672
Canagarajah, A. S. (1999). Interrogating the “native speaker fallacy”: Non-linguistic roots,
non-pedagogical results. In G. Braine (Ed.). Non-native Educators in English Language
Teaching (pp. 77–92). London: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Cook, V. (2005). Basing teaching on the L2 user. In E. Llurda (Ed.). Non Native Language
Teachers: Perceptions, Challenges and Contributions to the Profession (pp. 47–61).
New York: Springer.
Daniels, H. (2008) Vygotsky and Research. London: Routledge.
Day, C. (2012). New lives of teachers. Teacher Education Quarterly, 39(1), 7–26.

28984.indb 41 24/09/2014 09:41

 42 Davi S. Reis
Day, C., and Lee, J. (Eds) (2011). New Understandings of Teacher’s Work. Emotions and
Educational Change. Dordrecht: Springer.
Golombek, P. R. (1998). A study of language teachers’ personal practical knowledge.
TESOL Quarterly, 32(3), 447–464. doi: 10.2307/3588117
Golombek, P., and Jordan, S. R. (2005). Becoming “black lambs” not “parrots”: A post-
structuralist orientation to intelligibility and identity. TESOL Quarterly, 39(3), 513–533.
doi:10.2307/3588492
Javier, E. (2010). The Foreign-ness of native speaking teachers of colour. In D. Nunan and
J. Choi (Eds). Language and Culture: Reflective Narratives and the Emergence of
Identity (pp. 97–102). New York: Routledge.
Johnson, K. E. (2009). Second Language Teacher Education: A Sociocultural Perspective.
New York: Routledge.
Johnson, K. E., and Golombek, P. R. (Eds). (2002). Teachers’ Narrative Inquiry as
Professional Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lee, I. (2004). Preparing nonnative English-speakers for EFL teaching in Hong Kong. In
L. D. Kamhi-Stein (Ed.), Learning and Teaching from Experience: Perspectives on
Nonnative English-Speaking Professionals (pp. 230–249). Ann Arbor, MI: University of
Michigan Press.
Lippi-Green, R. (1997). English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination
in the United States. New York: Routledge.
Mahn, H., and John-Steiner, V. (2002). The gift of confidence: A Vygotskian view of
emotions. In G. Wells and G. Claxton (Eds), Learning for Life in the 21st Century:
Sociocultural Perspectives on the Future of Education (pp. 46–58). Oxford:
Blackwell.
Morita, N. (2000). Discourse socialization through oral classroom activities in a TESL
Graduate Program. TESOL Quarterly, 34, 279–310. doi: 10.2307/3587953
Moussu, L. and Llurda, E. (2008). Non-native English-speaking English language teachers:
History and research. Language Teaching, 41(3), 315–348. doi: 10.1017/
S0261444808005028
Park, G. (2012). “I am never afraid of being recognized as an NNES”: One teacher’s
journey in claiming and embracing her nonnative-speaker identity. TESOL Quarterly,
46(1), 127–151. doi:10.1002/tesq.4
Pavlenko, A. (2003). “I never knew I was a bilingual”: Reimagining teacher identities in
TESOL. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 2(4), 251–268. doi: 10.1207/
S15327701JLIE0204_2
Postareff, L., and Lindblom-Ylänne, S. (2011). Emotions and confidence within teaching
in higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 36(7), 799–813. doi:10.1080/030750
79.2010.483279
Reis, D. S. (2010). Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) and Professional
Legitimacy: A Sociocultural Theoretical Approach on Identity Realization (Doctoral
dissertation). The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.
Reis, D. S. (2011a). “I’m not alone”: Empowering non-native English speaking teachers to
challenge the native speaker myth. In K. E. Johnson and P. R. Golombek (Eds), Research
on Second Language Teacher Education: A Sociocultural Perspective on Professional
Development (pp. 31–49). New York: Routledge.
Reis, D. S. (2011b). Non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) and professional
legitimacy: A sociocultural theoretical perspective on identity transformation. Interna-
tional Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2011 (208), 139–160. doi: 10.1515/
IJSL.2011.016

28984.indb 42 24/09/2014 09:41

 Making sense of emotions 43
Reis, D. S. (2012). “Being underdog”: Supporting Nonnative English-Speaking Teachers
(NNESTs) in claiming and asserting professional legitimacy. Journal on Excellence in
College Teaching, 23(3), 33–58.
Reis, D. S. (2013a). NNESTs and professional legitimacy: Fighting the good fight. Nelta
Choutari, July 1, 2013. Online at: http://neltachoutari.wordpress.com/2013/07/01/
nnests-and-professional-legitimacy-fighting-the-good-fight/
Reis, D. S. (2013b). The development of “confidence” as part of NNESTs’ professional
repertoire. NNEST Newsletter, August 27, 2013. Online at: http://newsmanager.
commpartners.com/tesolnnest/issues/2013–08–27/3.html
Ruecker, T. (2011). Challenging the native and nonnative English speaker hierarchy
in ELT: New directions from race theory. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 8(4),
400–422. doi:10.1080/15427587.2011.615709
Samimy, K., Kim, S., Ah Lee, J., and Kasai, M. (2011). A participative inquiry in a TESOL
program: Development of three NNES graduate students’ legitimate peripheral partici-
pation to fuller participation. The Modern Language Journal, 95(4), 558–574.
doi:10.1111/j.1540–4781.2011.01247.x
Sato, K. (2002). Seeking satisfaction. In K. E. Johnson and P. R. Golombek (Eds),
Teachers’ Narrative Inquiry as Professional Development (pp. 150–162). New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Schön, D. A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New
York: Basic Books.
Smagorinsky, P. (2011). Vygotsky’s Stage Theory: The psychology of art and the actor
under the direction of Perezhivanie. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 18(4), 319–341. doi:
10.1080/10749039.2010.518300
Subtirelu, N. (2011). Juggling identity and authority: A Case study of one non-native
instructor of English. TESL-EJ, 15(3), 1–22. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/
ERICWebPortal/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=EJ957135
Swain, M., Kinnear, P. and Steinmann, L. (2010). Sociocultural Theory in Second
Language Education: An Introduction Through Narratives. Bristol: Multilingual
Matters.
Taniguchi, S. (2010). Transforming identities in and through narrative. In D. Nunan and J.
Choi (Eds), Language and Culture: Reflective Narratives and the Emergence of Identity
(pp. 208–214). New York: Routledge.
Tsui, A. B. (2003). Understanding Expertise in Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Verity, D. P. (2000). Side affects: The strategic development of professional satisfaction.
In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.). Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning
(pp. 179–198). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language (A. Kozulin, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press. (Original work published, 1934.)
Wertsch, J. V. (1985). Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Wertsch, J. V. (2002). Voices of Collective Remembering. New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Wu, A., Liang, J., and Csepelyi, T. (2010). Coping strategies for NNES teachers’ develop-
ment. In A. Mahboob (Ed.), The NNEST Lens: Non Native English Speakers in TESOL
(pp. 202–221). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

28984.indb 43 24/09/2014 09:41

 4 Towards a multifaceted,
multidimensional framework for
understanding teacher identity
John Trent

Why identity?
Growing interest in the ways in which teachers construct and reconstruct their
professional identities has elevated teacher identity to the status of “a separate
research area” within teacher education (Beijaard et al., 2004). In the case of
language teacher education, for instance, identity has been positioned as “an
emerging field” (Miller, 2009, p. 172). The attention given to teacher identity may
reflect its value as an analytical lens for investigating and understanding teachers
and teaching, as Olsen (2011, p. 259) explains:

A teacher identity focus ensures that the active diversity and complex power of
teachers’ lived experiences and varied perspectives is acknowledged and made
available for study and productive use by researchers and teacher educators.

Olsen’s (2011) reference to the complexity of teachers and their work under-
scores the need for researchers to provide “an equally complex theoretical
response” (Varghese et al., 2005, p. 40). The purpose of this chapter is to consider
how such a theoretical response might be constructed. The chapter begins by
examining current understandings of teacher identity, arguing that there is a need
for empirical research that reflects the multifaceted and multilevel nature of
teachers’ identity work. Next, a theoretical framework is proposed which, it is
argued, is sensitive to the ways in which teachers construct their professional
identities in discourse and practice and acknowledges the role of agency and
structure within this identity work. The analytical value of this framework is then
illustrated through a description of the challenges faced by one group of native-
speaking English language teachers as they sought to construct identities as
professional language teachers in Hong Kong. Implications for teacher education
and future research are also considered.

What is teacher identity?

Despite its growing prominence within teacher education, consensus about the
meaning and scope of teacher identify remains elusive. Defining identity,

28984.indb 44 24/09/2014 09:41

 A multifaceted, multidimensional framework 45
Beauchamp and Thomas (2009) point out, is a “challenging endeavor” (p. 175).
Olsen (2011) argues that contemporary research has failed to adequately explain
the meaning of “teacher identity.” Beijaard et Al. (2004) share this concern over
the lack of a clear understanding of teacher identity, noting in their review of the
literature that not only does no consensus exist about the definition of identity but
that many studies fail to provide any definition of identity (p. 122).
Those that have attempted to define teacher identity, such as Day (2011), argue
that identity represents “the way we make sense of ourselves and the image of
ourselves that we present to others” (2011, p. 48). This view of identity echoes
Lasky’s (2005) belief that teacher identity represents the means by which “teachers
define themselves to themselves and to others” (p. 901). According to Sachs (2005),
these definitions of self-constitute a framework through which teachers construct
ideas about “how to be,” “how to act,” and “how to understand” their work. den
Brok et al. (2013) take as their starting point for understanding professional iden-
tity the type of questions teachers may ask of themselves, including “who am I as
a teacher?” and “what kind of teacher do I want to become?” (p. 143).
Bringing together various strands of research, Miller’s (2009) description of
identity as relational, negotiated, constructed, enacted, transforming, and transi-
tional (p. 174) reflects the complex nature of teacher identity. Unpacking these
different components is, then, an essential step toward a comprehensive under-
standing of how teachers construct professional identities, an issue which is
explored in the following section.

Unpacking teacher identity

Recent research has underscored the role of temporality and spatiality in the iden-
tity work of teachers. Drawing on poststructuralist perspectives, the possibility of
a unitary, fixed identity has been superseded by the belief that teachers construct
multiple identities which constantly shift across both space and time (Beijaard
et al., 2004; Miller, 2009; Varghese et al., 2005).
This view of identity also foregrounds the discursive and experiential nature of
identity (Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009; Olsen, 2011; Varghese, et al., 2005).
Olsen (2001), for instance, argues that investigating the role language fulfills in
teacher identity work draws attention to dialogical and representational possibili-
ties. The former suggests that identity arises from language as “any self is defined,
made, and continually remade by participation in language and language
practices” (Olsen, 2011, p. 262). A representational view argues that identity is
represented by language use, with language seen as a window into identity.
Engagement in practice is also crucial to understanding identity construction
because identity is thought to be constituted in part through teachers’ participation
in concrete practices and tasks. Furthermore, the fact that this engagement is situ-
ated in shared practices located in communities underscores the social nature of
identity construction (Varghese et al., 2005).
While identity is in part socially constructed, the processes involved in
becoming and being a teacher are also deeply personal. Miller (2009) points out

28984.indb 45 24/09/2014 09:41

 46 John Trent
that a teacher’s identity work draws upon the individual’s personal biography, as
well as their unique skills, knowledge, and attitudes. Recent research, such as Day
and Lee’s (2011) exploration of the emotional nature of teachers’ identity work,
has contributed to understandings about the personal nature of what it means to be
a teacher.
Spatiality and its implications for teacher identity construction are highlighted
in the attention that has been given to understanding how contextual variables
shape and are shaped by teacher identity. Contextual influences on identity
have been investigated in terms of the school environment, characteristics of
the learners, school authorities, and other teachers (Beauchamp and Thomas,
2009). Structural influences on identity also include broader macro features of
society, such as race, ethnicity and class. Olsen (2011) separates these different
contextual factors into those associated with the macrosocial strata (such
as race, gender, sexuality) as opposed to microstructures, which refer to imme-
diate contexts, practices and relationships in which teachers might participate
(p. 265).
The ways in which macrosocial social strata might interact with micro-structures
to shape subjectivities highlights the need for understandings of teacher identity to
explore the role of power relations as well as teacher agency (Morgan and Clarke,
2011), the latter representing “empowerment to move ideas forward, to reach
goals or even to transform the context” (Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009, p. 183).
Agency is at the heart of contemporary understandings of identity that recognize
that teachers play an active part in their own professional development. The link
between agency and identity, Beauchamp and Thomas (2009) argue, occurs
because a sense of one’s identity can permit the dynamic dimensions of teacher
identity to be fulfilled. Nevertheless, limits to teacher agency also shape identity
work. As Olsen (2011) cautions, teachers are teachers “because they fit into a
socially, institutionally sanctioned role” (p. 266). The interplay between agency
and structure in the construction of a professional self means that teacher identi-
ties are always negotiated accomplishments, as well as potential sites of conflict
and struggle (Miller, 2009).

Towards a multifaceted, multidimensional framework

for investigating teacher identity
Recognizing teacher identity as multifaceted, Varghese et al. (2005) maintain that
a comprehensive exploration of identity requires attention to both “identity-in-
discourse” and “identity-in-practice”. Identity-in-practice describes an action-
orientated approach to understanding identity, underlining the need to investigate
identity formation as a social matter, which is operationalized through concrete
practices and tasks. The other essential constituent of teacher identity, identity-in-
discourse, recognizes that “identity is constructed, maintained and negotiated to a
significant extent through language and discourse” (Varghese et al., 2005, p. 23).
Figure 4.1 summarizes the role of practice, language, and discourse in the frame-
work of teacher identity used in this study:

28984.indb 46 24/09/2014 09:41

 A multifaceted, multidimensional framework 47

Figure 4.1 A multifaceted, multidimensional framework for investigating teacher identity.

The discursive construction of identity

Figure 4.1 suggests that identity reflects in part the influence of discourse, which
is manifest through language, and consists of beliefs, attitudes, and values
(Danielewicz, 2001, p. 11). A discourse provides individuals with subject
positions from which they “actively interpret the world and by which they are
themselves governed” (Weedon, 1997, p. 93).
Locating oneself discursively can be achieved most explicitly through the overt
naming in talk of identities categories (Bucholtz and Hall, 2005). For example,
Clarke (2008) describes the ways in which one group of preservice teachers in the
UAE discursively construct professional identities partly through naming identity
categories, such as “new teacher,” and juxtapositioning these with alternative
identities, such as “traditional teacher” (p. 106).
The commitments an individual makes to such positionings are also important
indicators of identity, as Fairclough (2003) suggests in arguing that “what you
commit yourself to is a significant part of what you are” (p. 166). For teachers, the

28984.indb 47 24/09/2014 09:41

 48 John Trent
strength of their commitments to particular professional positionings can have
implications of the construction of professional identities. Thus, Alsup (2006)
maintains that rigid and unchangeable views of teachers and teaching can make
“the assumption of a teacher identity seem difficult” (p. 182). Rather, doubt and
ambiguity can make a positive contribution to the construction of a satisfying
professional identity (Alsup, 2006). As Danielewicz (2001) puts it, “for identities
to grow, individuals must be open to the possibility of ‘becoming”’ (p. 183).
Discursively, the commitments an author makes can be assessed in terms of
modality and evaluation (Fairclough, 2003). Modality refers to what individuals
commit themselves to in terms of truth, obligation, and necessity, and is often
displayed in the use of modal verbs, such as “should” and “must,” and modal
adverbs, including “probably” and “possibly.” Evaluation describes what is
believed to be desirable or undesirable and can be expressed in terms of what is
considered good or bad, as well as useful and important. While such evaluations
can be expressed explicitly, through the use of terms such as “wonderful,” they
can be deeply embedded in texts, invoking implicit value systems.

The experiential construction of identity

Wenger (1998) points out that “identification takes place in the doing” (p. 193).
Within his theoretical framework, identity construction is conceptualized in terms
of three modes of belonging: engagement, imagination, and alignment. Through
engagement, individuals establish and maintain joint enterprises, negotiate mean-
ings and establish relations with others. Identity, then, is formed partly through
participation that allows for the recognition of competence by a community. As
Wenger (1998) argues, identity “is an experience and display of competence”
(p. 152). In the case of preservice teachers, who “must explore and experiment in
contexts that are genuine enough to learn the conventions and practices of the
discourse community” (Danielewicz, 2001, p. 183), such engagement is crucial to
the construction of their professional identities. This focus on the individual
construction of identity is also consistent with recent interest in the role emotion
plays in becoming and being a teacher (Day and Lee, 2011; Zembylas, 2005).
Engagement in practice also incorporates the social construction of profes-
sional identities. Teacher identity, for instance, has been recognized as being
constructed partly through an individual’s relations with others, including mentors,
school authorities, teacher educators, and other teachers (Cohen, 2010). Miller
Marsh (2003) insists that teacher identities are always relational, arguing that
teacher identities are shaped through social interactions that occurs within the
contexts in which teachers move (p. 10). Within Figure 4.1, the importance of
individual actions and consciousness, as well as the social nature of teacher iden-
tity construction, is reflected in the attention given to both the intrapersonal and
interpersonal dimensions of professional identity work.
Imagination is a powerful force for identity construction because it moves
beyond the here-and-now of engagement in practices by permitting individuals to
create images of the world, and their place within it, across time and space. In

28984.indb 48 24/09/2014 09:41

 A multifaceted, multidimensional framework 49
terms of identification, then, imagination is a creative force. As Wenger (1998)
puts it, “it is through imagination that we conceive of new developments, explore
alternatives, and envision possible futures” (p. 178). In language teacher educa-
tion, membership of imagined communities has been shown to legitimize new
identity options by allowing non-native speaking teachers and their students to
position themselves as legitimate L2 users (Pavlenko, 2003; Pavlenko and Norton,
2007). More recently, Kubanyiova (2009) has proposed that investigating
“possible language teacher selves”, which refers to “language teachers’ cognitive
representations of their ideal, ought-to and feared selves in relation to their
work as language teachers” (p. 315), is crucial to understand these teachers’
professional development.
Finally, alignment coordinates an individual’s activities within broader struc-
tures and enterprises, allowing the identity of an organization, such as a school,
to become part of the identity of the individual. Thus, it is through the work of
alignment that “we become part of something big because we do what it takes to
play our part” (Wenger, 1998, p. 179). The work of alignment in identity construc-
tion has been shown to be especially important for teachers during periods of
workplace reform. Liu and Xu (2011), for example, report on the identity conflict
experienced by teachers who, confronted with competing pedagogies and
conflicting identities, are required to shift their identities to reflect a new work
order. Similarly, Lasky (2005) explores the vulnerability that can result when
externally generated reforms conflict with core elements of teachers’ professional
identity.

The negotiated construction of identity

Wenger (1998) also investigates identity formation in terms of the negotiation of
meanings that matter within a social configuration. Meanings compete “for the
definition of certain events, actions, or artifacts” (Wenger, 1998, p. 199). However,
if negotiability over meanings is absent an identity of non-participation and margin-
ality can result; the individual’s experience “becomes irrelevant because it cannot
be asserted and recognized as a form of competence” (Wenger, 1998, p. 203).
Negotiation over the meanings that matter lies at the heart of becoming a
teacher, as underscored by Britzman’s (2003) assertion that “learning to teach is a
social process of negotiation rather than an individual problem of behavior”
(p. 31). Acknowledging the possibility of negotiation implies that identity
construction is a dynamic process. This view of identity draws attention to the role
of agency, which describes the capacity of people “to do things which affect the
social relationships in which they are embedded” (Layder, 2006, p. 4). Within van
Langenhove and Harre’s (1999) framework, the exercise of agency can occur
through second order positioning, in which first order positioning is questioned
and becomes subject to negotiation. The capacity to exercise agency is crucial to
teacher identity because, Danielewicz (2001) points out, teachers “need to feel
capable of action” (p. 163). Indeed, it is a mixture of self and subject matter
knowledge that keeps individuals invested in teaching (Danielewicz, 2001).

28984.indb 49 24/09/2014 09:41

 50 John Trent
A comprehensive understanding of identity construction must also account for
the limits to teacher agency. As Beauchamp and Thomas (2011) maintain, “a
teacher’s experience can be one of not only active construction of an identity, but
also of an imposed identity stemming from societal or cultural conceptions of
teachers” (p. 7). Clarke (2008) makes a similar point in arguing that teachers, in
crafting their identities, “are not creating something out of nothing” (p. 92).
Rather, their identity work occurs in relation to preexisting global and local
discourses that shape the meanings of teacher and teaching. Conceptualizing the
construction of identity as the interplay of such constraint and enablement is
shown in Figure 4.1 by the arrow linking discourse and agency. This interplay of
agency and structure implies that teachers are engaged in the continual “fash-
ioning and refashioning of identities” (Miller Marsh, 2003, p. 8).

The contested construction of identity

Although Wenger’s (1998) description of identity as negotiated recognizes the
role conflict can play within communities, his framework has been criticized for
providing a “benign model” (Barton and Tusting, 2005, p. 10) that fails to
adequately theorize the role of power (Busher et al., 2007).
One theory of discourse that does take such contestation and conflict seriously
is that of Laclau and Mouffe, whose framework is described by Jorgensen and
Phillips (2002). For Laclau and Mouffe (1985), meanings are fluid and discourses
contingent; there is always scope for struggles over what meanings should prevail.
Identity is discursively constituted through chains of equivalence which contain
nodal points of identity, such as “man,” with which particular content comes to be
equated: “strength” and “reason,” for instance. Because a discourse “is always
constituted in relation to what it excludes” (Jorgensen and Philips, 2002, p. 27),
identity is established relationally, meaning that this chain of equivalence is
opposed by other chains, such as that which equates “woman” with “passion.” If
such chains of equivalence imply identities that mutually exclude each other rela-
tions between the identities are characterized by social antagonism. Antagonism
can be overcome through a hegemonic intervention “which by means of force
reconstitutes ambiguity” (Jorgensen and Phillips, 2002, p. 48).
This focus on conflict and contestation has implications for understanding and
investigating teacher identity. First, discourses are powerfully constitutive of
teacher identity as they are ideological, that is, discourses “are historically, cultur-
ally, politically generated patterns of thinking, speaking, acting, and interacting
that are sanctioned by a particular group of people” (Miller Marsh, 2003, p. 7).
Thus, engaging in certain sanctioned language practices shapes teacher identity in
particular ways because associations between language and identity are based
upon cultural understandings that determine which speakers can, and cannot,
produce particular sorts of language.
However, discourses can be hierarchal, implying that participation in one can
be in conflict with one’s membership of another (Danielewicz, 2001). It is at this
intersection of competing discourses that the political character of identity work is

28984.indb 50 24/09/2014 09:41

 A multifaceted, multidimensional framework 51
revealed. As no discourse can be so entrenched that it becomes the only discourse
structuring the social reality, the identities that are constituted are contingent,
meaning that “at a given time, they all take a particular form, but they could have
been – and can become – different” (Jorgensen and Phillips, 2002, p. 37). Because
hegemonic interventions suppress alternative interpretations of social reality a
critical approach to the investigation of identity is essential. This implies the need
to problematize practice by “turning a skeptical eye towards assumptions, ideas
that have become ‘naturalized’, notions that are no longer questioned” (Pennycook,
2004, p. 799). Problematizing practice, making visible the constitutive power of
the discourses that shape teacher identity construction, does not seek to supersede
one hegemonic intervention with another but, rather, to conceive of different ways
of becoming and being teachers.

Towards a multidimensional, multifaceted framework

for understanding teacher identity
The framework shown in Figure 4.1 argues that teacher identity should be under-
stood as multidimensional and multifaceted. The framework separates the
construction of identity-in-practice and identity-in-discourse across different
dimensions of social reality so as to avoid dissolving or merging their distinctive
contributions to teacher’s identity work. In doing so, an attempt is made to
acknowledge the complexity of teacher identity construction by avoiding reduc-
tionist arguments that attempt to account for identity work as the result of a
singular process, such as discourse or practice.
While Figure 4.1 reflects this complexity by unpacking and displaying separate
aspects of teacher identity, it is important to recognize that the elements of identity
identified in this diagram are interconnected. Thus, while “discourse” acknowl-
edges the role that beliefs, attitudes, and values play in shaping teacher identity,
the emphasis on agency recognizes that these factors encounter, and are shaped
by, the unique resources, competencies, experiences, and skills through which
individuals interpret the processes of becoming teachers. This duality of identity,
that is, the relationship between the reproduced or socially and culturally defined
aspects of identity and the creative interpretation and modification of these aspects
by unique individuals, is reflected in Figure 4.1 by the connection between
discourse and agency. The different components of identity shown in Figure 4.1,
then, do not function separately or autonomously but, rather, are influenced by
each other. Nevertheless, the nature of this duality is an empirical question, which
is considered in the remainder of this chapter.

Applying the framework: teacher identity

construction in a foreign land
This section explores how the framework which was explained in the previous
section can be applied to understand the identity construction experiences of
teachers. The study described here is a qualitative multiple case study that

28984.indb 51 24/09/2014 09:41

 52 John Trent
considers the identity construction experiences of native-speaking English
teachers (NETs) within Hong Kong schools (Trent, 2012). Eight teachers,
employed in both primary and secondary schools under the Hong Kong
Governments Native English Teacher Scheme, took part in the study. Using
in-depth interviews, I sought to understand the ways in which these teachers
discursively positioned themselves, as well as how they believed they were posi-
tioned by others, as professional language teachers. The remainder of this chapter
reports on the challenges that NETs believe exist to their positioning as “profes-
sional language teachers” and how they respond to identity conflicts that reflect a
disjuncture between the subject positions that they consider are available to them
within Hong Kong schools and their own preferred identity positions.

The study
An important strategy in the promotion of English language learning within many
Asian countries is the hiring of native-speaking English teachers (Jeon and Lee,
2006). A Native English Teacher (NET) scheme was established in Hong Kong in
1998 to provide each public sector school with a native-speaking English teacher.
However, since the inception of the NET scheme questions have been raised about
the contribution of NETs to English language teaching and learning in Hong
Kong. For example, doubts have been raised about how native speakers of English
should be defined and identified (Boyle, 1997; Johnston, 1999; Luk and Lin,
2007), with some local English teachers regarding NETs as a challenge to their
professionalism and questioning their “seriousness” in terms of preparing students
for examinations (Walker, 2001). Attracting and retaining NETs should, however,
be based on an understanding of how NETs experience working in Hong Kong
schools, which is the goal of the study described below.
In 2008, eight teachers, four female and four male, who were employed as
English language teachers in primary and secondary schools under the Hong
Kong Government’s NET scheme, were invited to participate in a study investi-
gating the ways in which these teachers construct their professional identities
within Hong Kong schools. A strategic approach to sampling was adopted in that
I sought to include NETs with different backgrounds, experiences and character-
istics. For example, the eight NETs in the study come from a variety of social,
cultural, educational, and professional backgrounds, with different years of
teaching experience. A balance was also sought amongst NETs teaching at the
primary and secondary school levels, as well as in terms of gender. Sampling
decisions also took into account the role that macro- and microenterprises play in
identity formation. In Hong Kong, a significant influence on what teachers do is
the mandatory mother-tongue education policy which, since 1998, has resulted in
75 percent of government-funded secondary schools using Cantonese as the
medium of instruction (CMI) at the junior secondary level, with the remaining
25 percent adopting English as the medium of instruction (EMI) (Tsui, 2007).
Amongst the four secondary school NETs in this study, two teachers teach in CMI
schools while two teach in EMI schools.

28984.indb 52 24/09/2014 09:41

 A multifaceted, multidimensional framework 53
Semi-structured interviews were conducted to gain an in-depth understanding of
NETs experiences within Hong Kong schools. Interview questions reflected the
belief that social conditions can be investigated at different levels (Fairclough, 2001,
p. 20). At the level of the social institution, participants were asked to describe and
reflect upon language teaching, learning and assessment policies and practices that
functioned within their schools. At the interpersonal level, NETs discussed their
relations with students, colleagues, and school managers. At the intrapersonal level,
NETs recounted their beliefs about how language should be taught and reflected on
the approaches to language teaching they pursued within Hong Kong schools.

Discourse and practice for identity construction

One of the ways in which individuals can discursively position themselves is
through the naming of referential identity categories (Bucholtz and Hall, 2005). For
example, several NETs self-position themselves as “professional language teachers,”
an act of identification which was frequently legitimized through reference to not
only their qualifications but also to teaching experiences that spanned several
different countries. Many NETs went on to differentiate this self-claimed identity
position from other identity positions that they believe are available to them within
Hong Kong schools, such as “traditional teacher” and “teaching about English.”
Practice plays an essential part in the NETs identity work in Hong Kong. The
practices and activities NETS associate with their identities as professional
language teachers were characterized as “real teachers,” who engage in practices
and activities associated with “real teaching,” such as “encouraging classroom
interaction,” “using activities,” and “playing language learning games.” These
identity positions were distinguished, discursively and in practice, from many
local Hong Kong teachers, who they positioned as “traditional teachers,” who
“teach about English,” and who engage in practices such as “exam-based teaching”
and “memorization.” NETs negative evaluation of these identity positions estab-
lishes a hierarch in which “traditional” teaching represents a lower “level” of
teaching and learning than “real” teaching.

Agency and the professional language teacher

Teacher agency is crucial to NETs positioning of themselves as “professional
language teachers.” Many NETs, for instance, reference this identity position in
terms of their capacity to exercise control over the teaching and learning process.
In practice, such agency is reflected in the ability of teachers “to make decisions”
and to “lead the way” within their schools, practices whose association with the
identity “professional language teacher” are taken for granted.

Identities in conflict
NETs negatively evaluate situations which they believed threaten their self-
positioning as “professional language teachers.” Discursively, strong opposition

28984.indb 53 24/09/2014 09:41

 54 John Trent
to adopting a “traditional approach” to teaching occurred through the NETs use of
terms such as “old-fashioned,” “degrading,” “unacceptable,” “retrograde” and
“fraud.” This negative evaluation may reflect the erosion of agency that NETs
associate with “traditional teaching.” Furthermore, NETs emphatically reject any
positioning that conflates the discursively constructed difference they established
between themselves and some local teachers in Hong Kong, maintaining that
NETs “should not be treated as a local teacher” but rather their “particular skills
. . . must be used.”
Several NETs perceive that their self-positioning as “professional language
teachers” is rendered illegitimate by some local English teachers. NETs report, for
instance, that in some cases local teachers evaluate their contribution to language
teaching and learning in Hong Kong using terms such as “not real teaching,” “a
waste of time,” and “nonsense.” NETs strongly reject this perceived illegitimation
by, in turn, dismissing the teaching methods pursued by some local teachers as
“rubbish,” for example.
The identities “real” and “traditional” teachers exist in an antagonistic relation
because it is not possible to be a “real” and a “traditional” teacher simultaneously.
Jorgensen and Phillips (2002) describe relations of identity antagonism in terms
of the “logic of difference” and the “logic of equivalence” (pp. 44–45). The logic
of equivalence uses signifying chains that emphasize equivalence between discur-
sive identities. NETs construct one logic of equivalence around the nodal points
“teaching about English” and “traditional teachers”, which they associate with
some Hong Kong English language teachers. These identity positions are then
filled with meaning using signifiers such as “exam-based,” “content based,”
“memorization,” “old-fashioned,” “teach to the test,” “do past exam papers,”
“check answers,” and “worksheet.”
The NETs self-positioning is also constructed around alternative nodal points,
such as “real English teacher,” which is constituted through chains of equivalence
that include elements such as “activities,” “games,” “exploring how to use the
language,” “songs,” “drama,” and “experimenting.” The mutually exclusive
nature of these two chains of equivalence marks their relationship as antagonistic,
an outcome underscored by NETs descriptions of “traditional teaching” as
“degrading,” “retrograde,” and “a fraud.”

Beyond antagonism
Homi Bhabha (1990) describes “hybridity” as “the fact that when a new situation,
a new alliance formulates itself, it may demand that you should translate your
principles, rethink them, extend them” (p. 216). Establishing a new “alliance”
between different stakeholders within Hong Kong schools could take the form of
a teaching and learning policy team comprised school managers, NETs, and local
English teachers. Such a team should critically reflect on past teaching and
learning practices, learn from shared experiences, and generate plans for future
policies on teaching and learning. The essential goals of this new team must
include formalizing NETs voices in relation to the dominant discourses of

28984.indb 54 24/09/2014 09:41

 A multifaceted, multidimensional framework 55
language teaching and learning within Hong Kong schools, allowing NETs to
engage in legitimate and legitimating access to practice which validates their
competencies, and providing them with opportunities to negotiate and share in the
ownership of meanings of teaching and learning within schools.
However, this new alliance should be built upon a critical consciousness that
creates opportunities for different stakeholders – NETs, local English language
teachers, and school authorities – to develop alternative ways of seeing teaching
and learning in Hong Kong. For example, the team could represent a teacher
support group in which local teachers and NETs reconsider their views about the
nature of teaching and learning in Hong Kong schools. This might involve peer
observations and team teaching between NETs and local teachers, followed by
critical reflection on incidents that direct attention to the strength of local teacher’s
contributions to student learning, for example. Recordings of spoken interaction
between NETs, local teachers, and students, both inside and outside the class-
room, could also be used to foster this critical consciousness by exposing the
ways in which linguistic practices in Hong Kong schools position all teachers in
particular ways.
Such critical reflection could provide learning opportunities for all teachers as
it might allow NETs and local teachers to challenge their positioning by dominant
discourses, including that which perpetuates hierarchical dualisms between
“traditional” and “professional” teachers and teaching. As Davies (2000) puts it,
“individuals who understand the processes through which they are made subject
are better positioned to resist particular forms of subjectivity” (p. 161).

Implications for teacher education

Growing recognition of the significance of professional identity for becoming and
being a teacher has resulted in calls for teacher identity to assume a prominent role
within teacher education worldwide (Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009; Miller,
2009; Olsen, 2011). Nevertheless, Beauchamp and Thomas (2009) question the
extent to which this awareness has influenced the design and implementation of
teacher education programs, noting that making “attention to identity more overt
may be a challenge” (p. 185). To meet this challenge, Beauchamp and Thomas
(2009) advocate enhanced opportunities for individually designed pathways
through teacher education that allow for “deep consideration of the self in relation
to educational contexts” (pp. 185–186) as well as the expansion of school-based
teacher education programs. Olsen (2011) encourages beginning career teachers
to construct autobiographies in order to reveal and consciously engage his or her
conceptions of teachers and teaching with peers, mentors, and the educational
values and practices of their teacher education program.
The theoretical framework for investigating teacher identity described in this
chapter implies that these and other proposals to shift teacher identity to the fore-
front of teacher education must also adopt a critical perspective. In particular,
exposing, deconstructing, and reconstructing relations of power that position
teachers in particular ways should be an essential element of critical teacher

28984.indb 55 24/09/2014 09:41

 56 John Trent
identity work. For example, teacher education must incorporate within any deep
considerations of the self and autobiographical accounts a view of the relations of
power that underpin teacher positioning as problematic and contestable.
Pennycook (2004), for instance, refers to the need for “problematizing practice,”
which involves “turning a skeptical eye towards assumptions, ideas that have
become naturalized, notions that are no longer questioned” (p. 799). Adopting this
critical perspective ensures that the potential of focusing on teacher identity within
teacher education is not merely “a way to better understand and support actual
novices learning to teach in actual contexts” (Olsen, 2011, p. 269) but, rather,
offers a critique of teacher positioning as well as possibilities for all teachers to
construct and reconstruct their professional identities.

Conclusion
The framework for understanding and investigating teacher identity proposed in
this chapter argues that both spatiality and temporality are significant considera-
tions in understandings of how teachers construct professional identities within
educational settings worldwide. A significant element in this research agenda,
then, is the need for contextualized, longitudinal investigations that reveal the
ways in which agency and structure interact to both constrain and enable teachers’
identity work over time in specific settings. Combined with a strong critical
element, such research is essential to realizing the promise of teacher identity as
means “to prepare new teachers for the challenges of developing strong profes-
sional identities in positive ways” (Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009, p. 186).

References
Alsup, J. (2006). Teacher Identity Discourses. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Barton, D. and Tusting, K. (2005). Introduction. In D. Barton and K. Tusting (Eds), Beyond
Communities of Practice. Language Power, and Social Context (pp. 1–13). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Beauchamp, C., and Thomas, L. (2009). Understanding teacher identity: An overview
of issues in the literature and implications for teacher education. Cambridge Journal of
Education, 39, 175–189.
Beauchamp, C. and Thomas, L. (2011). New teachers’ identity shifts at the boundary of
teacher education and initial practice. International Journal of Educational Research,
50, 6–13.
Beijaard, D., Meijer, P., and Verloop, N. (2004). Reconsidering research on teachers’
professional identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 107–128.
Bhabha, H. (1990). The third space. Interview with Homi Bhabha. In J. Rutherford (Ed.),
Identity.Community, Culture, Difference (pp. 207-–221). London: Lawrence and
Wishart.
Boyle, J. (1997). Native-speaker teachers of English in Hong Kong. Language and
Education, 11, 163–181.
Britzman, D. (2003). Practice Makes Practice. A Critical Study of Learning to Teach. New
York: State University of New York Press.

28984.indb 56 24/09/2014 09:41

 A multifaceted, multidimensional framework 57
Bucholtz, M. and Hall, K. (2005). Identity and interaction: A sociocultural linguistic
approach. Discourse Studies, 7, 585–614.
Busher, H., Hammersley-Fletcher, L. and and Turner, C. (2007). Making sense of middle
leadership: Community, power and practice. School Leadership and Management,
27(5), 405–422.
Clarke, M. (2008). Language Teacher Identities: Co-Constructing Discourse and Commu-
nity. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Cohen, J. (2010). Getting recognized: Teachers negotiating professional identities as
learners through talk. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26, 473–481.
Danielewicz, J. (2001). Teaching Selves. Identity, Pedagogy, and Teacher Education.
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Davies, B. (2000). A Body of Writing 1990–1999. Walnut Creek, CA: AltraMira Press.
Day, C. (2011). Uncertain professional identities: Managing the emotional contexts of
teaching. In C. Day and J. Lee (Eds), New Understandings of Teacher’s Work. Emotions
and Educational Change (pp. 45–64). Dordrecht: Springer.
Day, C., and Lee, J. (Eds) (2011). New Understandings of Teacher’s Work. Emotions and
Educational Change. Dordrecht: Springer.
den Brok, P., van der Want, A., Beijaard, D., and Wubbels, T. (2013). The interpersonal
dimension in the classroom: A model of teachers’ interpersonal role identity, appraisal
and teacher–student relationships. Advances in Research on Teaching, 18, 141–159.
Fairclough, N. (2001). Language and Power (2nd edn). Harlow, Essex: Pearson Educa-
tional Limited.
Fairclough, N. (2003). Analysing Discourse. Textual Analysis for Social Research. London:
Routledge.
Jeon, M., and Lee, J. (2006). Hiring native-speaking English teachers in East Asian
countries. English Today, 22, 53–58.
Johnston, B. (1999). The expatriate teacher as postmodern paladin. Research in the
Teaching of English, 3, 255–280.
Jorgensen, M., and Phillips, L. (2002). Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method. London:
SAGE.
Kubanyiova, M. (2009). Possible selves in language teacher development. In Z. Dornyei
and E. Ushioda (Eds), Motivation, Language Identity and the L2 Self (pp. 314–332).
Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Laclau, E. and Mouffe, C. (1985). Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical
Democratic Politics. London: Verso.
Lasky, S. (2005). A sociocultural approach to understanding teacher identity, agency and
professional vulnerability in a context of secondary school reform. Teaching and
Teacher Education, 21(8), 899–916.
Layder, D. (2006). Understanding Social Theory. London: SAGE.
Liu, Y., and Xu, Y. (2011). The trajectory in a teacher community of practice: A narrative
inquiry of a language teacher’s identity in the workplace. Research Papers in Education,
28(2), 176–195.
Luk, J., and Lin, A. (2007). Classroom Interaction as Cross-cultural Encounters. Native
Speakers in EFL Lessons. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Miller, J. (2009). Teacher identity. In A. Burns and J. Richards (Eds), The Cambridge
Guide to Second Language Teacher Education (pp. 172–181). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Miller Marsh, M. (2003). The Social Fashioning of Teacher Identities. New York: Peter
Lang.

28984.indb 57 24/09/2014 09:41

 58 John Trent
Morgan, B., and Clarke, M. (2011). Identity in second language teaching and learning. In
E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning
(pp. 817–836). New York: Routledge.
Olsen, B. (2011). “I am large, I contain multitudes”. Teacher identity as a useful frame for
research, practice, and diversity in teacher education. In A. Ball and C. Tyson (Eds),
Studying Diversity in Teacher Education (pp. 267–273). Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield
Publishers.
Pavlenko, A. (2003). “I never knew I was bilingual”: Reimagining teacher identities in
TESOL. Journal of Language, Identity and Education, 2, 251–268.
Pavlenko, A., and Norton, B. (2007). Imagined communities, identity, and English
language learning. In J. Cummins and C. Davison (Eds), International Handbook of
English Language Teaching (pp. 669–680). New York: Springer.
Pennycook, A. (2004). Critical applied linguistics. In A. Davies and C. Elder (Eds), The
Handbook of Applied Linguistics (pp. 784–807). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Sachs, J. (2005). Teacher education and the development of professional identity: Learning
to be a teacher. In P. Denicolo and M. Kompf (Eds), Connecting Policy and Practice:
Challenges for Teaching and Learning in Schools and Universities (pp. 5–21). London:
Routledge.
Trent, J. (2012). The discursive construction of teacher identity: The experience of NETs
in Hong Kong schools. TESOL Quarterly, 46(1), 104–126.
Tsui, A. (2007). Complexities of identity formation: A narrative inquiry of an EFL teacher.
TESOL Quarterly, 41, 657–680.
van Langenhove, L., and Harre, R. (1999). Introducing positioning theory. In R. Harre and
L. van Langenhove (Eds), Positioning Theory (pp. 14–31). Oxford: Blackwell.
Varghese, M., Morgan, B., Johnston, B., and Johnson, K. (2005). Theorizing language
teacher identity: Three perspectives and beyond. Journal of Language, Identity, and
Education, 4, 21–44.
Walker, E. (2001). Roles of native-speaker English teachers (NETs) in Hong Kong
secondary schools. Asia Pacific Journal of Language in Education, 4, 51–77.
Weedon, C. (1997). Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory (2nd edn). London:
Blackwell.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice. Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Zembylas, M. (2005). Discursive practices, genealogies, and emotional rules: A poststruc-
turalist view on emotion and identity in teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21,
935–948.

28984.indb 58 24/09/2014 09:41

 Part II

Negotiations and reflexivity

28984.indb 59 24/09/2014 09:41

28984.indb 60 24/09/2014 09:41
 5 Identity negotiations of TEFL
teachers during a time of
uncertainty and redundancy
Fatosh Eren Bilgen and Keith Richards

Introduction
Teacher identity has attracted increasing attention in applied linguistics and the
significant role of identity in teacher development is widely recognized (Beauchamp
and Thomas, 2009; Freese, 2006; Olsen, 2008). However, most studies focus on
the development of student teacher identities and negotiation of teacher identities
in the mid-career lives of teachers remains an under-researched area. Exploring
how teachers deal with identity negotiations and challenges that they encounter in
their professional lives provides a valuable opportunity for understanding the
complex relationship between context and identity, which makes it deserving of at
least as much attention. This chapter, drawing on narrative interviews with two
teachers who faced mid-career redundancy at a higher education institution in
Northern Cyprus, will examine the ways in which professional changes impacted
on the personal and professional identities of the teachers involved.
The chapter begins with a brief discussion of teacher identity before moving on
to consider the research approach adopted in the chapter, narrative inquiry.
Following a short description of the relevant professional setting, constructed
from teacher narratives, the core of the chapter is the representation of the experi-
ences of two teachers affected by redundancy in their organization. Our focus is
specifically on the impact of this on their personal and professional identities, the
broader implications of which are considered in a closing discussion.

Teacher identity in difficult times

Our identities are continuously reconstructed as part of a life-long process of
negotiation in response to changes in our immediate contexts, our relationships
with others and our personal circumstances, as we attempt to make sense of who
we are. There is now widespread recognition that identity is not something that
is stable and unitary, but that, as Craib (1998, p. 2) puts it, the self represents a
lifetime project in which “[w]e are constantly constructing and revising our
personal stories and so reconstructing ourselves.” Varghese et al. (2005) sum up
recent shifts of perspective very succinctly in noting that structurally deterministic
views have given way to approaches that seek to understand individuals as
intentional beings. It is from this perspective that the present study works.

28984.indb 61 24/09/2014 09:41

 62 Fatosh Eren Bilgen and Keith Richards
While distinctions between self and identity are possible and the latter is clearly
more appropriate in research contexts where, for example, the spotlight falls on
the ways in which identities are talked into being, for the purposes of contextual-
izing our study we have chosen not to draw hard and fast boundaries between the
two. We have also chosen to focus on aspects of professional identity (e.g.
Beijaard et al., 2004), while recognizing that this is embedded within a broader
socio-historical context. Identity is an organizing element for teachers” profes-
sional lives and a source that they use to understand, explain, and validate who
they are in relation to others (MacLure, 1993), and the narratives they create are
themselves part of the process of identity formation (Connelly and Clandinin,
1990). It is through the representation of experience in narrative that we seek to
understand the experience of redundancy.
In our discussion of the narrative presented in this chapter, we will make
reference to the distinction in self-discrepancy theory between the actual self, a
representation of the attributes that you (or another) believe yourself to possess,
the ideal self, which reflects the attributes you or another would ideally like you to
possess, and the ought self, relating to the attributes you ought to possess (e.g.
Higgins, 1987). When an individual’s self-concept of his/her actual self is in
conflict with the ideal self, this creates a discrepancy and may cause emotional
vulnerabilities. In such instances, individuals tend to use self-regulatory coping
strategies to minimize the discrepancy (Barreto and Frazier, 2012); however,
these strategies need to be supported by their situated social and institutional
contexts. The prominent role of context in fulfilling ideal selves and minimizing
discrepancies have been emphasized by many (for a recent discussion see Barreto
and Frazier, 2012). As the lived experience of redundancy has the potential to
trigger discrepancies and conflicts between selves, we will draw on it, rather
loosely, in order to highlight the ways in which negative experiences, such as
redundancy, might impact on professional identities and alignments.
One of the challenges experienced by teachers in higher education institutions
in the context of global economic insecurity is that of dealing with economic hard-
ship and redundancy, a “potential source of unacknowledged grief” (Vickers
2009, p. 401). The lack of funding due to changes in government policies and the
consequent redundancies experienced in HE institutions has become a widely
debated topic, but the research spotlight has been directed to how many people are
made redundant, the costs related to redundancy and how this affects the economy
– the impact of redundancy on teachers’ lives and identities remains an unex-
plored area. In what follows we use narrative inquiry in order to explore these
dimensions through the experiences of TEFL teachers forced to deal with funda-
mental changes in their personal and professional lives brought about by unex-
pected redundancy.

Narrative inquiry
The narrative turn in the human sciences (e.g. Barkhuizen, 2011; Gubrium and
Holstein, 2009; Johnson and Golombek, 2011; Polkinghorne, 1988) has seen

28984.indb 62 24/09/2014 09:41

 Identity negotiations of TEFL teachers 63
increasing recognition of the extent to which, as Clandinin and Connelly put it
(2000, p. 19), “experience happens narratively” and “life is not how it was but
how it is interpreted and re-interpreted, told and re-told”;. As Sandelowski (1991)
has noted, such stories reflect a coherence rather than a correspondence theory of
truth, and that in telling them the narrator strives for “narrative probability”
deriving from the extent to which they are coherent, consistent with other stories,
and representationally appealing. In responding to them, both teller and researcher
seek not to identify “truth” but to understand how the experiences constructed
through their telling are endowed with meaning and significance. In so doing, they
also need to acknowledge their own subjectivities (Webster and Mertova, 2007,
p. 4), the aspects of their own personalities, experiences, beliefs, etc. that bear on
the construction and interpretation of their tellings.
The relevance of narrative inquiry to teachers’worlds (Johnson and Golombek,
2002) and communities (Thomas, 1995) is well-established and, as Bathmaker
(2010) has noted, identity and narrative are intertwined, making this form of data
collection particularly appropriate for the present study. Other researchers (e.g.
Frank, 2000; Smith and Squire, 2007) have pointed to the importance of listening
to teachers’ stories about difficult and challenging experiences as these experi-
ences tend to play a significant role in identity negotiations. The process of
narrative development, though, is complex and dynamic, and what might be
represented in linear terms is constructed through the interplay of present and past
perspectives, positionings and understandings, requiring of the researcher sensi-
tivity to the ways in which the unfolding story is being constructed and to the
researcher-interviewer’s own part in this process (Roulston, 2010; Mann, 2011).
These aspects were borne in mind throughout the data collection and analysis
process, which was approached reflexively, with due sensitivity to aspects of
co-construction, researcher positioning, and the interrelationship between data
generation and interpretation. Data collection was undertaken by the first author,
a native of Northern Cyprus, and interviewees were allowed to select their
preferred language, either English or Turkish. Interviews were transcribed and
analyzed in the chosen language but where necessary have been translated for the
purposes of representation. The researcher also kept a reflective research diary
throughout the process and pilot interviews were transcribed and critiqued by both
researchers in order to improve technique and identify potential challenges.
Preliminary narrative interviews with five teachers focusing on their life experi-
ences were conducted in December 2009. The redundancies which are the focus
of this chapter took place in 2010, then in December 2010 these five teachers and
a further five were interviewed at length with the aim of placing the redundancy
experience within the context of the life story. Follow-up interviews were held
with the teachers in April 2011. All participants were allowed to choose a venue
for the interview that suited them and the ethical guidelines of the British
Educational Research Association (BERA, 2011) were followed throughout the
research process: participants’ rights were properly respected, written consent
was obtained for the procedures adopted and every effort was made to ensure
confidentiality and anonymity (all names in this chapter are pseudonyms).

28984.indb 63 24/09/2014 09:41

 64 Fatosh Eren Bilgen and Keith Richards
Data analysis involved multilayered, rigorous and reflexive stages beginning with
repeated listening leading to the development of pictorial representations (Slone,
2009) for each teacher designed to represent key events and the relationships among
them. Further listening allowed details of stories within stories – that is narrative
segments including a shorter story within the big story – to be fleshed out. In the
second stage of the analysis, interviews were transcribed verbatim in order to keep
the narrative intact (Riessman, 2008) and further coding following Richards (2003)
was undertaken. The final interpretive stage involved consideration of interactional
and contextual factors, which called for close attention to notes on informal meetings
and discussions with other teachers who were not active participants in the study.

Setting
In this section we draw on teachers’ observations to develop a brief sketch of the
English Preparatory School, a long-established department within a university in
Northern Cyprus employing over 150 teachers. Most students spend a year in the
School studying English intensively before moving to their academic departments
and within the local English Language Teaching (ELT) community the School
itself is regarded as something of an elite institution offering opportunities for
professional advancement not available elsewhere in the system.
The School was organized on the basis of a number of small teams (e.g.
teaching, curriculum, testing) comprising 15–16 members and a team leader.
Membership and roles rotated every academic term in order to give everyone an
opportunity to be part of different teams and teams collaborated closely – an
arrangement that minimizes the likelihood of balkanization (Hargreaves, 1994,
pp. 212–240). It also encouraged the development of a community of practice
(Lave and Wenger, 1991) characterized by a collaborative orientation, a pro-
active outlook and a commitment to professional development:

we have a very dynamic environment at this university, we constantly renew

ourselves and follow the new trends, we have to be open to change and devel-
opment and we are all open-minded people.
(Cigdem)

The high point for these teachers was their hosting of an IATEFL Testing SIG,
when they were able to share with the wider professional community their enthu-
siasm and commitment. Shortly after this, however, there was a subtle change in
the approach adopted by senior management away from the encouragement of
bottom-up initiatives and peer evaluation, and toward a more directive culture in
which formal observations and assessment played an important role. It was from
this context that the first rumors of redundancy surfaced, leading to the emergence
of new groupings and shifting interpersonal dynamics:

In the past everything was better, the relationships were much friendlier . . .
we started to see a more stressful environment, there are rumors that they will

28984.indb 64 24/09/2014 09:41

 Identity negotiations of TEFL teachers 65
make people redundant . . . in offices people started forming groups and
gossiping.
(Ebru)

Our focus is on the impact that the subsequent redundancies had on the identi-
ties of teachers in the School rather than on the professional culture itself, but it is
nevertheless worth noting that redundancy rarely comes as a bolt from the blue
and that in this case the collaborative professional orientation of these teachers
had already to some extent been undermined by changes in the organizational
culture. The divisive effects of this are evident in a comment from another teacher:

maybe it’s not a good way to say it but I don’t really think that they were very
good at immm in their performance in teaching or they were not really willing
to teach anyway, but because they knew some people around . . . in a way . . .
they found a way and they got this job . . . it was very stressful for us.
(Leman)

Having established this broader context, we now turn to the effects of redundan-
cies themselves. For reasons of space, the following sections focus on just two
teachers, representing different aspects of identity shift and positioning in the
context of the redundancy experience.

Ebru
Ebru’s response seems to have been strongly influenced by the way she constructs
her identity as a teacher. Her interview, which took place at her house, gives some
clue as to why this might be. Bringing her identities as a mother and a Turkish
Cypriot woman to the fore, she invited the interviewer to sit in the kitchen while
she made coffee and reflected on her story as a teacher who experienced redun-
dancy. While her daughter was helping her to put the cakes on plates, she proudly
described how they had baked the cakes together and over a number of coffees
explained that being a teacher was a dream come true. She could still clearly
picture the day of her graduation as a symbol of becoming a fully qualified English
language teacher: “I vividly remember that day . . . throwing the cap into the air
. . . [laugh] . . . we were the first graduates of the ELT department . . . it was such
a wonderful day [laugh]”.
As a proud graduate of the same university, Ebru started working as a part-time
instructor at the EPS and in 2003 finally became a full-time instructor. She
considered working at the School as an invaluable experience and, like other
participants, emphasized the professional development courses that instructors
had to complete in addition to their full-time teaching responsibilities. Ebru
stressed how these courses helped her to build her confidence in the classroom
and in her linguistic abilities, constructing the experience not as an individual
matter but as a collaborative (“we”) achievement. In describing it as a “wonderful
experience that I believe I will not be able to live anywhere else, ever again in my

28984.indb 65 24/09/2014 09:41

 66 Fatosh Eren Bilgen and Keith Richards
life because teaching at the EPS was unique”, she also constructs it as a distinct
and definitively complete episode in her life story.
More significantly, becoming a full-time instructor coincided with the birth of
her daughter, events which she sees as intimately intertwined:

In 2003 I gave birth to my daughter, you know they say each child comes
with her luck and fortune [kısmet], that year I also became full-time . . . it’s
been ten years . . . they have been growing together [laugh], I became more
experienced and was really comfortable in class . . . my daughter was also
getting older, she started school, I was going back and forth between the
nursery, home and work all day so life was really really busy but very good.

Ebru’s use of the word kısmet not only expresses her belief that her daughter’s
birth helped her become a full-time and permanent member of the EPS commu-
nity but establishes a connection between the associated identities (mother and
teacher) that is reflected in her approach to teaching:

After being a mum, how you see your students also changes, you feel more
mature and in control and you also want to take care of them more . . . pastoral
care becomes part of your role more . . . and you feel more like their teacher
rather than their equal.

Because Ebru’s identity as a mother played a role in her perception of herself as a

teacher, redundancy represented a threat not only to her professional and financial
status but to her sense of self-worth: “I am no use to myself or to my family, what
am I doing.” For her, being an administrative assistant (memur) on campus
entailed no commitment to the larger community and her sense of betrayal has led
her to the rejection of the EPS and a strong sense of closure:

I will never go back there if they call me back . . . because they kicked people
out without thinking, because I started last, they just said bye. This is not
logical, I know teachers who are still teaching there, but do not deserve to be
there . . . we worked hard but they kicked us out
For me teaching at this university was very enjoyable . . . it was something
I experienced and it’s over and I don’t think I will experience something like
this again in my life.

To some extent this rejection might be explained by the unusual circumstances

surrounding Ebru’s redundancy. Although Ebru had been working at the EPS for
11 years, she had been a full-time instructor for only seven years, and when the
decision was made to use the “last come, first go” criterion, drawing the line
between instructors who joined the EPS before 2003 and after 2003, Ebru’s years
of work as a part-time instructor were not taken into consideration. As a result, her
contract was terminated along with those of other “new teachers”, a decision that
seems still to cause her pain. Ebru confessed later in her narrative that on receiving

28984.indb 66 24/09/2014 09:41

 Identity negotiations of TEFL teachers 67
the news she tried to hide her pain (“I did not want to make it obvious, I did
not want others to see it . . . I probably seemed ok from outside and at the very
beginning I appeared to be fine”).
Although Ebru “never thought of doing something else” other than teaching
English, because of her family commitments she was one of the first instructors to
accept an administrative position. In Northern Cyprus it is unusual for an instructor
to change her career from teaching to an administrative job and in such a small
country social pressures and what others think play an important role in people’s
lives. This might help explain her apparently paradoxical insistence on her teacher
identity when accepting an administrative post (and subsequently becoming a
shop owner), though the intertwining of her teacher identity with that of mother
might also have made it difficult to simply set aside the former. In fact, she is quite
explicit about her inability to do this: “I can’t give up and I don’t want to give up
because I studied this, to be a teacher, I received my education on this, I invested
my years [pause] so I can’t give up this”.
The identity conflict engendered by the change of job is evident in her descrip-
tion of it and her response to it, as well as her insistence that this is merely a
temporary arrangement:

a job I did not know, a job that I never dreamt of doing, if you think about it
. . . Nightmare! I wanted to pull my hair and say what am I doing here? . . . that
day I sat in front of the computer and I wanted to shout WHAT AM I DOING
HERE, WHAT AM I DOING HERE that day and 3 more months were like
that, WHAT AM I DOING, I still question myself, what am I doing in this
office, what am I doing here? I am no use to myself or to my family, what am
I doing? . . . I didn’t and I will probably never adapt or get used to it because I
am still a teacher and I cannot accept that job, the job that I do now . . . I abso-
lutely do not see myself as an administrative assistant, I still see myself as a
teacher and I am certain that it will happen in the future, I will do my job again,
I am hundred percent sure about this, the only thing that I am certain.

Ebru’s rejection of the institution and acceptance of a non-teaching post has not
compromised her sense of identity as a language teacher. Although at first the
conflict between perceived identity and actual practice produced the sense of diso-
rientation and dislocation evident in the above passage, sustaining her teacher
identity through the crisis of redundancy is central to her sense of well-being. The
springs of our next teacher’s route into the profession, however, are very different
and her decision to move to a government school, a shift which on the surface
would seem to be unproblematic in terms of preserving her teacher identity,
exposed a complex picture in which institutional association plays a key part.

Burcu
Burcu was the only teacher at the time of the first interview who mentioned
that she was considering looking for another job, and by the time of the second

28984.indb 67 24/09/2014 09:41

 68 Fatosh Eren Bilgen and Keith Richards
interview she had been working at a government school for a couple of months.
But this was not the only thing that distinguished her from the other teachers in
this study; unlike them, she had never wanted to be a teacher and her entry into the
profession had little to do with a desire to educate:

I didn’t really know what I wanted but I knew what I did not want because I
hated teaching . . . because of the clichés and beliefs related to teaching . . . it
is a woman’s job, people kept telling me it’s the ideal job for a woman, you’ll
have 3 months summer holiday, it has lots of advantages . . . I hated all these
comments . . . but in the literature department we read many books, novels
and the richness of the language and ideas changed my vision and I started
to love English . . . I guess this is one reason that helped me to enter this
profession, the other is I did not really had another option in Cyprus but I also
fell in love with English and I wanted it to become and stay a part of my life.
as a person I am an open minded person and I want to improve myself all the
time, I think all these affected my decision to become an English language
teacher.

Throughout her narrative Burcu tried to present herself as an independent and

open-minded woman who wanted to travel the world and learn about different
cultures. Burcu’s perception of her ideal self seemed to be in conflict with the idea
of being a teacher, which in Cyprus, as in some other contexts, is often dismissed
as “women’s work”. She saw herself as an open-minded person and “different
than other Cypriots” (who are represented in her narrative as “they”) in her desire
to expand her ambitions beyond the local: “they want to have just enough not
more . . . because of living in a small place or being pleased with small things and
not having big ambitions in life”.
Burcu seemed to see learning English in terms of mastering an international
language that would allow her to connect to the international world, a relationship
of which Turkish Cypriots feel deprived because of the Cyprus problem. It
was from this that her decision to become a teacher emerged, though her five
years of teaching in the private secondary school that belonged to the same
university were not happy ones and left her unsure of the professional direction
she had chosen:

after the secondary school, I was unsure if I wanted to teach ever again, I
disliked it so much that I was ready to start thinking about other options, but
I had to find a job quickly because I needed the money. So, I started there
[EPS] with these ideas and worries.

Burcu’s experience of teaching at the EPS was transformative, though there are
clear indications in her narrative of a slightly uncomfortable recognition that part
of her satisfaction derives from an implicit elitism and an intellectual orientation
that connect with her broader ambitions:

28984.indb 68 24/09/2014 09:41

 Identity negotiations of TEFL teachers 69
My teaching experience at the EPS was unexpectedly, unbelievably good . . .
That was the time I realized that I actually like teaching . . . I realized, it was
not teaching that I hated, it was that other place.
This is the best university on the island, maybe the student profile is the
same as the others but the university, the work environment and most impor-
tantly the quality of education is better than the others, maybe it is not right to
think this way, but that’s what I think, maybe the situation hasn’t been that
good recently, but still it is intellectually richer than others that’s why I feel
so devoted.

Unlike Ebru, who lost her job because of redundancy, Burcu changed her job
before the redundancies were announced. Although this is an exercise of personal
agency, she does not construct it in this way in her narrative, as the extracts below
reveal. In stark contrast to her representation of herself at the beginning of the
interview as a confident and ambitious individual, here she portrays herself as
powerless in the face of external forces representing a serious threat to her finan-
cial independence. The sadness in her voice was almost tangible and the emphatic
repetition of “had to” underlined her sense of powerlessness. Her reference to
being torn in two reflects her recognition of the impossibility of reconciling two
different professional identities: the developing professional at a cutting edge
institution and the time-serving practitioner left to “rust” among “others” in ordi-
nary schools. Throughout her narrative she represented the negotiation as one
between opposing points such as security (the government job) and insecurity (the
EPS), dissatisfaction (the government job) and satisfaction (the EPS), and her
ideal self (as an EPS teacher) and her actual self (as a government teacher):

I could not afford to be unemployed, I bought a house, had to pay the mort-
gage and did not have any savings . . . even the idea of it made me really
stressed
I didn’t want to be a government teacher you know, that meant the end of
my professional development, I knew I would rust among the others, you can
resist it for some time, but then you give in, after they called me, those were
the worst three days of my life. Because I was in conflict with myself, should
I go, should I not go but it is a permanent government job, what if the rumors
and gossips are accurate, what if the university gets rid of people . . .
I felt like I was torn apart . . . like they cut me into two pieces, it physically
hurt, I put the phone down and started crying. On one side a secure job, secure
salary, on the other side the university, the EPS. I couldn’t bear the thought
of sitting at home without a job, maybe I could give private lessons but
how much can that bring? I HAD to go. I had to. Then I went to my office and
told my colleagues and sat and cried with them for hours, it was a horrible
day.

Having made the decision, Burcu resigned from the EPS and started teaching at a
government school in a village requiring two-hour daily commute. She likens the

28984.indb 69 24/09/2014 09:41

 70 Fatosh Eren Bilgen and Keith Richards
experience to death, either of self or a loved one, something which cannot be
avoided and must be accepted:

I tried to keep a straight face and not make people realize how terrible I was
feeling, I forced myself not to cry, but when I went into the car to drive back
home . . . you know, I couldn’t see the road because of the tears in my eyes, . . .
it was like I died inside . . . it was painful, then I had to accept it like when your
father or mother passes away, you have to accept, you don’t have a choice.

Interestingly, the bifurcation of identity identified earlier allows Burcu to “die” as

a government teacher while at the same time preserving professional “life”
through holding on to her identity as an EPS teacher. The validation of this in the
form of acceptance onto a Spanish course allows her to configure her situation as
one in which she is merely “on sabbatical” from the university, while the use of
this academic description (as opposed to “on leave”, for example) positions her
firmly within the intellectual community that featured in her ambitions as a
student:

I chose the torture of being a government teacher . . . but you know I am not
a government teacher, I don’t see myself like that . . . I am hopeful, I am not
going to be like that, I will do something, a course, a masters, something,
somehow I will manage it . . . still I can’t distance or detach myself from the
university, for example they organized a Spanish class for EPS teachers in
the evening, and I went and nearly begged them to allow me to join, I was
saying you know I am also an EPS teacher and they accepted it, so I go to that
course, so I see myself as an EPS teacher on sabbatical, but working in the
government.

For both teachers considered so far, “letting go” of what they see as their primary
professional identity has been fiercely resisted. For Burcu this has meant fighting
to preserve her identity as an EPS teacher, while Ebru has been prepared to let this
go while clinging tightly to her identity as a teacher even though she is no longer
teaching.

Discussion
There are some striking differences between these teachers in terms of profes-
sional identity. It would seem, for example, that while Ebru’s teacher identity is
embedded within the person, while Burcu’s is located within the institution, itself
a powerful player in these narratives. While Ebru rejects it because of a deep sense
of betrayal, it is central to Burcu’s sense of professional self. Burcu has to work
for what she regards as the professional legitimacy conferred by membership of
the institution, “begging” to be admitted to a Spanish course in order to preserve
the identity on which her sense of professional self-worth would seem to depend
(Wenger,1998).

28984.indb 70 24/09/2014 09:41

 Identity negotiations of TEFL teachers 71
Perhaps most interesting of all is the relatively small part that the actual self
seems to play in the identity construction evident in these narratives, with the two
teachers concerned to situate their professional identity in a physical and/or
symbolic space separate from the one where they currently earn their living. For
Burcu and Ebru it is the ideal self that seems most salient in their representation
of their current situation. Although Ebru works in administration and the contra-
diction between her actual and ideal selves is stark, it is her identity as a teacher
that she is most insistent upon, refusing to surrender it whatever her current
circumstances. While it may be possible to return to teaching in the future, it
would seem to be the representation of her ideal self as a teacher, based on an
educational investment lasting years that sustains her in these difficult times. For
Burcu, however, the qualities associated with her actual self as a teacher in a
government school seem to be ones that she is concerned to reject, clinging instead
to her academic identity in order to distinguish herself from government teachers.
In her case this also reflects a determination to preserve the ideal self as an inter-
nationally oriented intellectual.

Conclusion
Based on our analysis of the experiences of the two teachers in this study, we
suggest that redundancies result in not only a physical shift from the institutional
context, but also reconfigurations of professional and personal identities. Their
narratives exemplify how negative experiences such as redundancies can have a
major impact on identity shifts and reconstruction, also revealing how redundancy
as a lived experience is perceived differently depending on professional and
personal circumstances and perspectives.
What is most striking about the narratives of the two teachers who left EPS as
a result of the redundancies is the impact of this on their sense of actual self,
reducing this to an identity that is moved backstage to allow for aspects of
the ideal self to be foregrounded, in stark contrast to the situation prior to
redundancy where the actual self takes center stage in the pursuit of professional
excellence. This shift away from the actual self on the part of the others may in
part be a consequence of the dislocation that arises from redundancy, but it also
reflects the difficulties in reorienting professional identities in the face of this
challenge.

References
Barkhuizen, G. (2011). Narrative knowledging in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 45(3),
391–414.
Barreto, M. L. and Frazier, L. D. (2012). Coping with life events through possible selves.
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 42(7), 1785–1810.
Bathmaker, A. (2010). Introduction. In A. Bathmaker and P. Harnett (Eds), Exploring
Learning, Identity and Power through Life History and Narrative Research, pp. 1–10.
London, Routledge.

28984.indb 71 24/09/2014 09:41

 72 Fatosh Eren Bilgen and Keith Richards
Beauchamp, C. and Thomas, L. (2009). Understanding teacher identity: An overview of
issues in the literature and implications for teacher education. Cambridge Journal of
Education, 39(2), 175–189.
Beijaard, D., Meijer, P. C. and Verloop, N. (2004). Reconsidering research on teachers’
professional identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20(1), 107–128.
BERA British Educational Research Association (2011) Ethical Guidelines for Educa-
tional Research. http://content.yudu.com/Library/A1t9gr/BERAEthicalGuideline/
resources/index.htm?referrerUrl=http%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.yudu.com%
25252Fitem%25252Fdetails%25252F375952%25252FBERA-Ethical-Guidelines-2011
(Accessed 30 June 2013.)
Clandinin, J. and Connelly, M. (2000). Narrative Inquiry: Experience and Story in
Qualitative Research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Connelly, M. and Clandinin, J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry.
Educational Researcher, 19(5), 2–14.
Craib, I. (1998). Experiencing Identity. London: Sage.
Frank, A. (2000) Illness and autobiographical work: dialogue as narrative destabilization,
Qualitative Sociology, 23(1), 135–156.
Freese, A. (2006). Reframing one’s teaching: Discovering our teacher selves through
reflection and inquiry. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22, 110–119.
Gubrium, J. F. and Holstein, J. A. (2009). Analyzing Narrative Reality. Los Angeles, CA:
Sage.
Hargreaves, A. (1994). Changing Teachers, Changing Times. London: Cassell.
Higgins, E. T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological
Review, 94(3), 319–340.
Johnson, K. E. and Golombek, P. R. (2002). Teachers’ Narrative Inquiry as Professional
Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Johnson, K. E. and Golombek, P. R. (2011). The transformative power of narrative in
second language teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 45(3), 486–509.
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
MacLure, M. (1993). Arguing for Your Self: Identity as an organising principle in teachers’
jobs and lives. British Educational Research Journal, 19(4), 311–322.
Mann, S. (2011). A critical review of qualitative interviews in applied linguistics. Applied
Linguistics, 32(1), 6–24.
Olsen, B. (2008). Teaching What They Learn, Learning What They Live. Boulder, CO:
Paradigm.
Polkinghorne, D. E. (1988). Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences. New York: State
University of New York.
Richards, K. (2003). Qualitative Inquiry in TESOL. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Riessman, C. (2008). Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
Roulston, K. (2010). Reflective Interviewing: A Guide to Theory and Practice. London:
Sage.
Sandelowski, M. (1991). Telling stories: Narrative approaches in qualitative research.
IMAGE: Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 23(3), 164–165.
Slone, D. J. 2009. Visualizing qualitative information. The Qualitative Report, 3(14),
489–497. http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR14-3/slone.pdf (Accessed 30 June 2013.)
Smith, C. and Squire, F. (2007). Narrative perspectives: two reflections from a continuum
of experience. Reflective Practice, 8(3), 375–386.

28984.indb 72 24/09/2014 09:41

 Identity negotiations of TEFL teachers 73
Thomas, D. (Ed.) (1995). Teachers’ Stories. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Varghese, M., Morgan, B., Johnston, B. and Johnson, K. (2005). Theorizing language
teacher identity: Three perspectives and beyond. Journal of Language, Identity &
Education, 4(1), 21–44.
Vickers, M. H. (2009). Journeys into grief: Exploring redundancy for a new understanding
of workplace grief. Journal of Loss and Trauma, 14(5), 401–419.
Webster, L. and Mertova, P. (2007). Using Narrative Inquiry as a Research Method.
Abingdon: Routledge.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

28984.indb 73 24/09/2014 09:41

 6 What’s in a name?
Power, space and the negotiation
of identities
Tracey Costley

In many educational settings a wide variety of labels are used to identify different
individuals within schools. Labels such as teacher, classroom teacher, classroom
assistant and teaching assistant are just some that have been used in widely over
the last 10–15 years. This is particularly true in the case of state-funded education
in England where the different labels are used to connote different levels of
qualification, training and responsibility. The labels thus construct power-relations
between and across individuals and have implications in terms of who does what,
where and with whom. Of particular interest to this chapter is how teachers work
with/in and between these labels in the course of their day-to-day actions and
interactions within the schools and classrooms of which they are part.
Drawing from ethnographic data collected as a part of a case study of primary
school literacy classes in a South London school I present interview and
observation data to draw attention to the ways in which one focal teacher
positioned herself within the school. I use this data to detail the strategies she
employed to construct and maintain her position and identity within the school.
I show some of the challenges she faced as well as the advantages she was able
to gain. Such an account is particularly useful in terms of understanding how
teachers carve out spaces for themselves within school and classroom settings at
the same time as understanding how teachers operate within the larger structures
of national policy.

Classroom configurations and teacher identities

Much has been written about staffing and the broadening of the personnel base
that has taken place in schools and classrooms in England over the last 25 years
(see Bach et al., 2006; Groom and Rose, 2005; Hancock and Eyres, 2004; Kerry,
2005 for example). Schools, in particular primary schools, have long welcomed
assistance in classrooms which has often taken the form of parents, usually
mothers, volunteering to help out in schools their children attend or other schools
in their local neighborhoods (Groom and Rose, 2005; Hancock and Eyres, 2004;
Kerry, 2005). Over the years, however, this pattern of volunteering has changed
significantly and the range of ways in which classrooms are supported by adults
other than teachers has broadened significantly.

28984.indb 74 24/09/2014 09:41

 What’s in a name? 75
Bach et al. (2006) suggest that workplaces in England, in particular public
services such as schools, have been significantly shaped by discourses of modern-
ization which center on the goals of improving services, in particular improving
the efficiency with which they are delivered (Bach et al., 2006; Hancock and
Eyres, 2004). Bach et al. (2006, pp. 2–3) highlight that the pursuit of these goals
has resulted in a restructuring of the workforce in which there has been a signifi-
cant growth in the “importance and number of assistant roles: jobs filled by less
qualified employees designed to support professional groups.” They go on to say
that within these changes “the most high profile and controversial assistant role
has developed within the school workforce” (2006, pp. 2–3).
A recent report from the Department for Education (DfE) for England captures
these changes in staffing when it states that “the school workforce has seen
substantial increases in the numbers of school support staff employed in recent
years whilst the number of school teachers has remained relatively flat” (DfE,
2012, p. 1). The report carries on to say that “the numbers of FTE [Full-Time
Employed] teaching assistants has increased by almost threefold from 79,000 in
spring 2000 to 219,800 in November 2011 . . . Similarly, the numbers of other
school support staff have increased by over 50,000 between spring 2000 and
November 2011” (DfE, 2012, pp. 1–2).
The increased use of assistants in classrooms has long been a highly politicized
and very public process (Hancock and Eyres, 2004; Kerry, 2005). Much of the
publicity has been as a result of questions around who should be doing what, and
more specifically who is trained to do what. Training has been a key point of
discussion in that to-date there are no mandatory qualifications for teaching assist-
ants – schools and local authorities can set their own requirements for hiring (DfE,
2013). A 2010 report by the DfE stated that “Between a quarter and a fifth of
support staff are qualified up to A/AS Level and more than one in ten have a degree.
Around a tenth have no qualifications” (DfE, 2010, p. 7). The point here is not that
discussions and debates have highlighted an inherent problem in a school’s work-
force being made up of individuals with different educational and professional
training experiences, but rather the focus has been on the extent to which assistants
are undertaking the work of teachers and the issues that this raises.
Hancock et al.’s (2002) research offers an interesting insight into the deploy-
ment of assistants in schools. They collected questionnaire data from 500 schools
across England and found that “there was substantial evidence that many assist-
ants were doing work done traditionally by teachers. For instance, 84% of teachers
said assistants contributed to the assessment of children’s work. Assistants did
‘servicing’ work that released teachers to teach but they were also sharing in the
teaching”. Adding to this understanding Kerry (2005, p. 377), in his study of the
roles and responsibilities of assistants, identified 11 different types/categories of
work that people in “assistant” roles generally undertook. These he described as
ranging from “dogsbody” to “mobile paraprofessional” with duties ranging from
relatively menial tasks through to planning, teaching and assessing classes.
Of further interest to this chapter are findings that consistently show that assist-
ants are often commonly deployed in relation to the teaching and learning of

28984.indb 75 24/09/2014 09:41

 76 Tracey Costley
students with Special Educational Needs (SEN) and English as An Additional
Language (EAL) (see Blatchford et al., 2006; Costley, 2013; Costley and Leung,
2009; Lamb, 2009 for example). Significant policy changes since the 1980s that
have promoted and ensured “mainstreaming” as the main organizing principle for
state-funded education have also contributed to the increased demand for extra
assistance in the classroom. The 1981 Education Act for example foregrounded
the role of mainstream schools in providing for SEN children calling for an end to
the practice of SEN schools. The Act provided “funding for statemented children
to be supported by teachers and welfare assistants in mainstream schools” (Bach
et al., 2006, p. 5). In many ways this Act set the stage for the 1988 Education Act
which, in calling for the implementation of a National Curriculum, ensured the
mainstreaming of all state-funded students. This was particularly important for
English as Additional Language learners who may have been receiving specialist
English lessons outside of the mainstream classroom (see Costley, 2013; Costley
and Leung, 2009 for further discussion).
What we can see then is that schools can decide the ways in which they make
use of and deploy additional classroom staff. They can also decide what qualifica-
tions and training are required as well as the roles and responsibilities undertaken
and under which label. This raises a number of empirical questions about what
happens in schools, the ways in which roles are assigned, formed and reformed as
well as how individuals navigate the day-to-day classroom realities within which
they find themselves? In addressing these questions, this chapter starts from the
position that schools and classrooms are dynamic living organisms within which
identities and power relations are constructed, (in)formed and played out (Bloome
et al., 2005; Morita, 2004; Toohey, 2000). They are social spaces in which and
through which a range of “actors” or “agents” are patterned and shaped by
differing sets of affordances and constraints (Bloome et al., 2005).
Holland et al. (1998, p. 52) offer the notion of “figured worlds” which is partic-
ularly helpful in terms of understanding some of the issues raised here. They
define figured worlds as a “realm of interpretation in which a particular set of
characters and actors are recognized, significance is assigned to certain acts, and
particular outcomes are valued over others.” They also state that a “figured world
is peopled by the figures, characters, and types who carry out its tasks and who
also have styles of interacting within, distinguishable perspectives on, and
orientations toward it” (Holland et al., 1998, p. 51). It is within figured worlds
then, i.e. a particular social space and context, that the figuring and patterning
of certain ways of doing and being takes place. Similarly it is within these
particular spaces that the production and reproduction of power relations, struc-
tures and identities take place. As Bartlett and Holland (2002, p. 14) suggest
figured worlds are “spaces of practice wherein actors form as well as perform.
Particular persons are figured collectively in practice as fitting certain social
identities and thereby positioned in power relations.” What is of interest to this
chapter is what the concept of figured worlds enables us to see or understand when
applied to the day-to-day actions and interactions of school and classroom
contexts.

28984.indb 76 24/09/2014 09:41

 What’s in a name? 77
Understanding figured worlds
Within the conceptualization of figured worlds identity is crucial in terms of
understanding how individuals interact with/in and co-construct social spaces. A
distinction they make in conceptualizing identity is between relational and posi-
tional identities (Holland et al., 1998). Relational identities can be understood as
being the ways in which individuals act and behave in relation to others based on
their ideas and understandings of the relationships between individuals in partic-
ular times and spaces. “Relational identities have to do with behavior as indexical
of claims to social relationships with others” (Holland et al., 1998, p. 127), as such
bodily appearances, clothing as well as patterns and styles of speech are not
“chance” events. It is through these indexes that individuals forge and/or show
relationships to other people. The second are positional identities and these can be
understood as being related to concepts of power and structure how these permeate,
inform and maintain social structures. “They have to do with the day-to-day and
on-the-ground relations of power, deference and ntitlement, social affiliation and
distance-with the social-interactional, social-relational structures of the lived
world” (Holland et al., 1998, p. 127). They suggest that in order to begin to
understand how these relations play out it is necessary to recognize that
identities are not static or fixed but are in various states of negotiation or what they
describe as “identities in practice.” They suggest that human agency and improvi-
sation i.e. the ways that people react to and play along in certain situations
“both enable the creation of new worlds and new identities and make us
appreciate how figured (objectified) identities become important tools with which
individuals and groups seek to manage one another and their own behavior”
(Holland et al., 1998, p. 281).
Space and agency are crucial in understanding how these emergent identities
are shaped and formed. Moje (2004, p. 20) captures this dynamic in suggesting;
“spaces exist in both hierarchical and dialogical relations with other spaces.” A
key theme that Moje (2004) draws from, which is also central to the notion of
figured worlds (Bartlett and Holland, 2002; Holland et al., 1998) is that spaces
shape and determine, and are at the same time shaped and etermined by, the
identities of the individuals occupying them.
Agency, within figured worlds is not only about what people can do in the
spaces that they are afforded, but how, as sentient beings in the world they manip-
ulate and make choices about the ways in which they are positioned and position
themselves. As such, “while people cannot escape the influence of social struc-
tures, structures cannot persist without at least a modicum of people’s unforced
compliance and the continual reconstruction of structures to fit changing condi-
tions” (Bartlett and Holland, 2002, p. 12). A key consideration here is that
individual actors are not automatons who simply fall in line with social structures
without question (Bartlett and Holland, 2002; Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992;
Grenfell, James, Hodkinson, Raey and Robbins, 1998; and Holland et al., 1998),
they are active in the shaping process. As Grenfell et al., 1998, p. 24) highlight,
“individuals, by existing in social space, encounter fields but come with their own

28984.indb 77 24/09/2014 09:41

 78 Tracey Costley
generating structures, inculcated in the process of their own development in the
world.”
A key aspect of figured worlds is that they are not considered to be completed
and/or fully formed. There is scope within the concept to take a more dynamic
perspective and ask questions such as how and in what ways is “figuring” work is
carried out? Similarly it brings to the fore issues of power, and agency and ques-
tions of how individuals become part of figured worlds. Similarly it draws our
attention to the ways in which behaviors shaped and produced and how member-
ship is negotiated. This concept then requires us to ask certain questions about the
ways in which individuals come together, navigate and construct identities in the
day-to-day actions and interactions of school and classroom. It encourages us to
look closely at on-the-ground, day-to-day behaviors such as the way someone
dresses, who they talk to, and the spaces they use. Those things that might often
get overlooked in our everyday lives but in and hrough which we do significant
identity work.

Applying the concept of figured worlds

The larger research project from which this chapter draws (Costley, 2010) was
conducted in an inner-London primary school and focused on how literacy was
understood and enacted in relation to a small group of EAL learners. The research
adopted an “ethnographic perspective” making use of “ethnographic tools” (Green
and Bloome, 1997) to collect the following data over nine months:

• Approximately 40 hours of classroom recordings

• 3 hours of interviews with focal participants
• Field notes, lesson plans, teaching materials students’ work.

Heath and Street (2008, p. 33) highlight the recursive nature of ethnography that
they describe as the “back-and-forth observing, noting, reading, thinking,
observing, and noting”. This “constant comparative” and movement between
data, findings and research literature captures the perspective that guided the
research and which in turn informs the discussion presented here.

The figured world of Park Tower School1

Park Tower School, in which the research was conducted, was, at the time, an
above average size primary school. It was located in what can be described as a
characteristic inner-London borough in that it was socioeconomically and, linguis-
tically diverse. The core teaching staff was generally quite young, between 25 and
35 and were all subject teachers for Years 1 to 6. Each class teacher was supported
by a classroom assistant and they were paired for a full school year. The assistants
were all female, similar in age to the class teachers and many had children who
were students in the school. In keeping with the findings presented earlier (cf.
Kerry, 2005) the classroom assistants had different experiences and relationships

28984.indb 78 24/09/2014 09:41

 What’s in a name? 79
with the class teachers with whom they worked. Some talked about their roles
being solely to assist in preparatory activities such as photocopying, collating
handouts and tidying up. One assistant for example described the teacher she
worked with as referring to her as “the help.”2 For others their roles were quite
different, they were seen as an extension of the teacher and their role was to
support students’ learning in a much more hands on way. My time at the school
was largely spent with the classroom assistants and with one in particular – Maria.
My initial research was interested in how the school worked with EAL students
and on the first day I was told that I would want to work with Maria as “she works
with the EMAG3 kids,” as a result she became the focal teacher of my study. Maria
occupied two positions in the school that, given the policy context described
earlier in this chapter, I suggest gave her a power and agency to position herself in
a way that the other classroom assistants were perhaps not able to do. First,
Maria’s contract was shared by the school and the Local Authority (LA). At the
time of this research LAs were responsible for allocating EMAG funds and
Park Tower School had negotiated to use their funds to support the pay of a
full-time assistant. In this case Maria was employed both by the school and the
local authority. In informal conversations Maria talked about how she was lucky
to have the support of the LA. She felt that her contract was more stable and gave
her extra benefits (sick pay for example) than the other assistants. Primarily
though it gave her additional leverage in that she was contracted to do a particular
job with particular students on behalf of both the school and the wider LA. My
interest in this discussion is not to comment on Maria’s teaching per se but to
focus on some of the ways in which her identity was constructed in and through
her practice/s.

Marking out space: Maria the EMAG teacher

Maria trained as a Primary teacher in her home country and taught there for seven
years before moving to England. Although she had a formally recognized teaching
qualification in her home country she did not (at the time of the research) have
QTS in England. Although in school terms she was a classroom assistant Maria
actively rejected using it, preferring instead the title “EMAG teacher.” She used
this term to describe her role to me as well in conversations with management,
teachers, assistants and students in the school. Her self-representation is important
in that it indicates that she regarded her role as being something distinctly different
from that of both the class teachers and assistants. In Holland et al.’s (1998) terms
we could see this as an example of positional identity work on Maria’s behalf. In
rejecting the label classroom assistant Maria claimed a different space for herself
not just in terms of conceptual space but also, as we will see, in terms of different
physical spaces for herself as well all of which shaped and determined her overall
position within the school.
When she first joined the School, Maria worked alongside classroom teachers
providing in-class support to EAL students identified as being in need of help
with reading, writing and general comprehension. In discussing her work with

28984.indb 79 24/09/2014 09:41

 80 Tracey Costley
me, Maria said that this form of support was insufficient to address the needs
of the targeted students. As a result, she made a case to the principal to
change the nature of the support arguing for withdrawal classes. She felt the
students’ needs would best be met in small groups outside the mainstream
classroom. This change was accepted on a trial basis in the school. At the time of
the research Maria’s withdrawal classes had been taking place for almost
four academic years. As I have suggested elsewhere (Costley, 2013), this is signif-
icant in that withdrawal runs counter to the dominant policy discourse of
mainstreaming.
When her classes moved outside of the mainstream Maria was not assigned a
permanent classroom and she would simply use any spare space she could find.
She said that it was very difficult as she had to find “free spaces” and moving
involved her materials, resources as well as her students. After a few weeks Maria
realized that the library was rarely used outside of break times and she began
using this room more and more regularly for her classes. When this met with no
challenge she said that she began to appropriate it as “her room” and stayed late a
few evenings and came in over a weekend to decorate the space with students’
work. She moved furniture to create a clear teaching area and brought in storage
units for her teaching materials. The final stage she described as posting her time-
table on the door to the library. In recounting this process to me Maria pointed to
the use of students’ work as a very deliberate strategy. She said that it would be
easy, if people disagreed with her using the room, for people to simply move her
things out but people would feel differently about moving or taking down or
moving students’ work.
From my time at the school it was clear that the library was known as Maria’s
room. In my field notes from my first few days at the school I note that when I
asked if people had seen Maria I was told to “check the library, that’s her room.”
In terms of general practice around the school, teachers would automatically send
students to the library for their classes with Maria and it was rare to hear the
library discussed in any other way other than being Maria’s room. Maria’s discus-
sion of how she came to be associated with this particular space is a powerful
example of the level of conscious planning that informed her actions. Nothing in
these actions was left to chance and her actions, or acts of identity had significant
impact on her relations and position in the school.

The affordances and constraints of space

As suggested above space plays an important role in understanding Maria’s school
identity and it is central to the agency that she was able to develop. The movement
out of the mainstream class and into the library secured Maria the use of a central
and valuable space. Whilst this significantly raised her profile in terms of people
knowing where she was, it also came with an increased sense of people not really
knowing what she did. In this sense there had been something of a trade-off – in
becoming more ‘visible’ in terms of her position in the school, her work had
become more “invisible.”

28984.indb 80 24/09/2014 09:41

 What’s in a name? 81
The following Extracts A, B, and C are taken from different parts of an
interview that I conducted with Maria after I had been working with her for a
few months. In Extract A I had asked her to describe how her classes were
similar or different to the classes that her students were withdrawn from. In her
answer she gives her view as to how the classes are different and goes some
way in explaining why. In Extract B she makes a further reference to the idea
of doing something different, and doing her own thing with the students. In the
Extract C she is referring to her teaching arrangements as something she is
content with.

Extract A
01 and what I do what I did this year (.) I may not follow exactly what
02 they are doing at the same time but I (.) I cover what they need the
03 reason why I won’t follow them is that they may work for example for
04 two days (.) in er the class teacher may have in their plan their weekly
05 plan two days for story opening or beginning of a story and I know
06 for a fact that with my children I need a week.

Extract B
01 now as I said before I don’t follow what class teachers do (.) I
02 follow my own teaching.

Extract C
01 hmm I am just happy working just like I do

From these extracts it is clear that Maria feels an agency to organize and structure
her classes in a very different way to the mainstream teachers. This ability to
shape her own teaching was something which was very much a driving force
behind her initial request for individual timetabled space with these students and
for adopting withdrawal classes.
Whilst on the one hand the movement out of the mainstream brought Maria
and increased sense of personal agency, this appeared to be tempered by a
lack of knowledge around the school as to what Maria did in her classes. When
I spent time in other classrooms or in other parts of the school people would
ask me what kinds of things Maria did with her students. Equally when I
would spend time in other classrooms Maria would ask me about what the
other teachers were doing and how the students were working in those
classes. There was, from an outsider’s perspective, a clear disconnect between
the different classrooms with people not really knowing what Maria did in
her classes and vice versa. In the last interview I did with Maria she talked
about her position in the school and Extract D below captures her sentiment
towards this issue.

28984.indb 81 24/09/2014 09:41

 82 Tracey Costley
Extract D
01 M I don’t think (.) I am not saying that they don’t believe in my work
(.) my
02 colleagues or the management but I don’t think they see this as very
important
03 because when they go back they are okay so the work goes down
and they didn’t see
04 it because they are not in with me everyday.

Line 03 is important in that it speaks to the role that space plays in the profile of
Maria’s work. From her perspective, when the students return to the mainstream
classes after studying with her, they are able to slot straight in, their return is unno-
ticed and as a consequence Maria’s work is also unnoticed. Later in the interview
Maria made a further reference to the idea of her work being seen.

Extract E
01 M at end I think that I am happy with their progress as well, many
children not every
02 single one but many children for example if it was year six they
were able to attend
03 SATS which is hard and many others and other groups other year
groups they were
04 able to attend tests independently and I see that as their progress
and that’s not just
05 me but myself and the class teachers.

In lines 04–05 there is a real sense that it is the students’ performance in these
examination contexts which is crucial to her work being understood. There is an
implication here that it is not necessarily the marks the students get in these exams
that is important, more the taking part is seen as evidence of Maria having success-
fully prepared the students.

Visibly invisible
A possible reason as to why little was known about Maria’s classes was that she
spent very little time interacting with the other teachers. In my first few weeks of
being at the school I was not sure of why this was and whether or not Maria felt
isolated. The more time I spent with her though the more openly she talked about
this and presented it as an active choice. Whereas other teachers and assistants
mostly spent their lunchtimes and breaks in the staffroom Maria did not. She
either stayed in “her room” or went to an empty classroom to have her lunch. She
said she did not like to be part of the staffroom gossip and she did not want to be
part of other people’s business. She said that if people wanted to talk to her, “they

28984.indb 82 24/09/2014 09:41

 What’s in a name? 83
know where I am, let them come to me.” As a result, she said that when she did go
into the staffroom people paid attention, she had more power.
The issue of visibility was, I suggest, something that Maria was concerned with
and engaged in, in regard to her identity at the school. On the one hand she was
confident that people knew where she was in the school but she was not sure people
knew what she did. She would often joke that she was known in the school not for
the work she did with her class, but for her role as the school disciplinarian. In my
conversations with other members of staff any reference to Maria would be warm
and affectionate and would usually include a reference to her being the person in the
school that any misbehaving students would be sent to. On a regular basis students,
not from Maria’s classes, would be sent to Maria by their teachers if they had misbe-
haved in class. Maria explained that they do it because they know “I am strict, and
will shout at the children, any children, if they do something wrong.”
People in the school would often comment they knew where Maria was and/or
which students had been bad as they could hear her. Maria would often make
reference to how loud she was and how she used her personality to work with the
children. She described how this helped her connect with the students and felt that
it was important to always be herself in-order to be consistent. An example that
links to this is a conversation we had in which Maria was talking about the impor-
tance of consistency and in which she made explicit reference to her clothing
saying; “this is why I dress like this. I am smart but I am not too serious like the
teachers. I am just me, I wear the same thing every day, none of those fancy
things. Every day the same thing, they know me, this is me.” This example is
interesting as it provides an insight into the role that clothing and image appears
to play in Maria’s presentation of self. It also shows how, for her, clothing marked
her out in relation to her other colleagues.

Concluding comments: Maria’s identity in practice

What I hope I have shown in this chapter is what the concept of figured worlds can
offer in terms of understanding the different ways in which individuals are active
agents in navigating and constructing identities, and in drawing power from a
broad range of opportunities and choices in their day-to-day worlds. Drawing
from observation and interview data I have illustrated some of the ways in which
Maria was active in the construction and maintenance of her own identity. In
interpreting the data through key aspects associated with the concept of figured
worlds it is possible to see Maria’s negotiation of both her relational and posi-
tional identities as a set of dynamic processes. These processes take place as both
actions upon and reactions to her surroundings and through the data we have been
able to see how she was able to seek out opportunities to take control over her
surroundings and actively negotiate her position in the school, whether in terms of
the space she used for her teaching, her relationships with others in the school, or
in the clothing she chose to present herself through.
Of specific interest and importance is how Maria was able, given the marginal
status of classroom assistants and EAL, to re/negotiate her role and boundaries in

28984.indb 83 24/09/2014 09:41

 84 Tracey Costley
ways that others in perhaps more explicitly privileged positions might not have
been able to do. In looking closely at the ways in which Maria talked about and
acted upon her social context an interesting set of binaries become apparent. Some
of these binaries fall along lines to do with teaching and related duties such as
classroom teacher and assistants whereas others are around use of spaces and heir
associated relationships and in the use of dress and other paralinguistic features.
In the process of exploring Maria’s day-to-day behaviors in and around the school,
it is possible to see that she was active in both the construction and deconstruction
of these binaries and it is these contrasts of space and agency that seem to afford
her the most opportunities for active identity work.
A key feature of the idea of figured worlds and the identities in practice that
constitute them, is that they move and shift over time and space. Identities do not
remain fixed and/or static. They both respond to and create changes. As we can
see in the case of Maria, teachers work with and in, or with/in the sets of spaces
and relations available to them. It is this interconnectedness that highlights how
important an ethnographic perspective is in helping us explore and uncover what
happens on-the-ground in complex social contexts such as schools and how spaces
are figured and reconfigured.

Notes
1 All names used here are pseudonyms to maintain the anonymity of the school and the
participants.
2 These quotes are taken from my field notes from my time at the school and come largely
from informal conversations that I was part of. They are used in the remainder of the
chapter and are kept in this format for consistency.
3 The Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant (EMAG) was until recently, money that had
been ring-fenced by the government to be used by Local Authorities and Schools
“intended to narrow achievement gaps between pupils from those minority ethnic groups
who are at risk of underachieving and to meet particular needs of bilingual students”
(DfES, 2004, p. 4).

References
Bach, S., Kessler, I., and Heron, P. (2006). Changing job boundaries and workforce reform:
The case of teaching assistants. Industrial Relations Journal, 37, 2–21.
Bartlett, L., and Holland, D. (2002). Theorizing the space of literacy practices. Ways of
Knowing Journal, 2(1), 10–22.
Blatchford, P., Bassett, P., Brown, P., Martin, C., Russell, A., Webster, R., and Haywood,
N. (2006). The Deployment and Impact of Support Staff in Schools. Report on the Find-
ings from Strand 1, Wave 1. DfES Research Report 776. London: Department for
Education and Skills.
Bloome, D., Carter, S., Christian, B., Otoo, S., and Shuart-Faris, N. (2005). Discourse
Analysis and the Study of Classroom Language and Literacy Events: A Microethno-
graphic Perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Bourdieu, P., and Wacquant, L. (1992). An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge:
Polity Press.

28984.indb 84 24/09/2014 09:41

 What’s in a name? 85
Costley, T. (2010). The Social Construction of EMAG: from Policy to Practice. Unpub-
lished Thesis, The University of London.
Costley, T. (2013). English as an additional Language and the teaching and learning of
English in England. Language and Education, DOI:10.1080/09500782.2013.836215.
Costley, T., and Leung, C. (2009). English as an Additional Language across the curric-
ulum: Policies in practice. In M. Gearon, A. Kosogriz and J. Miller (Eds) Linguistically
and Culturally Diverse Classrooms: New Dilemmas for Teachers (pp. 151–171). Bristol:
Multilingual Matters.
DfE. (2012). Statistical First Release. School Workforce in England: November 2011. SFR
06/2012. London: Department for Education.
DfE. (2013). http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/careers/traininganddevelopment/staff/
b00202532/schoolsupport-staff (accessed on July 30 2013).
DfE. (2010). School Support Staff Topic Paper. Tara Whitehorn, Schools Analysis and
Research Division, Department for Education Publications. Nottingham: Crown
Copyright.
DfES. (2004). Aiming High: Supporting Effective Use of EMAG. DfES: Nottingham.
Green, J., and Bloome, D. (1997). Ethnography and ethnographers of and in education: A
situated perspective. In J. Flood, S. Heath and D. Lapp (Eds) A Handbook of Research
on Teaching Literacy Through Communicative and Visual Arts (pp. 181–202). New
York: Simon and Shuster Macmillan.
Grenfell, M., James, D., Hodkinson, P., Raey, D., and Robbins, D. (1998). Bourdieu and
Education: Acts of Practical Theory. London: Falmer Press.
Groom, B., and Rose, R. (2005). Supporting the inclusion of pupils with social, emotional
and behavioral difficulties in the primary school: the role of teaching assistants. Journal
of Research in Special Educational Need, 5, 20–30. DOI: 10.1111/j.1471-3802.2005.00035.
Hancock, R., and Eyres, I. (2004). ‘Implementing a required curriculum reform: Teachers
at the core, teaching assistants on the periphery?’ Westminster Studies in Education,
27(2), 223–235.
Hancock, R., Swann, W., Marr, A., Turner, J., and Cable, C. (2002). Classroom Assistants
in Primary Schools: Employment and Deployment. Swindon: Economic and Social
Research Council (ESRC).
Heath, S., Street, B., and Mills, M. (2008). On Ethnography: Approaches to Language and
Literacy Research. New York: Teachers College Press.
Holland, D., Skinner, D., Lachicotte, W., and Cain, C. (1998). Identity and Agency in
Cultural Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kerry, T. (2005). Towards a typology for conceptualizing the roles of teaching assistants.
Educational Review, 57(3), 373–384. DOI: 10.1080/00131910500149515
Lamb, B. (2009). The Lamb Inquiry. Special Educational Needs and Parental Confidence.
Nottingham: DCSF Publications. Crown Copyright.
Moje, E. B. (2004). Powerful spaces: Tracing the out-of-school literacy spaces of Latino/a
youth. In K. Leander and M. Sheehy (Eds), Spatializing Literacy Research and Practice
(pp.15–38). New York: Peter Lang.
Morita, N. (2004). Negotiating participation and identity in second language academic
communities. TESOL Quarterly, 38(4), 573–603.
Toohey, K. (2000). Learning English at School: Identity, Social Relations and Classroom
Practice. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

28984.indb 85 24/09/2014 09:41

 7 Neither “A complete insider”
nor “A complete outsider”
Autoethnographies of two
teacher-educators-in-the-making
Sreemali Herath and Marlon Valencia

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural
wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the
hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons
on his fellow man.
(Campbell, 1968, p. 30)

In this excerpt Campbell explains the hero’s mythological journey, a pattern of

common features that he argued, recurrently appear in stories across cultures and
regions. These common features, he claims, constitute what he calls the mono-
myth, a story pattern that contains the essence of myth. Thus, for Campbell, the
common elements of mythological stories describe the hero’s journey, which
teachers and researchers have used a metaphor to establish rich parallels between
their process of developing teachers’ professional identities and the hero’s multiple
victories and challenging experiences (Brown and Moffett, 1999; Goldstein, 2005;
Villate, 2012). This is why, in this chapter, we turn to the hero’s journey as a
“powerful metaphor” (Goldstein, 2005, p. 8) to present narrative accounts (stories)
of our doctoral research journeys and the development of our reflective language
teacher educator identities. In addition to this, the hero’s journey metaphor gives us
a theme to facilitate the cohesive narration of the myriad student, teacher, researcher,
personal, and professional identities that overlap throughout all stages of our
doctoral experiences. Thus, we would like to re-interpret Campbell’s excerpt and
discuss our research journeys: As an opportunity for two doctoral students and
language teachers to embark on a learning adventure into partly known and yet
unfamiliar places, conduct research, and encounter “fabulous forces” (Campbell,
1968 p. 30) through collaborating with colleagues. Additionally, in our journeys
we negotiated our multiple personal, academic, professional, and affective/
emotional identities as aspiring researchers and language teacher educators. In this
chapter we will use the term teacher educators-in-the-making (TEIMs) to refer to
these latter evolving professional PhD student identities.
Accordingly, in the following pages we share some of the lived stories of our
doctoral research experiences, which are organized (in the findings section), under
Campbell’s three macro stages of the hero’s journey: Departure, Initiation, and

28984.indb 86 24/09/2014 09:41

 Neither ‘a complete insider’ nor ‘outsider’ 87
Return. In each of these stages, we discuss our diverse identities in the light of
poststructuralist identity theories and narrative inquiry (Clarke, 2009; Norton
Peirce, 1995; Norton, 2000; Pavlenko and Norton, 2007). We will continue to use
the first person plural to refer to our-selves and will use the third person singular
or our last names when discussing stories and/or identities individually to avoid
confusion.

Researching doctoral researchers’ identities

in two different studies
We live in North America and are dual Colombian-Canadian (Valencia) and
Sri-Lankan-Canadian (Herath) citizens. We have been involved with North
American tertiary institutions either as graduate students or instructors for nearly
a decade. We are both doctoral students in Language and Literacies Education
at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) of the University of
Toronto. This study draws on self-reflective data that report on our doctoral
research journeys. Although the primary foci of our research is different, both
doctoral studies aim to learn about the efforts led by various pre-service teacher
education programs to accommodate diversity in various aspects regarding the
preparation of future language teachers.
Herath’s doctoral research focuses on how issues of social and cultural diver-
sity are addressed in pre-service English language teacher preparation in post-
conflict Sri Lanka. Set against the backdrop of a three decade long ethnic war that
ended in in 2009, her data collection took place in three teacher preparation
programs located in different provinces of Sri Lanka.
Valencia’s comparative case study aims to learn about diverse language TCs’
investment in imagined communities and identities (Pavlenko and Norton, 2007)
in teacher education and its impact on their development of professional teacher
identities in Canada, Chile, and Colombia. The part of the study discussed in this
paper is only about Chile, as it presents several elements comparable to Herath’s
study (e.g. data was also collected in three sites), allowing a rich collaboration and
reflection among us. Valencia being born and raised in Colombia was initially
trained as an EFL teacher in a Colombian university, a context that shares simi-
larities with Chile (Rabossi, 2009).
The present study arose from our interest in understanding how teacher educa-
tion programs and the multiple communities of practice (Wenger, 1998) related to
them respond to diverse teacher-researchers and their often conflicting claimed
and assigned identities (Varghese et al., 2005). We were not only interested in
positioning ourselves in order to critically analyze any possible biases that we
could bring to our doctoral research, but also in contributing to the limited number
of empirical research that looks into researcher identities (Norton and Early, 2011)
and particularly our non-professional identities when conducting research. In
addition, we wholeheartedly agree with Donato et al. (this volume) on the impor-
tance of documenting the experiences of doctoral students who negotiate their
teacher identities and struggle to develop as emerging applied linguists.

28984.indb 87 24/09/2014 09:41

 88 Sreemali Herath and Marlon Valencia
The stories shared in this chapter document our experiences preparing for data
collection; during data collection outside of Canada with pre-service English as a
foreign language (EFL) teacher candidates (TCs) and their teacher educators; as
well as our post-data collection collaborative reflection.

Teacher identities in language teacher education

Language teacher education (LTE) has recently embraced teacher identities as a
form of pedagogy (Morgan, 2004) in order to capitalize on teachers’ lived experi-
ences. The following paragraphs provide an overview of important theoretical
constructs that have emerged in the literature and mediate the analysis of our
multiple identities discussed in this chapter.
Scholarship on language teacher identities has focused on how teachers
construct their professional identities through their interactions and performances
in the social contexts where they act both as learners and teachers; therefore, iden-
tity in LTE is understood “in relation to discursive, social, cultural and institu-
tional matters” (Miller, 2009, p. 175). Miller (2009) groups the growing literature
produced on how teachers construct their identities, within the following three
strands: (1) identity and knowledge (Borg, 2003); (2) identity and practice (Clarke,
2009; Liu and Xu, 2011; Varghese et al., 2005); and (3) identity and the nonnative
language teacher (Liu, 1999; Pavlenko, 2003). Regarding the relevance of recog-
nizing identity issues in teacher education, Clarke (2009) argues that

if the commitment to identity is not just a metaphysical proposition but a

serious recognition that our work as teachers shapes and is shaped by the very
mode of our being then thinking about the formation of our identities is
crucial for all of us in education.
(p. 186)

He further asserts that “engaging in ‘identity work’ is indispensable for teachers if

they wish to exercise professional agency, and thereby maximize their potential
for development and growth” (p. 187). Then, engaging in “identity work” or
developing desirable identities may closely relate to how novice or experienced
teachers relate to each other within the given community wherein they practice
professional agency.
In this sense, the present study also takes into account the theory of communities
of practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). Communities of practice can
be a useful theoretical lens since it can help conceptualize how a community plays
a role for individuals to participate in shared practices and how existing members
of a community play a role in newcomers’ participation in such practices. In this
framework, as newcomers or doctoral students we initially had a difficult time to
participate in local community practices as compared to full members or well
established teacher educators in the programs where we conducted our data collec-
tion. Accordingly, it is through the endorsement or legitimization of the old-timers,
that the newcomers can participate peripherally in the community’s shared prac-

28984.indb 88 24/09/2014 09:41

 Neither ‘a complete insider’ nor ‘outsider’ 89
tices. Over time, the newcomers may develop the expertise and skills along with
the recognition of the old-timers in the community, which may lead to full partici-
pation. This framework may not explain all the concerns or issues relating to iden-
tity; however, it contributes to analyzing how a community can influence teacher
educators-in-the-making’s (TEIMs) identity formation and our own agency.

Theoretical orientations
The present study relies on several poststructuralist theoretical concepts to provide
a critical analysis of the multiple researchers’ story fragments and identities
discussed, which is explained in the following section. It is followed by a narra-
tive theorization of identity that discusses how identities are constructed and
negotiated through discourse.

Identity negotiation
First, identity is interpreted in Norton’s terms as “how a person understands his or her
relationship to the world, how that relationship is structured across time and space,
and how the person understands possibilities for the future” (2000, p. 5). When stud-
ying how learners relate to the world and their possibilities for the future, Bourdieu’s
(1991) notion of cultural capital makes an important contribution to understanding
how different kinds of knowledge, skills or cultural acquisitions such as education
and technical qualifications may be transformed into other types of symbolic or mate-
rial capital due to their high exchange value (Norton Peirce, 1995). Based on this
notion, Norton Peirce coined the term “investment” as a social construct that explains
the relationship that learners have with their “changing social world” and their
multiple and complex social identities (Norton Peirce, 1995, p. 17). Accordingly,
learners may invest in learning an L2 if they feel that doing so will allow them to gain
both symbolic and/or material resources that are important to them.
Additionally, Cummins’s (2001) notions of power relations in educational
contexts help shed light on how identities are negotiated. According to Cummins,
there are two types of power relations that have a direct impact on learners’ identi-
ties and their learning process: coercive relations of power and collaborative rela-
tions of power (p. 208). In the first case, the individual or group with the highest
symbolic capital (i.e. a teacher or an advanced learner) uses the existing power
differential to their advantage; thus, constraining learners’ possibilities for
negotiating their identities, learning or upward mobility. On the other hand, in
collaborative relations of power, power and cultural capital are shared, knowledge
is scaffolded and co-constructed, which results in the empowering of the learner
and the communities she is part of (e.g. her family, the school community, etc.).

Narrative negotiation of identity

The epistemological underpinning of narrative inquiry rests on the assumption
that “human beings make sense of random experiences by the imposition of story

28984.indb 89 24/09/2014 09:41

 90 Sreemali Herath and Marlon Valencia
structures” (Bell, 2002, p. 207). According to Bruner (1990, 1996), narrative
knowledge is one of the two human modes of cognition. Unlike scientific knowl-
edge, narrative knowledge accommodates ambiguity and dilemma that is central
to human experience and more particularly identity construction and negotiation.
Moreover, stories are the closest we can come to people’s experiences (Clandinin
and Connelly, 1994). These qualities of narrative inquiry have made it an increas-
ingly vibrant approach to doing identity research in education in recent times
(Barkhuizen and de Klerk, 2006; Kraus, 2006; Liu and Xu, 2011; Norton and
Early, 2011; Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013; Tsui, 2007).
In a narrative theorization of identity, Sfard and Prusak (2005) argue that
identities consist of collections of stories about persons and that narratives about
individuals are “reifying, endorsable, and significant” (p. 16). Gee (2001) reiter-
ates the storied nature of identity when he asserts that narratives are central in
defining a person’s “core identity” (p. 111). According to him, Discourses consti-
tute multiple “ways of being” (p. 110) a particular kind of person (e.g. being a
teacher) and “each person has a unique trajectory through ‘Discourse space.’ It is
this trajectory, and a “person’s own narrativization” (Mishler, 2000) that consti-
tute a person’s “core identity.” This “core identity” is “never fully formed” and is
“always potentially changing.”
Although narrative events are often presented and understood in relation to one
another (Ricoeur, 1991), and the struggle to maintain coherence and continuity is
prominent in narrative conceptions of identity (Carr, 1986), narrative identity
does not suggest “a stable or unchanging identity or linear identity development”
(Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013, p. 122). Life experiences force individuals to reinterpret
their stories (Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013). This process of reinterpretation in relation to
life experiences can change an individual’s identity (Polkinghorne, 1988). It is for
this very purpose that we have employed several narratives that consisted of
identity texts (Cummins, 2009), critical conversations, ongoing journal entries,
documents collected on research sites, telephone and Skype conversations, as well
as emails and text messages. The multimodal nature of our narratives allowed us
the space to interpret and reinterpret our narratives.
A vibrant characteristic of narrative understandings of identity that emerges
from these definitions is its recognition of human agency (Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013;
Sfard and Prusak, 2005). Narratives help people to choose seemingly unconnected
events and thus shape the “plot” of their lives through time (Pavlenko and Lantolf,
2000). As a result, identity-narratives are selective (Crossley, 2000) and include
experiences that are significant to the narrator (Heikkinen, 1999, cited in Sfard
and Prusak, 2005). Human agency is visible not only in the construction of
identity, but also in their interpretations. As Sfard and Prusak (2005) assert:

identities are human-made, and not God-given, they have authors and
recipients, they are collectively shaped even if individually told, and they can
change according to the authors’ and recipients perceptions and needs. As
discursive constructs, they are also reasonably accessible and investigable,
(p. 17)

28984.indb 90 24/09/2014 09:41

 Neither ‘a complete insider’ nor ‘outsider’ 91
These notions of identity highlight the dynamic nature of narrative constructions
of identity that might not be present in traditional approaches to the study of
identity.

Methodology: restorying and analyzing two teacher

educators-in-the-making’s journeys
In order to understand how emerging teacher educators negotiated their multiple
identities, we adopted the form of an autoethnography (Canagarajah, 2012; Chang,
2008; Ellis, 2009). Canagarajah (2012) defines autoethnography through the three
terms: auto, ethno, and graphy. Auto, refers to the situatedness of the experiences
that are presented in an autoethnography, where the data emerges from the
point of view of the self. Ethno, refers to how culture shapes and is shaped by
the personal. And finally, graphy refers to the multiple creative artifacts that
constitute the narrative. As Canagarajah goes on, the act of narrating allows the
researcher further exploration of “hidden feelings, forgotten motivations, and
suppressed emotions” (p. 261), and the structure of the narrative allows to
“generate additional comparisons and interpretations from alternate perspectives”
(p. 261). In keeping with the autoethnographic tradition, the data from this chapter
comes entirely from multiple narratives the two authors constructed.
The primary data source for this autoethnography consisted of our multimodal
identity texts that depicted our journeys into research sites. Cummins (2009)
defines identity texts as the products of learners’ creative work or performances,
which may be of a multilingual and/or multimodal nature, and which allow
learners to invest in their identities. Therefore, identity texts allow learners/
teachers to share their strengths, knowledge, life experiences, and who they are
with their teachers/professors/researchers, peers/colleagues, and the wider
community. For this purpose, we used VoiceThread (www.voicethread.com), an
online open source web 2.0 tool that offers the possibility of creating interactive
and multimodal identity texts in which we could share and discuss our multiple
imagined, claimed, and assigned identities while planning our doctoral studies,
during data collection at our different research sites, and post-data collection as
we critically and collaboratively reflected on our experiences.
The data from the identity texts were triangulated with other data sources such
as the electronic audio and word processed journal entries we maintained
throughout our data collection, documents we gathered from research sites (e.g.
e-mails, poster invitations to talks given by the researchers), critical conversations
between both of us in person as well as on various instant messaging clients (e.g.
text messages, Skype, Google Documents chat).
The narratives that emerged from the multiple data sources are “explanatory
narratives,” or narratives that aimed to “construct a narrative account explaining
‘why’ a situation or event involving actions has happened” (Polkinghorne,
1988, p. 161). They were framed within a three dimensional space that
consists of interaction (personal and social), continuity (past, present and future)
and situation (place) (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000) and consisted of what

28984.indb 91 24/09/2014 09:41

 92 Sreemali Herath and Marlon Valencia
Sfard and Prusak (2005) call “first person identities” where identifying stories
were constructed by the identified persons. The big narratives that emerged
from multimodal identity texts, written narratives and structured critical con-
versations were supplemented with “small narratives” (Bamberg, 2004, 2006:
Georgakopoulou, 2006; Norton and Early, 2011) that took the form of unstruc-
tured face-to-face as well as instant messaging client conversations between the
researchers, and ongoing dialogue through email and text messaging. Although
the small stories did not assist in constituting “a coherent sense of self” they were
pertinent in highlighting the “diverse identity positions in everyday interactive
practices [that] are highly significant for identity work” (Norton and Early, 2011,
p. 421).
The narratives were analyzed using qualitative content analysis as described by
Strauss and Corbin (1998). That is, the generative themes or the identities that
emerged were identified and clustered to better understand the multiple and
shifting identities that we negotiated in our research journeys. The following
discussion identifies the different identities that we acquired, assumed or were
ascribed to us, and discusses how we responded to those identities.

The hero’s journey as a guiding theme

As mentioned before, we use the hero’s journey based on the work of Campbell
(1968) on the hero’s mythological adventure. However, we are using it reinter-
preted through feminist and teacher education literature (Noble, 1994; Goldstein,
2005) to organize and make sense of our narratives. Goldstein introduces the
hero’s journey metaphor in pre-service teacher education for TCs to reflect upon
their field experiences and invites them to re-think the hero drawing on Noble’s
reinterpretation of this archetypal character as someone who pursues higher goals
and searches knowledge, is resilient, and can only attain these goals through
collaboration with others. In addition to all of these features, which stand in oppo-
sition to that of the lone-standing hero commonly portrayed in popular culture
(Goldstein, 2005); we refer to a female hero to counterbalance the hegemonic
male hero. One more important reason to have chosen the hero’s journey meta-
phor is because it echoes the vicissitudes experienced during our doctoral studies,
which as Norton Peirce argues presented us with identities that were “multiple and
a site of struggle” (Norton Peirce, 1995, p. 20). Therefore, in this study, the hero’s
journey is not only a powerful metaphor that allows us to interpret and coherently
organize our stories, but is also re-interpreted by our narrative accounts in a
dialogical process.

Findings
This section discusses our multiple TEIM identities guided by the hero’s journey
metaphor (Campbell, 1968). Thus, the researchers’ journey is divided in three
main stages: (1) Departure: pre-data collection; (2) Initiation: data collection; and
(3) Return: post-data collection. Each stage is introduced with a brief summary

28984.indb 92 24/09/2014 09:41

 Neither ‘a complete insider’ nor ‘outsider’ 93
of Campbell’s mythological hero’s journey and will be paralleled with our
experiences and identities being negotiated.

Departure: The researcher’s call to adventure

At the beginning of her journey the hero gets a call to step into the unfamiliar to
look for answers to questions that have emerged from her lived experiences. At
this stage she meets a helper who encourages and aids her departure. She also must
cross a threshold that is guarded by a presence that will ensure that she is fit to
leave her known world and venture into new realms.
(Campbell, 1968)

This initial part of the hero’s journey connects with our introduction to the PhD
program and our call to adventure as research topics and research questions
emerged from our lived experiences as teachers. Next, we sought advice from our
thesis supervisor (we share the same supervisor) as we planned our thesis proposal
and data collection. This was followed by preparing our comprehensive exams
and subsequent thesis proposal. Our research proposals were evaluated by both
doctoral and research ethics committees, which ensured that we both achieved
doctoral candidacy and were ready to explore new realms of inquiry in our data
collection. The glocal professional identities category explained below illustrates
our identity negotiation at this stage.

Glocal professional identities

This grouping category encapsulates our investment in professional identities that
we had constructed not only during our doctoral journeys, but much more
throughout our teaching and academic careers. Therefore, as we both designed
our research questions and studies, we imagined ourselves as Canadian teachers
and researchers who were also reaching out as locals by investing in our
Colombian/Latin American and Sri Lankan identities. In preparation for our data
collection, we both aligned ourselves with what is referred to in this grouping
category as glocal professional identities as we envisioned ourselves as a local
Colombian/Latin American and Sri Lankan researchers working from a Canadian
world renowned research university (global).
Figure 7.1 is a screen shot from Herath’s identity text where she describes her
professional identity as a language teacher and teacher educator. Here she reflects
on work she had previously done with Sri Lankan teachers and discusses why she
decided to return to do her doctoral research. Although she was based in Canada,
her Sri Lankan identity emerges throughout her narratives.
This Canadian and local Latin American identity can also be seen in Valencia’s
identity text when he states:

Excerpt 7.1: This is how I was going to Chile, as a Canadian researcher and
this hybrid of course. I am a Latin American and a Canadian!

28984.indb 93 24/09/2014 09:41

 94 Sreemali Herath and Marlon Valencia

Figure 7.1 Herath’s investment in her professional identities.

The two samples (Figure 7.1 and Excerpt 7.1) show both researchers’ investment
in a Canadian as well as a transnational teacher-researcher identity due to their
North American education, dual nationality, and their close ties with teachers and
teacher educators in Colombia, Chile, and Sri Lanka.

Initiation: data collection

After the hero has passed the first threshold, she must delve into the new realms
where she is now immersed in and begin her initiation. In this stage she meets two
kinds of supernatural forces: forces that collaborate with her and facilitate her
passing through a road of trials, and forces that challenge her passage.
(Campbell, 1968)

During the data collection phase of our journeys, we travelled to our research
contexts and experienced the communities of practice that we had envisioned as
we planned our data collection. We had some sense of our positionality in the host
communities, but neither of us had been researchers in those communities and we
were to a great extent outsiders who travelled and immersed ourselves in these
research sites. Herath was conducting part of her data collection in the predomi-
nantly Tamil Northern Province of Sri Lanka which was directly affected by the
civil war. As Herath’s data collection took place in 2012, three years after the end
of the war, she was able to visit her site in northern Sri Lanka, but was anxious to
be perceived as an outsider or even oppressor due to her Sinhalese background.
On the other hand, as soon as Valencia arrived in Chile, a series of ongoing strikes
took place and affected data collection during his nearly three-months’ stay. These
strikes were motivated by a national student movement demanding free tertiary

28984.indb 94 24/09/2014 09:41

 Neither ‘a complete insider’ nor ‘outsider’ 95
education and were also an opportunity for local student activists to pursue their
agendas. Due to these and other factors, we both encountered difficulties and
opportunities to collect rich data. Moreover, this also resulted in our teacher-
researcher identity negotiation as being characterized by multiple overlapping and
often conflicting identities, which will be grouped in the following two sets of
dichotomous categories.

Insider and outsider identities

The following examples reflect how we struggled to negotiate local insider
identities but were often perceived as foreigners or outsiders, despite our efforts.
This also implied that we were often perceived as being Canadian native
speakers of English due to our educational background and dual nationality.
However, we were also positioned as non-native speakers of English due to our
ethnicities.
Even though Herath was completely invested in her Sri Lankan identity by
dressing as a local (as can be seen in her identity text pictures), she was often
perceived as a foreigner, which caused her some anxiety as can be observed during
the critical conversation we had as part of our data collection. Excerpts 7.2 and 7.3
are two instances in which Herath talks to Valencia about her attempts to become
an insider, yet was not perceived as one:

Excerpt 7.2: When you see my VoiceThread you realize it’s more like me
trying to fit in but at the same time feeling I.m not really part of that and for
me in the whole process of research it was really important to be a part of the
context. (Herath, Critical conversation)
Excerpt 7.3: Some people asked me, are you Canadian? And I didn’t want
that question to be asked while I was there! (Herath, Critical conversation)

In a similar manner, Valencia wanted to showcase his Latin American identity,

while also negotiating his investment in a Canadian academic identity; however,
as he discussed it in the critical conversation, he encountered that his Colombian
identity was much more salient than any other identity, in most situations. This
was mainly due to frictions between Chileans and Colombians which has resulted
in discrimination against the latter group:

Excerpt 7.4: While I was there I was always a foreigner and I was not a
Canadian, I was a Colombian. (Critical conversation)

Excerpt 7.4 reflects Valencia’s frustration, which were not the result of being
perceived as a Colombian, but mostly because of the stereotypes commonly asso-
ciated with Colombians in Chile (see Segovia and Lufin, 2013). Among these
stereotypes illegal activities were prominent, particularly drug trafficking. This
can be observed in his identity text in which he created a short video animation
that showcased a picture of Pablo Escobar, the infamous Colombian drug lord,

28984.indb 95 24/09/2014 09:41

 96 Sreemali Herath and Marlon Valencia

Figure 7.2 Valencia’s conflicting claimed and assigned identities.

dressed as Pancho Villa, and where Escobar’s face slowly turns into Valencia’s
face as he says:

Excerpt 7.5: So all of a sudden I felt like I was turning from a teacher
researcher into some sort of new Pablo Escobar. (Identity text)

Student and professor identities

As we travelled to our research sites, we invested in our PhD student identities as
a way to connect with our participant TCs; however, we were often introduced as
professors due to our privileged educational background. Thus, both our student
and professor identities experienced a constant overlap. This can be seen in the
two following excerpts from our critical conversation:

Excerpt 7.6: When I dealt with the teacher candidates, I always introduced
myself as a student and a language teacher. I thought they will be able to
connect with me. But my participants never identified me as a fellow student,
but as a professor. They called me “madam” just as they addressed their
female professors and they completed all the tasks I assigned them. (Herath)
Excerpt 7.7: I often introduced myself as a student, and I noticed that TCs
were not taking me as seriously and they wouldn’t respond to my e-mails, so
I learned that I could put on the “professor hat” and get their attention
because that is how things work locally! (Valencia)

28984.indb 96 24/09/2014 09:41

 Neither ‘a complete insider’ nor ‘outsider’ 97
While Herath made an effort to be identified as a fellow student in order to
connect well with her participants, she was not perceived as a student, but as
a professor. Conversely, Valencia discarded his student identity and assumed a
professor identity in order to complete the data collection. In both instances, being
positioned as professors, either by choice or by default facilitated our data
collection.

Return: teacher educators-in-the-making

Once the hero has negotiated the many situations that present both challenges and
opportunities to advance in her journey, she goes through a process of transforma-
tion and growth as she has learned about the new realms and is able to reflect on
her old self and familiar world, as well as on the growth that she experienced in this
new realm. She is now an apprentice of these two different realities ready to share
her knowledge with the world.
(Campbell, 1968)

We both underwent a transformative journey as data collection proved to be

different from what we had imagined and planned for. This resulted in re-thinking
and re-working our data collection instruments and strategies. Finally collabora-
tion is what allowed us to successfully collect our data and return home to
reflect on our experiences collaboratively, which we share in this chapter.

Reflective glocal practitioners

This identity category serves to introduce reflection on our journey, and the
importance of collaboration in developing our TEIM identities.
Reflecting on her research, Herath discusses how she built in collaboration into
her own research journey and how she anticipates on continuing collaboration
with her Sri Lankan counterparts.

Excerpt 7.8: During my stay in Sri Lanka, I not only collaborated with teacher
educators, but also with participating teacher candidates. I co-presented a
paper with my participants at a language teachers’ conference in Sri Lanka. I
want to continue to be involved. (Critical conversation)

In his identity text, Valencia explains his development of a TEIM identity as

difficulties presented new opportunities for data collection and professional
growth:

Excerpt 7.9: I started looking at the possibilities and find my experience to

be greatly enriched by the time I could spend with the profs and learning
about the program in a different way from what I had initially envisioned
before my trip and when I created all of my data collection tools.

28984.indb 97 24/09/2014 09:41

 98 Sreemali Herath and Marlon Valencia
Discussion
The multiple and overlapping identities in our doctoral journeys can be best illus-
trated in a graphic in which Campbell’s (1968) hero’s journey both interprets and
is re-interpreted by the researchers’ experiences. Thus, in Figure 7.3 we adapted
Campbell’s hero’s adventure diagram (p. 245) to depict our doctoral journeys as
TEIMs.
The TEIMs’ journey is represented by a cycle which conveys the chronological
order in which data collection took place. First, as TEIMs we got our call to adven-
ture as our ongoing doctoral reflections upon our lived teacher experiences resulted
in the formulation of our research questions. This was followed by our thesis super-
visor’s ongoing guidance. Second, we had to cross the first threshold and show our
doctoral and ethics committees that we were ready to conduct our research. Third,
we found ourselves immersed in the “belly of the whale,” (Campbell, 1968, p. 34)
which represents exploring and discovering our research sites. Fourth, we encoun-
tered obstacles to conduct data collection as well as other local difficulties, which
represents “the road of trials” (p. 97) In the fifth step of the journey, as TEIMs we
had to cross a return threshold and show that we were capable of navigating through
the multiple difficulties to collect data successfully as we embraced the “supernat-
ural aid” (p. 34) of collaborating with colleague teacher educators. Last, we reaf-
firmed our reflective TEIM identities as we return home, and engaged in
collaboration through mutual reflection. Campbell refers to this stage as the hero
becoming a “master of the two worlds” (p. 229), but in this chapter we reinterpret
it as the TEIMs becoming apprentices of two worlds; thus, we continue being
language teachers and progressively develop the skills and expertise of language
teacher educators and researchers. In this figure, we also divided our experiences in
the three main stages of data collection: Departure (pre-data collection), Initiation
(data collection), and Return (post-data collection reflection). In addition to this,

Figure 7.3 The teacher educator-in-the-making’s journey.

28984.indb 98 24/09/2014 09:41

 Neither ‘a complete insider’ nor ‘outsider’ 99
the stages are divided in diagonal lines instead of the Campbell’s straight-lined
diagram, to illustrate that each stage’s beginning an end is not clearly defined.
The multiple TEIM’s identities are all contained in one concentric circle that
shows how they overlap in all stages of the journey. TEIM, teacher, researcher
and professor appear in a bigger font to show their saliency, along with other
personal identities.

Final reflections
This chapter illustrated our two teacher-educators-in-the making journeys as our
multiple identities were negotiated across time and contexts while conducting our
doctoral research. The use of the hero’s journey proved to be a powerful metaphor
for us to engage in critical collaboration and reflect on our experiences as language
teachers and researchers. This led to a deeper understanding of where we stand,
and the different teacher educator identities that we invest in.
We see ourselves collaborating with colleagues across borders, particularly in
places where we already have some kind of connection due to our ethnic and
linguistic backgrounds, such as Latin America and Sri Lanka. However, as we
conducted this study and co-authored our narratives, we experienced that collabo-
ration may also occur among language teacher educators from any ethnic or
linguistic background or community of practice so long as they work together
having a common goal such as helping prepare future language teachers to
acknowledge and address the needs of diverse learners. We hope that our teachers’
and doctoral students’ accounts contribute to scholarship on how language
teachers develop critical reflection and life-learning skills by researching their
experiences and identities during their doctoral studies.

References
Bamberg, M. (2004). Talk: Small stories and adolescent identities. Human Development,
47, 366–369.
Bamberg, M. (2006). Stories: Big or small: Why do we care? Narrative Inquiry, 16(1),
139–147.
Barkhuizen, G. and de Klerk, V. (2006). Imagined identities: pre-immigrants’ narratives on
language and identity. International Journal of Bilingualism, 10(3), 277–299.
Bell, J. S. (2002). Narrative inquiry: More than telling stories. TESOL Quarterly, 36(2),
207–213.
Borg, S. (2003). Teacher cognition in language teaching: A review of research on what
language teachers think, know, believe, and do. Language Teaching, 36(02), 81–109.
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Brown, J. and Moffett, C. (1999). The Hero’s Journey: How Educators Can Transform
Schools and Improve Learning. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision &
Curriculum Development.
Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. (1996). The Culture of Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

28984.indb 99 24/09/2014 09:41

 100 Sreemali Herath and Marlon Valencia
Campbell, J. (1968). The Hero with a Thousand Faces (2nd edn). Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Canagarajah, S. (2012). Teacher development in a global profession: An autobiography.
TESOL Quarterly, 46(2), 258–279.
Carr, D. (1986). Time, Narrative and History. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Chang, H. (2008). Autoethnography as Method. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Clandinin, D. J. and Connelly, F. M. (1994). Personal experience methods. In N. K. Denzin
and Y. S. Lincoln (Eds), Handbook of Qualitative Research (pp. 413–427). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Clandinin, D. J. and Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative Inquiry: Experience and Story in
Qualitative Research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Clarke, M. (2009). The ethico-politics of teacher identity. Educational Philosophy and
Theory, 41(2), 185–200.
Crossley, M. L. (2000). Narrative psychology, trauma, and the study of self/identity.
Theory & Psychology, 10(2), 527–546.
Cummins, J. (2001). Negotiating Identities: Education for Empowerment in a Diverse
Society (2nd edn). Los Angeles, CA: California Association for Bilingual Education.
Cummins, J. (2009). Transformative multiliteracies pedagogy: School-based strategies for
closing the achievement gap. Multiple Voices for Ethnically Diverse Exceptional
Learners, 112, 38–56.
Ellis, C. (2009). Revision: Autoethnographic Reflections on Life and Work. Walnut Creek,
CA: Left Coast Press.
Gee, J. P. (2001). Identity as an analytic lens for research in education. Review of Research
in Education, 25, 99–125.
Georgakopoulou, A. (2006). Thinking big with small stories in narrative identity analysis.
Narrative Inquiry, 16(1), 122–130.
Goldstein, L. (2005). Becoming a teacher as hero’s journey: Using metaphor in preservice
teacher education. Teacher Education Quarterly 32(1) (Winter), 7–23.
Heikkinen, H. (2002). Whatever is narrative research? In R. Huttunen, H. L. T. Heikkinen,
and L. Syrjala (Eds), N varrative Research: Voices of Teachers and Philosophers.
Jyvaskyla: SoPhi.
Kraus, W. (2006). The narrative negotiation of identity and belonging. Narrative Inquiry,
16(1), 103–111.
Lave, J., and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Liu, J. (1999). Nonnative-English-speaking professionals in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly,
33(1), 85–102.
Liu, Y. and Xu, Y. (2011). Inclusion or exclusion?: A narrative inquiry of a language
teacher’s identity experience in the “new work order” of competing pedagogies.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 27, 589–597.
Miller, J. (2009). Teacher Identity. In A. Burns and J. C. Richards (Eds), The Cambridge
Guide to Second Language Teacher Education (pp. 172–181). New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press.
Mishler, E. (2000). Storylines: Craftartists’ Narratives of Identity. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Morgan, B. (2004). Teacher identity as pedagogy: Towards field-international conceptuali-
zation in bilingual and second language education. Bilingual Education and Bilin-
gualism, 7(2&3), 172–188.
Noble, K. (1994). The Sound of a Silver Horn: Reclaiming the Heroism in Contemporary
Women’s Lives. New York: Ballantine Books.

28984.indb 100 24/09/2014 09:41

 Neither ‘a complete insider’ nor ‘outsider’ 101
Norton Peirce, B. (1995). Social identity investment, and language learning. TESOL
Quarterly, 29(1), 9–31.
Norton, B. (2000). Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational
Change. Harlow: Longman/Pearson Education.
Norton, B. and Early, M. (2011). Researcher identity, narrative inquiry, and language
teaching research. TESOL Quarterly, 45(3), 415–439.
Pavlenko, A. and Lantolf, J. P. (2000). Second language learning as participation and the
(re)construction of selves. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.) Sociocultural Theory and Second
Language Learning (pp. 155–178). New York: Oxford University Press.
Pavlenko, A. (2003). “I never knew I was bilingual”: Reimagining teacher identities in
TESOL. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 2, 251–268.
Pavlenko, A. and Norton, B. (2007). Imagined communities, identity, and English language
learning. In J. Cummins and C. Davison (Eds) International Handbook of English
Language Teaching: Part II (pp. 669–680). New York: Springer.
Polkinghorne, D. (1988). Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences. Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press.
Rabossi, M. (2009). Two Different Organizational Reactions: The University Sector in
Argentina and Colombia and the neoliberal proposal. Policy Futures in Education, 7(5),
532–543.
Ricoeur, P. (1991). Life quest of narrative. In D. Wood (Ed.), On Paul Ricoeur: Narrative
and Interpretation (pp. 20–33). London: Routledge.
Ruohotie-Lyhty, M. (2013). Struggling for professional identity: Two newly qualified
language teachers’ identity narratives during the first years at work. Teaching and
Teacher Education, 30, 120–129.
Segovia, J. S. and Lufin, M. (2013). Approaches to the Afro-Colombian Experience in
Chile: South-South Immigration toward the Northern Regions. Journal of Black Studies,
44(33), 231–251.
Sfard, A. and Prusak, A. (2005). Telling identities: In search of an analytic tool for investi-
gating learning as a culturally shaped activity. Educational Researcher, 34(4), 14–22.
Strauss, A., and Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Proce-
dures for Developing Grounded Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Tsui, A. (2007). Complexities of identity formation: A narrative inquiry of an EFL teacher.
TESOL Quarterly, 41(4), 657–680.
Varghese, M., Morgan, B., Johnston, B., and Johnson, K. (2005). Theorizing language
teacheridentity: Three perspectives and beyond. Journal of Language, Identity, and
Education, 4, 21–44.
Villate, V. M. (2012). Qualitative research as a hero’s journey: Six archetypes to draw on.
The Qualitative Report, 17(76), 1–9.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

28984.indb 101 24/09/2014 09:41

 8 In the ivory tower and out of the
loop
Racialized and gendered identities of
university EFL teachers in Japan
Diane Hawley Nagatomo

Introduction
This chapter explores the relationship between gender and professional identity in
foreign1 women teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in Japanese higher
education. University language teaching is at the top of the EFL educational hier-
archy – above language schools and secondary institutions – and often considered
the “Holy Grail” of EFL employment in Japan. Some foreign teachers2 who
started at the bottom of the hierarchy decide to remain in Japan for various reasons
– they put roots down (often due to marriage to a Japanese national) and/or they
decide to make a career out of EFL teaching. To move away from work that is
perceived to have no upward mobility, teachers often enroll in graduate programs
and join professional organizations and aim for university employment, which is
seen as more stable and more respectable (e.g. Fraser, 2011; Whitsed and Wright,
2011). At the beginning of their careers, they are often hired as adjunct teachers,
hoping to obtain full-time or permanent positions. Other teachers, especially those
with newly minted master degrees, are often, but not always, contracted prior to
arrival to teach full time at universities with large foreign language centers. The
pinnacle of university employment is, of course, tenure.
For foreign teachers, there is often a racialized dichotomy separating them from
Japanese teachers which results in different hiring criteria, different employment
benefits, and different levels of professional respect (e.g. Fraser, 2011; Hayes,
2013; Simon-Maeda, 2004; Whitsed and Wright, 2011). There are two categories
of employment in universities: standard and non-standard. Standard employment,
which is similar to the Japanese corporate tradition of lifetime employment with
social welfare benefits and job security, means tenure. Non-standard employment
involves full-time teaching under limited-term contracts or part-time teaching in
one or more universities. Full-time teachers may be eligible for certain social
welfare benefits under the terms of their contracts, but part-time teachers must
make arrangements for their own insurance and pensions. Whereas tenured
teachers have job security, part-time and limited-term contracted teachers, whose
positions are precarious, do not (e.g. Hayes, 2013; Rivers, 2013).
The hiring criteria for standard positions, which are occupied mainly by
Japanese teachers, are stringent. Holding advanced degrees in a related field and

28984.indb 102 24/09/2014 09:41

 In the ivory tower and out of the loop 103
having published peer-reviewed articles are generally the minimal requirements
for teachers to obtain a tenured position. On the other hand, there is, and always
has been, more leeway for teachers in non-standard positions. Although some
(especially part-time teachers) have only bachelor’s degrees, graduate degrees in
any field are generally acceptable and publication requirements are often waived
and/or not carefully scrutinized (e.g. Fraser, 2011; Hayes, 2013). Most foreign
university English teachers work in non-standard positions, and they are often
hired for their native-speakerness to promote an international image for the
university (e.g. Rivers, 2013; Whitsed and Wright, 2011). Full-timers are usually
given limited-term contracts that ensure a steady stream of younger (and less-
experienced, but of course, cheaper) teachers because of what Rivers (2013) calls
“a conveyer belt mentality” (p. 77) held by universities that want to have a constant
supply of fresh foreign teachers.
Under these circumstances then, how are foreign women working in Japanese
universities faring? They are subject to the same employment conditions offered
to foreign men, but they must also adapt to Japanese gendered attitudes that view
women as primarily wives and mothers (e.g. Liddle and Nakajima, 2000). How
does contact with foreign male colleagues, who outnumber foreign women three
to one (MEXT, 2006), influence their professional identities? Foreign men enjoy
privileged status as men in a male-dominated society such as Japan, but foreign
women do not. Whereas marriage for these men may signal respectability and
stability as a professional teacher (Appleby, 2013b), for a woman, marriage (or
even the possibility of marriage) may raise questions about her professional abili-
ties (e.g. Hicks, 2013; Simon-Maeda, 2004).
Furthermore, foreign men – especially young and white ones in commercial-
ized settings – are also often considered more desirable language teachers because
of their marketability in attracting young female students, many of whom approach
language learning as a means to gain access to a romanticized Western world (e.g.
Appleby, 2013a; 2013b; Bailey, 2006; Kelskey, 2001; Takahashi, 2013). It seems
that some male teachers are taking advantage of such attitudes; female university
English teachers interviewed by Hicks (2013) complained of their foreign male
colleagues who openly flirted with their students and had short-skirted girls sit in
the front row “in case they spread their legs and offered a peek,” and referred to
the sexy students as “fuck me types” during faculty meetings (p. 157). Such senti-
ments are visible on self-published websites and blogs, but can also be found in
reputable columns as well. Guest (2011), in his online column The Uni Files,
which offers a “candid look at EFL life and lessons from a university teacher’s
perspective,” published an online article entitled “How to talk to Japanese women
– EFL Version.” This article attempts to humorously explain gendered aspects of
the university classroom for male teachers and offers advice on how to deal with
“Leggy Keiko” and her “pair of ostentatiously displayed legs” (para 15). He states
that “the lady showing lotsa leg may not care too much, she may be used to – and
may to some extent relish – men checking her out,” but he warns male readers that
Leggy Keiko sees them as teachers, and therefore, “ogling her probably dimin-
ishes your status in her legs . . . umm . . . mind” (para 16). Although this article

28984.indb 103 24/09/2014 09:41

 104 Diane Hawley Nagatomo
generated outrage among male and female teachers (see Mulvey, 2012a), it does
showcase the existence of a sexualized university atmosphere. Many foreign male
teachers understandably wish to disassociate themselves from such images and
such unprofessional behavior, especially as they age and ascend the EFL hier-
archy in Japan (Appleby, 2013b), but prevailing attitudes toward men in general,
and foreign men in particular, offer direct and indirect benefits for all male
teachers, whether they engage in unprofessional behavior or not (Hicks, 2013).
The notion that “foreign guys are so cool” (comment from one of my students)
may still ring true with many female English language learners.
Given these issues, it seems that the professional identity of foreign female
university English teachers in Japan will be shaped not only by institutionalized
positioning and gendered ideologies, but also by their relationships with their
male colleagues, both Japanese and foreign. My question then concerns how
foreign women mobilize and manage their competing identities as teachers,
researchers, wives, mothers, and members of their local communities while navi-
gating the murky waters of Japanese academia that are shaped by racialized and
gendered discourses.

Methodology
This chapter presents the results from part of my larger study of foreign female
EFL teachers working in various educational contexts (private lessons, conversa-
tion schools, and secondary and tertiary institutions) in Japan. Data were collected
via three methods. First, I examined the responses of 38 university English
teachers via an online questionnaire (Survey Monkey) targeted to female EFL
teachers in Japan (n=220) that invited commentary on the following statements:
(1) Expectations in my university/universities are no different for me than they are
for my male colleagues; (2) Expectations in my university/universities are no
different for me than they are for my Japanese colleagues; and (3) Do you have
any comments concerning teaching in a college or university? Of the 38 respond-
ents, 15 were part-time teachers, 13 were non-tenured full-time teachers (usually
with three to five year contracts) and nine were tenured. Part-time teachers
included those who teach in other areas as well, including conversation schools,
secondary schools, and some even have their own teaching businesses. Of the
tenured teachers, two are full professors, five are associate professors, and two are
assistant professors.
Data also come from several personal e-mail exchanges with three women (one
tenured professor, one contracted teacher, and one part-time teacher) describing
challenges they face as foreign women in their universities, and from selected post-
ings (with permission of the writers) on an e-list established (by one of the original
survey participants) in August 2012 to provide academic and career support, as
well as networking opportunities for foreign women in Japanese academia. Some
of the 23 women on this e-list were also respondents to the original questionnaire.
All of the participants’ names are pseudonyms (unless otherwise stated) and
identifying details concerning residence and employment have been purposely

28984.indb 104 24/09/2014 09:41

 In the ivory tower and out of the loop 105
made vague to protect privacy. The following acronyms are placed after each
name to indicate the data source: SP (survey participant), EP (email participant)
and DP (online discussion participant). The responses to the open-ended ques-
tions from the questionnaire, the correspondence from the teachers, and selected
portions of the e-list were uploaded to a qualitative data analysis software called
Hyper Research (see http://www.researchware.com/products/hyperresearch.html)
and coded to determine recurring themes.
My analysis of the data draws upon Wenger (1998) and Lave and Wenger’s
(1991) conceptualization of identity that evolves through day-to-day experiences
through participation in groups they call “communities of practice” (CoP).
Belonging to these groups involves the dual process of identification, a fluid rela-
tionship between individuals within a community that includes fluid participative
and reificative experiences and negotiation, the degree to which people are able to
“contribute to, take responsibility for and shape the meaning that matter within a
social configuration” (Wenger, 1998, p. 197). In particular, I use Wenger’s three
modes of belonging under these categories of identification and negotiation:
engagement, imagination, and alignment.
Identity that forms under engagement lies in the “doing” and refers to what
people do and with whom they do it. The degree of marginality or acceptance into
a community shapes how a person engages, identifies and negotiates with that
community. Imagination, which works through association and opposition that
enable people to develop closeness or distance with one another, helps people
create an internal picture of the world they live in. Imagination enables people to
appropriate meanings and interpret how they stand within a community.
Alignment, which is connected to power, leads to shared ownership of meanings
through negotiation and participation in a larger group, and determines the extent
and the forms of allegiance people offer to a community.
The participants in my study are members of the community of practice of
university English teachers in Japan, but as Wenger argues, trajectories determine
the degree of membership. Members on a peripheral trajectory will not gain full
participation; members on an inbound trajectory may eventually obtain full
participation, but not every member is on the insider trajectory where people feel
like they have a strong voice as full members of the community. There are also
members on boundary trajectories who link communities together but who are
not necessarily members of a community, and there are those who are on an
outbound trajectory who leave one community for another.

Results and discussion

My discussion of the data focuses on the participants’ imagination and alignment
through their engagement with their communities of practices. As university
teachers, the work they do is dependent upon their non-standard or standard
employment conditions. Part-time teachers engage primarily in teaching their
classes, while contracted and tenured teachers engage in various other duties as
well, such as working on various committees and supervising students. Regardless

28984.indb 105 24/09/2014 09:41

 106 Diane Hawley Nagatomo
of their positions, imagination and alignment determine their interpretation of
their membership within these workplace communities, and in the communities
within the communities as well.

Feeling like vulnerable outsiders

The greatest concern expressed by all of the participants in non-standard employ-
ment is their vulnerability as temporary and replaceable foreign teachers. No
matter how they perform, contracted teachers must leave when their contracts
expire. No matter how long they have been employed, part-time teachers will
never receive a raise. This did not pose a problem for some participants, especially
those with school-aged children, who did not wish to increase teaching hours or
change employment status. Others, many of whom are the main breadwinners in
their families, however, were concerned about their long-term and short-term
economic futures. They worried that the university EFL market was drying up
because of widespread university cutbacks and because of a steady influx of newer
and younger teachers. Biological clocks tick away; obtaining tenured positions is
difficult after teachers turn 50. Limited-term contracts may also become increas-
ingly difficult to find, especially after teachers have made the rounds of all the
local universities that offer such positions. An ongoing discussion within the
e-group concerns how to remain competitive in today’s job market. Members of
the group identify mainly as language teachers, but they understand they must
become researchers and engage in professional development through publishing
and presenting in order to maintain or improve their employment status.
The following comments from four of the survey participants provide clear
examples of how they see themselves as outsiders. The first comment comes from
a part-time teacher, who feels she has no access to power and is in the dark as to
what goes on behind the scenes at the university:

I have no idea what the expectations are. I don’t even know who my “boss”
is, if there is one. I have no idea who hired me, or why; was I just a warm
body? Did my CV help me out? Or was it the hair and eyes?
(Anonymous 1, SP)

Not only is she unaware of who the power holders are, she is also unaware of
curricular guidelines that should be shaping her pedagogical practices for that
particular institution and for her particular students. This has led her to question
her very existence as a teacher for that school. The following comment from a
dispatch teacher not only suggests that she feels, as the anonymous comment
above suggests, like just a “warm body” taking up space, but one that is easily
interchangeable with another warm-bodied foreign teacher:

I was told that a full time teacher will take some of my classes during the
semester because he had some time off of his classes and it wouldn’t cost
them any more for him to teach, but they would have to pay me. So I had to

28984.indb 106 24/09/2014 09:41

 In the ivory tower and out of the loop 107
tell my students that those days another teacher would come. He’s a good
teacher and they are familiar with him, but I didn’t like being told I didn’t get
to work those days when I need to pay for groceries and my kids’ school.
(Karen, SP)

Employing university teachers through a dispatch company is dubious enough,

but switching classes at the last minute so the institution could economize demeans
both teachers’ professional status. Furthermore, if foreigners are considered inter-
changeable, as such practices suggest, then perhaps so is the content of what they
teach:

I like that I can do what I want, but the crap co-worker was also allowed to do
whatever she wanted, which included lying on the floor during lessons, and
that made my freedom seem more like they just didn’t care.
(Linda, SP)

For conscientious teachers, the freedom to innovate in the Japanese tertiary EFL
classroom is quite welcome, but this freedom may facilitate lackadaisical attitudes
toward teaching for slipshod teachers. Linda feels that being lumped together with
such teachers is professionally demoralizing.
Teachers working under limited-term contracts, who must always worry about
their next position, are on a permanent outbound trajectory (Wenger, 1998).
Anonymous 2’s (SP) comment below highlights again the notion that foreign
teachers are seen as one large entity rather than individuals with different teaching
strengths and weaknesses. Teachers may perceive that as long as they are silent
and compliant, letters of recommendation will be forthcoming and their careers
can continue when they move on to the next university. Yet, there seems to be
little care as to what they actually do as teachers:

Temps are in a very vulnerable position. Because we have to look for

another job every three years, we need letters of recommendation from
Japanese supervisors who do not know us well and have never observed
our classes or care about us. The only way a Japanese supervisor has contact
with us is when they observe our obedience and preferred silence during
meetings.
(Anonymous 2, SP)

Contracted foreign English language teachers are often expected to present posi-
tive images in accordance with institutional policies as a commodity to attract
potential students (e.g. Rivers, 2013; Whitsed and Wright, 2011). According to
Rivers (2013), they are not allowed to criticize conditions or to demand changes
for fear of dismissal, and furthermore, they rarely do so because the revolving
door of their employment situation keeps them too occupied.
Perhaps Marie (SP) who loves teaching, but hates having to leave within two
years, describes the situation best by saying, “I feel disposable.”

28984.indb 107 24/09/2014 09:41

 108 Diane Hawley Nagatomo
It’s not just about the “gravy”
The previous narratives illustrate the participants’ perceptions of their lack of
agency in their workplaces due to the limitations and attendant instability of their
employment status, which is applicable to both male and female teachers. This
section examines issues that are more closely related to gender. Nearly all of the
participants report believing they are subjected to different standards than their
male counterparts. Let us return briefly to Karen’s (SP) example above. She lost
important income by being replaced by an available salaried male teacher. Perhaps
the school simply did not care about her financial situation, but perhaps it felt that
her income was nonessential. The notion that women’s income is considered
nonessential was an issue brought up by other participants as well.
The most interesting example comes from a series of email exchanges with
Jennifer (EP), who recently moved with her three children to a different part of
Japan to begin a new contract at a national university. Her Japanese husband, a
part-time university teacher, stayed behind to work in their former prefecture.
Because salary discussions are often vague prior to commencing work in Japan,
she assumed it would be similar to the one she received previously. However,
after housing and educational expenses were deducted, she found it was insuffi-
cient to live on. Her complaints fell on deaf ears:

Basically I was told that I was a spoilt brat housewife, who should be happy
with the little salary she gets, and obviously doesn’t know how to budget. I
was also asked why my husband didn’t help out! I was shocked, and was told
that I have only been here a few months, and that perhaps I needed better
money management skills! Mouth dropped to the ground. If I was a man, I
don’t think that would never have been said to me.

Jennifer also had difficulty registering her children as dependents, and as a result,
they were uninsured for three months. Even after producing necessary documen-
tation, the administrators, apparently blinded by gendered attitudes that men
should support women, believed she was trying to pull a fast one. They asked her
husband to provide documents from his universities proving that the children
were indeed not his dependents. Such a demand was a professional insult for
Jennifer, an embarrassment to her husband, and an annoyance for his employers.
Jennifer’s job dissatisfaction became well known, and her colleagues suddenly
became very nice. Later she learned they had been instructed “to keep Jennifer
happy.” In other words, it was believed that if she were managed well, she would
learn to adapt. Her colleagues spoke positively of the university and the local area,
and one professor even suggested adding part-time teaching to her already busy
schedule as a full-time teacher and the sole caregiver for her children as a means
to supplement her income. Instead, she obtained a higher paying position and
announced her resignation before her first semester there ended. Some of those
who had previously been “nice” began gossiping about her, and she overheard one
colleague insinuating that a woman like Jennifer would be unhappy wherever she
went.

28984.indb 108 24/09/2014 09:41

 In the ivory tower and out of the loop 109
Although Jennifer’s base salary was probably identical to her male colleagues’,
the manner in which her superiors and the administrators dealt with her concerns
were definitely shaped by gendered attitudes. Other participants had similar expe-
riences as well. For example, male colleagues attempted to make Anne (SP, EP
and DP), feel selfish for not exiting the university teaching competition and they
told her that her income was merely “gravy” since she had a Japanese husband to
support her. One lesser-qualified colleague even complained to the higher-ups
after his classes were decreased but Anne’s were not. He later asked her directly
why that was since she “had a husband and didn’t ‘need’ the money.”
It seems that some “old timer teachers” believe that seniority should trump
academic credentials in obtaining and maintaining university work, as well as
believe that it is a male necessity to work and a female obligation to be a
family caregiver (Hicks, 2013). Anne believes that the teacher above had no
right to claim privilege to those English classes merely on the basis of his male
breadwinning seniority, since he only has a bachelor’s degree and sees no need
to upgrade his academic credentials or engage in professional development.
She admits, “It’s harsh I know, but I don’t think having a family to support is
a good reason to keep someone in a job they aren’t doing properly and aren’t
qualified for.”
With hiring standards for universities becoming increasingly stringent (Hayes,
2013), many foreign teachers study, research, and publish to maintain their
employability. And yet, some teachers like the man above refuse to do so,
believing such efforts are unnecessary and a waste of time. Anne says under-
qualified old timers ridicule younger and up-and-coming teachers in the teachers’
lounge, even males, when they engage in activities to upgrade their academic
qualifications:

They then start their rants about why should they waste the time and money
and blah blah blah . . . I had to listen to this last week from “Mr. I didn’t get
a job interview”. It amazes me that people who work at universities seem to
find studying a waste of time. . . . Fine. You guys do nothing while I get my
butt in gear. We’ll see who’s laughing at the end.
(Anne, SP, EP, DP)

Anne certainly got the last laugh because she recently obtained a limited-term
contracted position. One of her male colleagues, however, trivialized her success
by surmising that she was hired merely because she was a woman and not because
of her qualifications, reflecting common attitudes that successful foreign female
teachers somehow have advantages over foreign male teachers, despite their being
obviously outnumbered in the workplace (Hicks, 2013). Nevertheless, Anne has
decided to use the next six years of her contract, which includes a research budget
and office space, to study for a PhD and thus solidify her position as a professional
university English teacher. This may be a very smart step for Anne to take, because
as Hayes (2013) observes, meritocratic recruitment procedures in Japanese
universities are on the rise. This may benefit women who have been traditionally

28984.indb 109 24/09/2014 09:41

 110 Diane Hawley Nagatomo
excluded from jobs because of discriminatory nepotism, a practice that will be
discussed next.

Being in the “in-the-know” crowd

Obtaining tenure, which is Anne’s ultimate goal, however, is not without stum-
bling blocks. Anonymous 3 (SP) raises issues brought forth by various other
participants as well:

Now, being tenured, I am totally uninterested in whether there are differ-

ences, as I have secure employment. However, in the past, as a non-tenured,
I saw huge differences. Foreign men seem to float to the top, and we foreign
women seem to be left out. That included me. I really had to work hard, and
persist against all odds to get a good job. I saw guys with much less qualifica-
tions get tenured jobs just because they were male, or young, or knew
someone! Unbelievable! Especially passing on part-time classes. I was never
in that loop.
However, if I had answered this survey a couple of years ago, my
perceptions of Japanese university teaching were very negative, as I was
just an underappreciated, contract teacher, with little decision making /power/
salary/status. Because of economic necessity and family responsibilities,
I had no choice but to try and persist. However, things looked very bleak
for a long time, and I wondered if I had made a very stupid decision in
coming here and trying to make a go of it. I was desperate to find even
a contract, then heard of some universities in (name of prefecture) who hired
these guys who didn’t even have a Masters, because one of their male friends
recommended them. These well-paid contracts were out of my reach, and I
scrounged to make my part-time classes fit together, running from school to
school.
(Anonymous 3, SP)

Anonymous 3 (SP) draws attention to what many of the participants believe to be

unfair advantages that male teachers have due to an extensive networking system
that professionally and socially excludes women. Much of this networking takes
place in university staff rooms, but since women are few in number, it is difficult
to join in the workplace camaraderie that could ultimately advantage them. Sarah
(DP), who has given me permission to use her real name, describes on her blog
how this can cause discomfort for the women there:

The staffroom discussions that go on between classes at various campuses

around town could be the key to getting the next great part-time, or possibly
full-time set-up. And because of the nature of the university teaching busi-
ness here, these talks can become, at times, a little testosterone fuelled. The
female persuasion is not equally represented in these parts; so naturally, the
banter is geared more towards male interests, which aren’t always necessarily

28984.indb 110 24/09/2014 09:41

 In the ivory tower and out of the loop 111
job related. It does make it a little more difficult to be part of the “in” crowd,
or should I say, the “in-the-know” crowd. These discussions that center
around common interests and tastes can lead to friendships and solidarity and
promises of keeping one another up-to-date on the job front. It can be difficult
for a woman to integrate herself easily into these chats. If and when she does,
she can hopefully forge friendships and contacts and be on the same playing
field as her colleagues.
(Mulvey, 2012b)

Sarah goes on to write that although the teacher-lounge banter includes useful
academic and career information, it also includes inappropriately aggressive and
sexist talk that creates discomfort for foreign women who attempt to be members
of the group. Unfortunately, if she draws attention to the inappropriateness of the
conversation, she becomes labeled “as ‘that teacher’ – an overly sensitive, politi-
cally correct party-pooper who becomes the “next great topic for the gossip mill”
when she is out of the room. It seems that some foreign male teachers have already
been reprimanded by their foreign female colleagues for such behavior, and they
don’t like it. Roslyn Appleby (2013b), while researching heterosexuality and
masculinity in English teaching in Japan, was told by one of her male participants
the reason why he could not convince other colleagues to participate in her study
was because they suspected she was ‘ “just another comfy shoe wearing gaijin
[foreign] woman with her nose out of joint” ’ (p. 6).
The pressure to be one of the boys may be great, but it can be emotionally
costly. The best solution, many participants agree, is avoidance. However,
such avoidance can ensure exclusion from the employment information loop,
because as Hicks (2013) argues, jobs are generally obtained through word-of-
mouth and personal introductions, which often occurs between same-sexed
friends. She says some universities only hire those with personal introductions,
making jobholders act as powerful gatekeepers for job seekers. This could
hinder women’s career opportunities if they do not have any male friends in
tertiary education.

He was treated with greater respect and deference

Although earlier Anonymous 3 (SP) said she no longer cares about gender issues
in the university now that she has tenure, she may change her mind. Holding
tenure ensures being on the inbound trajectory of the university, but as Wenger
(1998) states, not everyone is on the insider trajectory (also see Poole, 2010).
Comments from tenured participants indicate a gendered isolation that prevents
them from becoming insiders. In Japan, important workplace decisions are often
made after hours over dinner and alcoholic drinks, disadvantaging women who
may not be invited, or who may not be able to attend such gatherings due to family
responsibilities.
Janet (EP), a tenured full-professor, found her exclusion from such gatherings
to be a rude awakening to Japanese culture:

28984.indb 111 24/09/2014 09:41

 112 Diane Hawley Nagatomo
I was shocked, on first taking up my duties at ABC University, to find that
socializing tended to be split on gender lines, with my male colleagues (all
very kind, friendly, nice individuals) tending often to go out in the evenings
to “snacks” [bars] to drink, carouse, sing, while I was expected to join female
colleagues in meeting at coffee shops.
(Janet, EP)

Furthermore, Janet’s status within the department shrank after a foreign male
teacher joined the faculty:

At ABC, I was the only “foreigner” for the first three years, and then a Cana-
dian man and his wife, and an English woman were hired. It was only when
the Canadian man was hired that I began to recognize the extent to which men
occupy a “favored” position in this society. Although I had my doctorate and
he was working on his, I felt he was treated with greater respect and
deference.
(Janet, EP)

Many of the tenured women enjoy their jobs. They have the freedom to research
and teach in areas they choose, and like the Japanese women in my previous study
(Nagatomo, 2012), they focus on their own goals rather than worry too much
about gendered exclusion. However, Alice (SP), a tenured associate professor in
a private university, complains that the rules for advancement in her university are
vague and determined by those in power. Women, who are few in number and
who are held to different standards than their male counterparts, have thus had
their career trajectories affected negatively:

My university is male-dominated, as it was originally a science university.

There is academic harassment against female teachers both Japanese
and native. Women are expected to do the same work but with no
promotion and outright discrimination. It is a minefield of academic
weirdos – both women and men – but mainly men who use their position to
harass others, in the name of education . . . Sneaky paybacks, lack of
clear rules defining promotion, which creates academic harassment. I would
like to move to a different university, but fear that it would be the same
wherever I go.
(Alice, SP)

Although there have been attempts to identify and prevent instances of academic
and sexual harassment, in Japan, official policies have yet been established due to
fears of being unable to handle what may become a floodgate of complaints
(Creaser, 2012). When harassment is systematic and deep rooted, it is difficult to
implement changes, even by concerned authority figures. Harshbarger (2012), a
former director of a language institute in a prominent Tokyo private university
writes:

28984.indb 112 24/09/2014 09:41

 In the ivory tower and out of the loop 113
Female instructors almost universally complained about what they perceived
as pervasive sexism by a minority of male instructors toward them [female
teachers] as individuals and as a group. They felt that this sexism rose to the
level of misogyny; a few reported feeling physically, emotionally and profes-
sionally in danger from one or more negative members of the ELP [English
Language Program]. Many women felt (and I think justly so) disappointed by
the failure of myself and others to stop the pattern of disrespect and hostility
directed toward them.
(p. 9)

Harshbarger said the problems in his institution lay with a “few bad apples” who
contaminated the workplace atmosphere, which was also a feeling among my
participants as well. Many spoke highly of their male colleagues, some of whom
they consider friends. Nevertheless, these few bad apples influenced the degree to
which my participants could comfortably align themselves professionally with
their colleagues and with their students.

Concluding remarks
In this chapter, I have explored several themes surrounding the gendered profes-
sional lives of foreign women teaching English in Japanese universities. Their
identities are largely dependent upon their employment status, with those in
unstable non-standard positions feeling the least amount of belonging and the
least appreciated. We can also see how Japanese expectations regarding women
make the participants feel buttonholed not only by Japanese society at large but
also by some of their foreign male colleagues, who may have adopted Japanese
gendered bias. Such attitudes result in personal and career obstacles shaping their
degree of alignment with their workplace communities. This can have a direct and
an indirect influence over their teaching practices, which could ultimately influ-
ence their students’ language learning experiences as well.
It is important to gather teachers’ stories and examine teachers’ lives, because
it enables us to, as Simon-Maeda (2004) argues, “uncover the field’s political and
ideological underpinnings and rework them toward more progressive ends”
(p. 431). The sampling of narratives offered by these women indicates that they
are bound by sociopolitical ideologies surrounding race (non-Japaneseness) and
gender. Resigned acceptance of a status quo that promotes institutionalized depro-
fessionalism and gendered isolation, however, can lead to a loss in passion for
teaching and make people remain in the field “just for the money” (Martha, SP).
However, some of the women choose to see beyond these ideologies and envision
futures where their research productivity and teaching achievements are rewarded.
Although there is no guarantee of securing tenured positions or experiencing a
gender bias-free workplace, such negotiation and renegotiation of their personal
and professional identities can enable women teaching in tertiary education in
Japan to interpret the meaning of their experiences for their own progressive
purposes.

28984.indb 113 24/09/2014 09:41

 114 Diane Hawley Nagatomo
Notes
1 I purposely use the terms “foreign” and “foreigner” because it is a direct translation of
gaikokujin, or the more informal gaijin, which is commonly used in Japan to describe
non-Japanese people.
2 I use the term “teacher” to refer to those who teach, regardless of the academic title they
may hold.

References
Appleby, R. (2013a). Desire in translation: white masculinity and TESOL, TESOL Quar-
terly 7(1), 122–147.
Appleby, R. (2013b). Singleness, marriage, and the construction of heterosexual mascu-
linities: Australian men teaching English in Japan. Journal of Multidisciplinary Interna-
tional Studies, 10(1), 1–21.
Bailey, K. (2006). Marketing the eikaiwa wonderland: ideology, akogare, and gender
alterity in English conversation school advertising in Japan. Environment and Planning
D: Society and Space, 24, 105–130.
Creaser, F. (2012). Harassment prevention policies at a Japanese university. The Journal
and Proceedings of the Gender Awareness in Language Education (GALE) Special
Interest Group of the Japan Association for Language Teaching, 5, 22–37.
Fraser, M. (2011). Exploring the Nature and Process of Professional Identity of Teachers
of English in Japanese Higher Education. PhD Thesis. University of Wollongong:
Wollongong, Australia.
Guest, M. (2011, July 1). How to talk to Japanese women – EFL style. ELTNews.com,
Retrieved December 12, 2013 from http://www.eltnews.com/columns/uni_files/2011/07/
how_to_talk_to_japanese_women.html.
Harshbarger, B. (2012). A faulty ivory tower: Reflections on directing the ELP from 2006–
2012. Language Research Bulletin, 27, 1–14.
Hayes, B. E. (2013). Hiring criteria for Japanese university English-teaching faculty, In
S. Houghton and D. Rivers (Eds) Native-speakerism in Japan: Intergroup Dynamics
in Foreign Language Education, Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 132–146.
Hicks, S. (2013). On the (out)skirts of TESOL networks of homophily: Substantive citizen-
ship in Japan, In S. Houghton and D. Rivers (Eds) Native-speakerism in Japan: Inter-
group Dynamics in Foreign Language Education, Bristol: Multilingual Matters,
147–158.
Kelskey, K. (2001). Women on the Verge: Japanese Women, Western Dreams. Durham,
NC: Duke University Press.
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Liddle, J. and Nakajima, S. (2000). Rising Suns, Rising Daughters: Gender, Class and
Power in Japan. New York: Zed Books Ltd.
MEXT (2006). OECD Thematic review of tertiary education – Country background report
of Japan. Retrieved December 13, 2013 from http://www.oecd.org/japan/37052438.pdf
Mulvey, S. (2012a, June 16). “A reexamination of gender in the classroom.” JALT Pan Sig
[Conference]. Hiroshima. 18 May 2012.
Mulvey, S. (2012b, July 29). Becoming part-time (and grasping at straws). Thebasement-
blogbyme [Web log]. Retrieved December 12, 2013 from http://thebasementblogbyme.
wordpress.com/

28984.indb 114 24/09/2014 09:41

 In the ivory tower and out of the loop 115
Nagatomo, D. (2012). Exploring Japanese University English Teachers’ Professional
Identity. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Poole, G. (2010). The Japanese Professor. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Rivers, D. (2013). Institutionalized native-speakerism: Voices of dissent and acts of
resistance, In S. Houghton and D. Rivers (Eds) Native-speakerism in Japan: Intergroup
Dynamics in Foreign Language Education, Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 75–91.
Simon-Maeda, A. (2004). The complex construction of professional identities: Female
EFL educators in Japan speak out. TESOL Quarterly, 38(3), 405–436.
Takahashi, K. (2013). Japanese Women on the Move. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Whitsed, C. and Wright, P. (2011). Perspectives from within: adjunct, foreign, English-
language teachers in the internationalization of Japanese universities. Journal of Research
in International Education, 10(1), 28–45.

28984.indb 115 24/09/2014 09:41

 9 Identity matters
An ethnography of two Nonnative
English-Speaking Teachers (NNESTS)
struggling for legitimate professional
participation1
Lawrence Jun Zhang and Donglan Zhang

Introduction
It is estimated that Nonnative English-speakers far outnumbers native English-
speakers. Braine (2010, p. x) comments that “about 80% of the English teachers
worldwide are non-native speakers of the language.” Although we are not really
sure about the exact number, obviously, the number of nonnative English-speaker
teachers (NNESTs) has been on the increase. In a professional field such as
TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages), identity is an intriguing
and complex phenomenon (Kumaravadivelu, 2014), especially for NNESTs when
they have to face more challenges than their native-speaker counterparts. This is
because identity comprises composite factors such as the speakers’ accent, phys-
ical features, skin color, cultural patterns of behavior, English proficiency, lived
experiences, among other things, which are related to the professional practice as
TESOL teachers (Davies, 1991; Davis, 2006; Kubota, 2002). More significantly,
a TESOL professional’s identity is closely related to her/his social and academic/
professional life on a daily basis, particularly concerning how native-speaker
peers and students regard his or her competence and performance vis-à-vis the
legitimacy of his/her professional practice when “standards of English for English
language education” (Holliday, 2008, p. 119) are defined in favor of native English
speakers.
Given a globalized world in which we live as professionals, especially in our
specific roles as TESOL practitioners or as applied linguists in general terms, it is
important for us to recognize the complexity of NNEST identity and examine
identity from multiple perspectives. Using an ethnographic case study approach,
we outline how two NNESTs struggled (Holliday, 2008) for their professional
legitimacy in real time as English speakers from the “Expanding Circle” vis-à-vis
their “Outer Circle” counterpart, to use Kachru’s (1992) terms. Their peripheral
participation (Lave and Wenger, 1991) in the mainstream English-speaking
workplace offered them opportunities as well as challenges. We intend to bring to
the fore how their use of English was intertwined with their identity construction
and how such identity was brought out as a way of embodiment resulting from

28984.indb 116 24/09/2014 09:41

 Identity matters 117
spatiality and temporality in becoming and continuing being teachers in a New
English context, Singapore. We illustrate how the legitimate, “Expanding-Circle”
English users managed to exercise their agency and identity; and how the “Outer-
Circle” users lost many opportunities of access to the rich linguistic repertoire that
the “Expanding-Circle” users had. Data reported in this study, and collected over
a span of 15 years in Singapore as part of an ethnographic study of identity, are
presented and discussed in relation to how the NNESTs were othered in daily
social and professional routines. These sets of data are presented and interpreted
with reference to theoretical perspectives that stress the significance of agency,
complexity, embodiment, temporality and spatiality (Ahearn, 2001 Block, 2007;
Morgan, 2004; Sekimoto, 2012; Varghese et al., 2005). Morgan (2004) regards
“the concept of identity itself not as a fixed and coherent set of traits, but as some-
thing complex, often contradictory, and subject to change across time and place”
(Morgan, 2004, p. 172). His concept of “teacher identity as pedagogy” aptly
captures NNESTs’ ways of negotiating their professional identities in classrooms
and beyond. Varghese et al. (2005, p. 23) stress “the primacy of agency in identity
formation” in similar ways that Duff and Uchida (1997) regard identity as being
determined by social, cultural, and political contexts, including, of course, inter-
locutors, institutional settings, and so on. Sekimoto (2012, p. 1) in particular,
problematizes the theoretical assumption of communication-as-symbolic that
delimits the way that identity is theorized. She argues that “deconstructing iden-
tity requires moving beyond the symbolic construction of social categories, and
instead focusing on how a perceptual and embodied subject is constituted through
communication.” Her multimodal approach reveals “how perceptual subjectivity
and the reflexive body are constituted within, and constitutive of, the symbolic
mechanisms of social construction” (p. 2).

Theoretical framework
We are interested in examining the data from multiple theoretical perspectives,
drawing on the works of Duff and Uchida (1997), Ahearn (2001), Holliday (2008),
Kubota (2002), Morgan (2004), Varghese et al. (2005), and Sekimoto (2012),
among others. This is because the topic itself is not only a matter of identity
relating to language use; it is also about language learning and teaching and
pertains to professionalism in the field of English language education or TESOL
as broadly defined.
In discussing language and agency, Ahearn (2001) makes clear that issues
related to language and agency are relevant to scholars in the field of anthro-
pology, whose research programs span different subfields. In his understanding,
“most anthropologists – whether archaeological, biological, cultural, or linguistic–
are concerned, in one form or another, with what people say and do” (p. 109). As
a result of all this, language, culture, and society are mutually constituted, and
because of this, one of the responsibilities for anthropologists is to find out “how
discourse both shapes and is shaped by sociocultural factors and power dynamics”
(Ahearn, 2001, p. 111).

28984.indb 117 24/09/2014 09:41

 118 Lawrence Jun Zhang and Donglan Zhang
Ahearn’s construct of agency is useful, as are its counterparts in Block (2007),
Holliday (2008), Kubota (2002), Morgan (2004), and Sekimoto (2012). So we
subject our data to analyses from the perspective of agency, and how agency
contributes to identity construction and deconstruction. Sekimoto (2012, p. 1)
posited that “deconstructing identity requires moving beyond the symbolic
construction of social categories, and instead focusing on how a perceptual and
embodied subject is constituted through communication.” In the field of TESOL/
applied linguistics or language education in general, we need to re-examine
NNEST identity with reference to how NNESTs exercise their agency in profes-
sional and social settings, taking stock of their expertise in the subject matter. The
way identity is constructed and deconstructed is in fact also typically represented
in the way communication takes place. This argument is significant because of the
context of globalization and the dynamics of English (Kumaravadivelu, 2014;
Zhang and Ben Said, 2014), the latter of which is not only reflected in changes in
the lexis, syntactic variations, semantics, and pragmatics in the English language
(Rubdy et al., 2011), but also in its affiliations to particular groups of users who
claim to be the owners of the variety of English that they use.
We also attempt to use critical race theory in order to have a fresher look at the
data as a way of extending our discussion. The native vs. non-native debate in the
field of TESOL and applied linguistics is, to a great extent, a topic that would
create discomfort, as reminded by Scheurich (1997) and Kubota (2002). In
Kubota’s (2002, p. 86) words, “the field of L2 education by nature attracts profes-
sionals who are willing to work with people across racial boundaries, and thus it
is considered to be a ‘nice’ field, reflecting liberal humanism . . . However, this
does not make the field devoid of the responsibility to examine how racism or any
other injustices influence its knowledge and practice.” Therefore, openly talking
about it again in the context of globalization offers us an opportunity to re-examine
the liberal humanism approach, where “a liberal pluralist stance takes little
account of the power and politics influencing the construction of images of the
Self and the Other” in the teaching profession (Kubota, 2002, pp. 86–88). As
Scheurich (1997) claims clearly:

When people of color assert that the academy is racist, individual whites in
the academy, who do not see themselves as racist, are offended or think that
the judgment does not apply to them . . . Neither whites nor people of color
seem to understand that there is a clash here between a social group perspec-
tive, learned by people of color through the social experience of racism, and
an individualized perspective, learned by whites through their racial
socialization.
(p. 122)

As is rightly reiterated by Kubota (2002) and Holliday (2008), the social and
political construction of knowledge and its implications for L2 teaching and
learning is no longer anything really new (see e.g., Canagarajah, 2006; McKay
and Wong, 1996; Pennycook, 1998; Phillipson, 1992; see also Morgan, 2004;

28984.indb 118 24/09/2014 09:41

 Identity matters 119
Motha, 2006; Park, 2012). The fact that language is a source for the representation
of ethnicity as an aspect of the identity of everyone, and that ethnicity is an aspect
of sociocultural identity is something that deserves pondering. In the words of
Delanty (2003, p. 135):

Identity becomes an issue when the self-ceases to be taken for granted . . .

because the reference points for the self has become unstuck: The capacity
for autonomy is no longer held in check by rigid structures, such as class,
gender, national ethnicity . . . identity becomes a problem when the self is
constituted in the recognition of difference rather than sameness.
(p. 135)

One logical derivation from the conventional understanding of identity is that our
self can be invented in many ways. This relates to the idea that teacher’s identity
is not a static one, either. Typically, temporality and spatiality are the cutting
themes when identity is scrutinized. At different points in their professional lives
teachers’ identities are constructed by their own practice in conjunction with the
professional knowledge and expertise they bring to the workplace and the work
they do. Meanwhile, their identities are also constructed by their students through
the words students use and the behaviors and actions that embody their attitudes
toward their teachers. What is significant about these perspectives in examining
the issue of identity is that they echo Holliday’s (2008) articulation about the
“standards of English” that is used by people in the center to other those in the
periphery. Holliday states:

Standards of English for English language teacher education need to

consider political as well as linguistic factors. Any definition of such stand-
ards on the basis of speakerhood would immediately fall into the trap of
native-speakerist discrimination, which is intensified by unspoken associa-
tions with “ethnicity” . . . Standards must therefore be convincingly
de-Centred, and must allow those who consider themselves Periphery to take
Centre-stage. They must be cosmopolitan, non-centred, professional, earned,
prestigious and cultured.
(p. 119)

Various scholars offer definitions of identity, which appear to represent different

dimensions. Such plurality in definition makes is impossible to review all defini-
tions. Varghese et al. (2005) posit that both “identity-in-discourse” and “identity-
in-practice” (p. 39) need to be considered in order to explore identity holistically.
Therefore, we focus specifically on how language and literacy educators opera-
tionalize it for serving the purpose of our work by including “identity-in-discourse”
and “identity-in-practice,” as reflected in the way the participants are described,
positioned and othered. Norton and Toohey (2002, p. 116) posit that “contempo-
rary applied linguistic researchers have been drawn to literature that conceives of
identity not as static and one-dimensional, but as multiple, changing and a site of

28984.indb 119 24/09/2014 09:41

 120 Lawrence Jun Zhang and Donglan Zhang
struggle.” In their recent work Norton and Toohey’s (2011) have adopted a post-
structuralist approach to identity, which we think is appropriate for us to use in
examining language and identity embodied in the NNESTs in our study. Norton
and Toohey (2011) have argued that language is always closely knit with the
speaker, who often has to go through the “struggle to create meanings” (p. 416).
This idea of language as a site of struggle links to the tensions inherent in the
NNESTs’ development of identity within conflicting paradigms of who is a legiti-
mate native English speaker (see also Holliday, 2008). Norton and Toohey (2011)
also discuss the poststructuralist recognition of the individual variable of access to
language participation. This links to NNESTs’ experiences of tension in their
identity development where they may feel their identity does not offer them access
to the professional recognition they deserve. Because the negotiation of identity
does not happen in a vacuum and has much to do with the discourse surrounding
it (Benwell and Stokoe, 2006; Sekimoto, 2012), we examine how such discourses
epitomize the NNESTs’ identity.

The study
We took an ethnographic approach to address the research questions by following
two NNESTs over a period of 15 years to see how their experiences as teachers
affected their way of looking at themselves as well as other English speakers with
reference to their professional competence and practice, which are part of their
professional identity. As a by-product of this process, the native speakers of
Singapore English, a new variety of English that deviates somewhat from that of
the British colonial masters, were also portrayed to show how the use of English
in conversations became a tool for “struggle” for existence and for demonstration
of power imbalance. We attempted to answer the following research questions.

1 What are participants’ attitudes toward, perceptions, and situated experiences

about, their professional identity?
2 What are the individual, contextual, and motivational factors that may have
influenced their identity formation or re-formation?

Context of the study

Research on learner or teacher identity has been extensively conducted in “Inner
Circle,” English-speaking countries (e.g., Block, 2007; Morgan, 2007; Norton and
Toohey, 2001; Park, 2012; Sekimoto, 2012; Varghese et al., 2005; inter alia), and
little has been reported about how NNESTs in “Outer Circle” countries
(e.g., Singapore, Nigeria, or India) go through the experiences vis-à-vis their native-
speaking peers or colleagues. The few studies reported in the literature (e.g., Ben
Said and Shegar, 2014; Chong and Low, 2009; Trent, 2011) have not really exam-
ined professional identities of teachers in interaction between NESTs and NNESTs.
For example, Trent (2011) explored how a group of Chinese undergraduate students
in a Bachelor of Education program of an English-medium teacher education insti-

28984.indb 120 24/09/2014 09:41

 Identity matters 121
tution in Hong Kong experienced challenges in realizing their multiple identities as
language learners. It is an insightful study, but the focus is on language learner
identities (see also Zhang, 2010). Ben Said and Shegar (2014) have investigated
how a Singapore institution constructed beginner teachers’ identity, but the English
speakers in their study were native speakers of Singapore English and they did not
involve any other NESTs or NNESTs in interaction in negotiating their profes-
sional identities (see also Chong and Low, 2009). Therefore, we thought it most
appropriate a study be conducted in multilingual and multicultural Singapore, a
country in Southeast Asia, where English is used predominantly in society and
educational institutions. It is a typical “Outer Circle” country, which is a city state
of about five million people. There are five major ethnic groups: Chinese, Malay,
Indian, Eurasian, and European. The Singapore government has adopted a language
policy whereby English, Malay, Mandarin Chinese, and Tamil are designated as
the four official languages. As a former British colony, Singapore has also continued
using English as the dominant language in society, law, governance and education
after gaining independence as a republic in 1965. English has been offered in the
national curriculum as the First Language and the Mother Tongue of the students
offered as the Second Language since the 1970s. The proportion of Primary School
year one students speaking English at home was 55 percent. Because of its multi-
lingual nature, English has become the de facto common language for communica-
tion among the local population in society.

Case participants
Two case participants in this study were chosen based on the principle of conven-
ient purposive sampling Barkhuizen (2014) rationalizes that “choosing the most
appropriate number of participants . . . requires finding the right balance between
achieving the research goals, meeting the requirements of the relevant research
methodological procedures, and managing constraints set by practical and human
circumstances” (p. 5). Given that “trustworthiness” (Creswell, 2013, p. 196) is
key to qualitative research and the sample is so small, it is essential that we provide
details on the two focal participants.
Prior to their arrival in Singapore, the two NNEST participants, one male, Allan,
and the other female, Jane, both in their early 30s, had similar educational and
teaching experiences in their home country, China. Both of them graduated in the
1980s from Chinese universities with a Bachelor’s Degree in English Language and
Literature or English Education and earned postgraduate qualifications in the 1990s
from universities in similar disciplines in China. They had been teachers at secondary
schools and then universities in China for over 10 years. They then were granted the
Joint Scholarship by the Singapore Ministry of Education and the Chinese Ministry
of Education to pursue a one-year Postgraduate Diploma in English Language
Teaching (PGDELT) at a university in Singapore as full-time students. Such a
scholarship was especially created for Chinese university teachers of English to
upgrade their knowledge about and skills in teaching English to students in China.
They both returned to China to resume their teaching as English lecturers upon

28984.indb 121 24/09/2014 09:41

 122 Lawrence Jun Zhang and Donglan Zhang
completion of the fulltime PGDELT program. After one year in China, they then
returned to Singapore for higher degree studies and earned their Master’s and PhD
Degrees in English Applied Linguistics respectively. Soon afterwards they got job
offers to teach English at a Singapore university. Both of them were praised by their
own lecturers and peers and were rated as good speakers and writers of English for
academic and professional communication. Both Jane and Allan became interested
in their own NNEST identity at the time when they and their classmates first arrived
in Singapore, having realized that the Singapore English accent was so much
different from the British and American accents they were most familiar with. Data
collection started two weeks upon Allan’s first arrival in Singapore in 1995 and
continued until December 2010. Despite their status change from teachers to
students, they did not think that they were really students because they were regarded
by their lecturers as colleagues due to their rich teaching experiences. Even their
classmates addressed one another “Teacher Li,” “Teacher Wu,” and so on, which is
a typical Chinese practice in the teaching profession. So their identity appeared to be
a teacher in principle despite them taking a professional development course for
enhancing their professional knowledge.
Given the diversity of ethnic groups in China, boasting of nearly 13 billion
people of 56 nationalities spread across 22 provinces, five autonomous regions,
and four municipalities (directly under the jurisdiction of the central government),
the official national language, Mandarin Chinese, was the first language for these
two participants. It has to be mentioned that many other non-Mandarin languages
were spoken and used as official working languages in different provinces or
autonomous regions and foreign languages were offered as a school subject in the
national curriculum.
For a clearer presentation of the identity issue under investigation in this study,
we would like to give native speakers of Singapore English some prominence so
that their utterances can be used in conjunction with what the NNEST participants
said and felt in the process of communication to bring to the fore how identity was
co-constructed through discourses. Such participants included a range of speakers
of Singapore English, whose educational backgrounds varied slightly. Most of the
Singaporean speakers were university graduates and only a few of them were
secondary school leavers, who had gone through their school and university educa-
tion in the medium of English either in Singapore, Malaysia, or the UK. All of them
spoke Singapore English fluently, and the variety of English they spoke was along
a continuum ranging from basilect and mesolect to acrolect (Platt and Weber, 1980).

Data
We collected data using informal journal entries and researcher field notes as and
when an interactional opportunity arose, as practiced in ethnography. In order not
to avoid making the interaction artificial, our journal entries and field notes were
either written records on the spot or immediate recalls. There was no recording of
any of the speech events. We collected a total of about 30 such episodes, from
which we used the typical qualitative data analysis method of sifting the data to

28984.indb 122 24/09/2014 09:41

 Identity matters 123
look for patterns (Creswell, 2013). The running themes reported below emerged
from our constant comparison of the existing data sets.
Hammersley and Atkinson (1995, p. 1) posit that ethnography “involves the
ethnographer participating, overtly or covertly, in people’s lives for an extended
period of time, watching what happens, listening to what is said, asking questions
– in fact, collecting whatever data are available to throw light on the issues that are
the focus of the research.” Johnson’s (2000) definition captures almost the same
ideas as those in Hammersley and Atkinson’s. Ethnography is thus “a descriptive
account of social life and culture in a particular social system based on detailed
observations of what people actually do . . . The emic perspective is usually the
main focus of ethnography” (p. 111) because it offers an insider perspective on
the issue in question. We present our data following this approach so that the
pervasive phenomenon can be better understood. As will become clear below, as
participants-observers, our emic perspective would enable us to look into the way
that members of a given culture perceived the world as well as how other members
in the community talked about and did things.

Analysis

Participant attitudes toward professional identity

The conversation below (Excerpt 1) took place in the living room of an apartment
Allan and his three other classmates shared. As is evident, S1, a Singapore English
speaker, did not approve of the way Allan spoke, as, in her view, Allan sounded
too American because of his strong American accent. She herself did not realize
that her way of speaking, which was full of local colloquial features, was too
much localized and nativized to be understood correctly by the newcomer. In fact,
Allan maintained that the way he spoke was “always the way I speak as a teacher.”
Allan’s intention to establish himself as a competent English-speaking profes-
sional based on his interpretation of “good” English did not succeed, as it were.
Nonetheless, the experience he had in his first encounter with native speakers of
Singaporean English might have left a deep impression on him vis-à-vis his
professional self, as, in his understanding, speaking his variety of English was
how he preferred to be regarded as a teacher.

Excerpt 1
S1: . . . Hm, you speak English like an American. Are you from the States?
Allan: Thank you. But actually I don’t speak typical American English, as I
am from China.
S1: Oh, then why you speak like that ah?
Allan: What do you mean?
S1: It sound a bit odd. As Chinese, you must speak like Chinese mah.

28984.indb 123 24/09/2014 09:41

 124 Lawrence Jun Zhang and Donglan Zhang
Allan: Oh, but that’s been the way I speak all the time as an English teacher.
S1: but that is a bit strange lor.
(August 27, 1995, Polytechnic Staff Apartments)

As in Excerpt 1, the conversation in Excerpt 2 is equally interesting. As is

evident, Jane tried to sound like a local in order to be granted the identity of a
competent speaker of Singapore English in order to effectively teach the
courses expected of her. This is fairly important given that as a teacher of
English, her mastery of Singapore English would have significant implications for
her continuing success in establishing and strengthening her rapport with her
students for further winning their confidence in her as a competent teacher and
speaker of English.

Excerpt 2
Jane: The tei (tea) today is quite diluted, too watery and milky. I cannot really
feel the taste of tea at all. D can raise the price to sell better tea.
S2: Aiya, it’s ok lah; in fact, R already mentioned it to D. R said nicely that D
could raise the price for tea so that we can have real tea. But after that D got
unhappy and pulled a long face when he saw R next time.
Jane: No wonder D did not say anything when I asked him to charge more for
my tea because I asked for a cup of stronger tea. His wife also appeared to be
quite cold the next day when I went to buy my tea at lunch time.
(April 12, 2006, Unicanteen)

Struggle for legitimate participation as identity re-formation

In Excerpt 3, Allan made an effort to speak Singapore colloquial English to
express his aspiration to be integrated in the local community as well as to engage
in legitimate participation in the profession as an English teacher. His use of those
typical Singapore colloquial English pragmatic particles such as lah, lor, meh and
ah is indicative of his competence as a speaker of this localized variety.
Surprisingly, S2 as a Singaporean, born and bred in Singapore, declined Allan’s
attempt.

Except 3
Allan: Hey, Jane, could I ask you if I used these particles correctly? In my
transcription of several segments of recordings of my research project, certain
parts were very unclear because they were muffled by the student noise and
the fans in the classroom.
S2: Sure. Oh, this is not. You see ah, although you are a new Singaporean
now, you have not learned them leh. You still speak like a China person and
behave like them, hoh.

28984.indb 124 24/09/2014 09:41

 Identity matters 125
Allan: Really? I thought my accent has changed a lot sub-consciously. When
I was in China, English professors and colleagues there said that I spoke like
a Singaporean. I felt quite bad about it. I’d like to maintain my Chinese
accent, meanwhile I also wanted to code switch between the two varieties,
because I thought I am quite good at using Singlish now.
(February 24, 2008, Unioffice)

Othering and being othered

Othering others so that the other is prevented from full participation appears to be
a common practice, which is also displayed in Excerpt 4. Allan and S3’s dialogue
on a hot political topic of the time created another opportunity for S3 to other
Allan, who was immediately associated with the country he came from (China)
and his country fellows, who were “loud” and “different” and would “spoil”
Singapore culture. By implication, teachers of such a background were not capable
of practicing their profession, as their culture would erode Singapore culture. In
order to participate in the profession, conformity is expected, as clearly shown in
the native speaker of Singapore English. Such exclusive discourse as well as the
way the NEST showed her sympathy toward the NEST by asking a clarification
question on the meaning of the word “enclaves” that she used, is equally inter-
esting. Not only was the NNEST not capable of teaching but also unable to use
English competently.

Excerpt 4
Allan: Do you read the newspapers these days? There have been a lot of
discussions about the new immigrants in Singapore, particularly the new citi-
zens, and how they can be integrated into Singapore society. The Minister
Mentor, Mr Goh Chok Tong, has talked about it, too.
S3: Yah, but it is simply too much talk. But I am also concerned about it. You
see so many foreigners in Singapore now, who behave differently, talking so
loudly. Our Singapore culture will be spoilt because they have brought with
them their own cultures with them and live in their own enclaves. Do you
know the word “enclaves” or not?
(October 18, 2009, S3’s office)

Reaffirming professional identity

As NNESTs, Allan and Jane had to prove in front of their colleagues and
students that they were competent professionals hired by the university to do the
jobs they well deserved. Indeed, they were awarded an employment opportunity,
but meanwhile the discursive construction of their identity as incompetent
professionals is worthy of mention. Situations like the one in Excerpt 5 surfaced
explicitly on some occasions. Instead of feeling upset or disappointed, Allan’s
motivation to explain to the female student patiently in that particular educational

28984.indb 125 24/09/2014 09:41

 126 Lawrence Jun Zhang and Donglan Zhang
context was to show her that NNESTs were able to do their jobs equally well,
if not better than their native Singapore English speaking lecturers. Evidently,
the Singaporean, who was also a school teacher taking the Masters course
as a part-time student, was naively frank and did not have any awareness that
her own language was loaded with prejudice against “other” speakers of English,
who were NNESTs. Such individual, contextual, and motivational factors for
the NNEST to prove her worth as a qualified speaker and teacher of English
appeared to have proven to be useful. The affordances such an opportunity
offered to the Singapore English speaker might help her re-examine her own
identity as a teacher regarding professionalism and competence in English
language teaching.

Excerpt 5
Student: Dr X, I did not know that you were not born in Singapore. I thought,
you know, you were born here. So I signed up for your course, because before
I came to your course, I was auditing another module. After I signed up for
your course, I heard from my friend that MAE888 will be taught by a Chinese
lecturer. I thought, oh my, I am going to have another Chinese lecturer! I
thought that you will have a strong accent, and I now marvel how you have
achieved such a high level of proficiency!
Allan: Thank you for your frank observation. In fact, there are more people
who have become very successful professors of English although it is not
their native or first language.
January 19, 2010 (Tutorial Room 29)

Competing norms for NNESTs and native Singapore English speakers

NNESTs and native Singapore English speakers do not share the same view with
regard to what is standard English in professional practice or social settings.
While NNEST Jane and Allan referred to American or British because they were
NNESTs, who learned English with reference to either American or British
English as their pronunciation model, S4 did not think so, probably because S4
had already developed a distinctive Singaporean identity by virtue of a unique
Singaporean accent she had when speaking English, as indicated in Except 6.

Excerpt 6
S4: I am now teaching a Master of Educational Management and Administra-
tion class.
Jane: That’s very good. The External Programs Office trusts you, so you have
chances of making extra money.
S4: Actually ah, I don’t want to earn the extra money, the China participants’
English is so poor. I am teaching the very basics and they are so unapprecia-
tive of my conscientious teaching.

28984.indb 126 24/09/2014 09:41

 Identity matters 127
Allan: Maybe your accent is not what they are familiar with.
S4: Come on. I speak standard English, what. I can pronounce “th” and other
sounds, what.
Allan: Yeah, but students from China always prefer either American or
British pronunciation and intonation.
S4: But . . .
(November 17, 2007, Unioffice)

Discussion and conclusion

Identity talk is closely related to issues of subjectivity and discursive construction
through various discourses and discourse structures. Gee (2008, p. 142) clearly
argues that “a Discourse is a sort of ‘identity kit’ which comes complete with the
appropriate costume and instructions on how to act, talk, and often write, so as to
take on a particular social role that others will recognize.” Indeed, the data
presented above to some extent support his view. Although Allan and Jane were
highly motivated to integrate in the workplace through the medium of English, as
evidenced in their efforts to use Singapore English, their efforts to use Singapore
English for bonding and other professional purposes were not given legitimate
recognition by their Singaporean interlocutors. The competing norms within the
interactional structure between the NNESTs and native speakers of Singapore
English is some kind of interesting phenomenon. The NNESTs thought that being
able to speak English beautifully from a prosodic point of view was significant,
but native Singapore English speakers did not become aware of this. S3’s way of
exercising her power as a native Singapore English speaker represents a perspec-
tive she held with regard to “Discourse,” that of “a socially accepted association
among ways of using language, of thinking, feeling, believing, valuing, and of
acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful
group” (p. 2). Such perspective-taking leads to the complexity of identity.
In various situations, the complexity of identity was illustrated through the
embodiment of action and use of words that are typically Singaporean such as la,
leh, lor, meh, hoh, and mah. Understandably, identity is not essentialist or fixed;
instead it “must be conceptualized as complex, multifaceted, and socially-
constructed through the process of situated interpretation” (Davis, 2006, p. 4).
Our limited data suggest that Allan’s and Jane’s identities are sometimes fluid and
mobile. Identity work that has gained some momentum in recent years has been
generally categorized into ethnic identity, race identity, national identity, migrant
identity, gender identity, social class identity, and language identity, among
others. But our study explored NNESTs’ professional identity with reference to
how their identity was deconstructed and co-constructed through the various
discourses. It may be argued that Singapore English speakers are also Chinese or
Asian, so there is no ethnic or race identity involved at all. In our view, ethnic and
race identity is not only about skin color – it permeates in ways that particular
cultures are understood, presented and represented. So in light of this argument,

28984.indb 127 24/09/2014 09:41

 128 Lawrence Jun Zhang and Donglan Zhang
S1’s, S2’s, S3’s, and S4’s comments might not be only skin-deep. The way
they subjected the NNESTs was inevitably intended to portray native-speaker
supremacy.
In this globalized world English is changing, and in many ways, the changes are
at multiple levels. The changes are not only reflected in its lexis, syntactic variations,
semantics, and pragmatics, but also in its affiliations to particular groups of users
who claim to be the owners of the variety of English that they use, especially in rela-
tion to wider international communication among its speakers regardless of their
country of origin. The tension between the NNESTs and native Singapore English
speakers appears to be tenuous, too, because each of them may want to push forward
an agenda to their advantage. Nonetheless, the NNESTs did not always gain it.
Incidentally and interestingly, speakers of Singapore English themselves are also
peripheral/marginal to the “Inner Circle” varieties of English. As commonly read in
the local media, their claim for legitimacy is also debunked by another “other” (both
the locals through the “Speak good English movement” and other purist advocates)
as well as by outsiders, white NESTs. These native speakers of Singapore English
actually perpetuated colonialism themselves without any clear realization.
It is now common sense that English itself must be conceptualized not as a
monolithic linguistic entity with one “standard” form, but as a highly complex
linguistic construct with spoken and written forms, and a wide range of dialectal
variation (prosodic, phonological, lexical, morpho/syntactic, pragmatic,
discoursal). Therefore, both the NNESTs and native Singapore speakers of
English should recognize the linguistic resources each of them possess.
Unfortunately, the native speakers of Singapore English in our study did not
appear to appreciate the “multi-competencies” (Cook, 2005) of the NNESTs.
Canagarajah (2006, p. 202) argues that “defining one’s identity based on
membership in diverse communities of practice provides considerable flexibility
for individuals to enjoy multiple identities in a contextually relevant manner in
shifting relationships.” Our data suggest that to conceptualize language as a
“resource” (Davis, 2006, p. 10) emphasizes the agency and subjectivity of the
individual speaker (although S1, S2, and S3 might not be aware of this at all).
Given the sociocultural constraints of a particular context, the NNESTs were not
simply acting as a “social automaton,” but rather to some extent “creatively reaf-
firming social organization through purposive deployment of language . . . and
crossing” (Rampton, 1995, p. 34) to become legitimate members of the discourse
community as language teaching professionals. Native-speakerism was a feature
present in the native Singapore English speakers’ discourses. Holliday (2009,
p. 120) states, “As with all ideologies, in native-speakerism there is a surface
sense, where the subscribers project the beliefs of the ideology as matters of fact,
and a hidden sense, which is usually revealed as prejudicial by those who critique
the ideology.” We hold that this is an important concept in understanding the issue
under discussion in relation to NNEST identity.
In the field of applied linguistics/language teaching/TESOL, we need to scruti-
nize NNEST identity with reference to how NNESTs exercise their agency in
professional and social settings, taking stock of their expertise in the subject

28984.indb 128 24/09/2014 09:41

 Identity matters 129
matter in order to claim ownership of English as a way of proclaiming their iden-
tity. This view can be arguably presented in the context of globalization, and the
dynamics of English, which are not only reflected in changes in its lexis, syntactic
variations, semantics, and pragmatics, but also in its affiliations to particular
groups of users who claim to be the owners of the variety of English that they use.
By presenting how NNESTs are “Othered” and subjected to conditions not
favorable to their professional career and daily life on the basis of country of
origin rather than linguistic and professional expertise, we attempted to showcase
the importance of reciprocity in communication, respect for linguistic human
rights of English users (May, 1999), and cultural understanding among English
speakers, with particular reference to a New English in Asia. Widening the
linguistic repertoire of New English speakers is equally necessary (see Zhang,
2004, 2010). As Canagarajah (2006) argues, excluding NNESTs from the NEST
benefits is largely perpetuated by expanding and outer-circle institutions. This
seems to be corroborated by the data we have presented.

Note
1 Earlier versions of this chapter were presented at The 47th International TESOL
Convention, March 20–23, 2012, Dallas, TX, USA, and The 16th Conference of the
International Study Association of Teachers and Teaching, July 2–5, 2013, University of
Gent, Gent, Belgium.

References
Ahearn, L. M. (2001). Language and agency. Annual Review of Anthropology, 30,
109–137.
Barkhuizen, G. (2014). Number of participants. Language Teaching Research, 18, 5–7.
Ben Said, S. and Shegar, C. (2014). Compliance, negotiation, and resistance in teachers’
spatial construction of identity. In S. Ben Said and L. J. Zhang (Eds), Language Teachers
and Teaching: Global Perspectives, Local Initiatives (pp. 127–149). New York: Routledge.
Benwell, B. and Stokoe, E. (2006). Discourse and Identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univer-
sity Press.
Block, D. (2007). Second Language Identity. London: Continuum.
Braine, G. (2010). Nonnative Speaker English Teachers: Research, Pedagogy and Profes-
sional Growth. New York: Routledge.
Canagarajah, S. (2006). Constructing a diaspora identity in English: The case of Sri Lankan
Tamils. In J. Brutt-Griffler and C. E. Davis (Eds), English and Ethnicity (pp.191–216).
London. Palgrave.
Chong, S. and Low, E. L. (2009). Why I want to teach and how i feel about teaching:
Formation of teacher identity from preservice to the beginning teacher phase. Educa-
tional Research for Policy and Practice, 8, 59–72.
Cook, V. (2005). Basing teaching on the L3 user. In E. Llurda (Ed.), Non-native Language
Teachers: Perceptions, Challenges, and Contributions to the Profession (pp. 47–62).
New York: Springer.
Creswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five
Approaches (3rd edn). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

28984.indb 129 24/09/2014 09:41

 130 Lawrence Jun Zhang and Donglan Zhang
Davies, A. (1991). The Native Speaker in Applied Linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press.
Davis, C. E. (2006). Introduction. In J. Brutt-Griffler and C. E. Davis (Eds), English and
Ethnicity (pp. 1–15). London: Palgrave.
Duff, P. A., and Uchida, Y. (1997). The negotiation of teachers’ sociocultural identities and
practices in post-secondary EFL classrooms. TESOL Quarterly, 31, 451–486.
Delanty, G. (2003). Community. London: Routledge.
Gee, J. P. (2008). Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in Discourses (3rd edn).
London: Routledge.
Hammersley, M. and Atkinson, P. (1995). Ethnography: Principles in Practice (2nd edn).
London: Routledge.
Holliday, A. (2008). Standards of English and politics of inclusion. Language Teaching,
41, 119–130.
Johnson, A. G. (2000). The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology (2nd edn). Oxford:
Blackwell.
Kachru, B. (1992). The Other Tongue: English Across Cultures (2nd edn). Urbana, IL:
University of Illinois Press.
Kubota, R. (2002). (Un)raveling racism in a nice field like TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 36,
84–92.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2014). Afterword: Rethinking global perspectives and local initia-
tives in language teaching. In S. Ben Said and L. J. Zhang (Eds), Language Teachers and
Teaching: Global Perspectives, Local Initiatives (pp. 317–323). New York: Routledge.
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
May, S. (1999). Critical multiculturalism and cultural difference: Avoiding essentialism. In
S. May (Ed.), Critical Multiculturalism: Rethinking Multicultural and Antiracist Educa-
tion (pp. 11–41). London: Falmer Press.
McKay, S. L. and Wong, S.-L. C. (1996). Multiple discourses, multiple identities: Invest-
ment and agency in second-language learning among Chinese adolescent immigrant
students. Harvard Educational Review, 66, 577–608.
Morgan, B. (2004). Teacher identity as pedagogy: Towards a field-internal conceptualiza-
tion in bilingual and second language education. International Journal of Bilingual
Education and Bilingualism, 7, 172–188.
Motha, S. (2006). Racializing ESOL teacher identities in US K–12 public schools. TESOL
Quarterly, 40, 495–518.
Norton, B. and Toohey, K. (2002). Identity and language learning. In R. B. Kaplan (Ed.),
The Oxford Handbook of Applied Linguistics (pp.115–123). Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Norton, B. and Toohey, K. (2011). Identity, language learning and social change. Language
Teaching, 44, 412–446.
Park, G. (2012). “I am never afraid of being recognized as NNES”: One woman
teacher’s journey in claiming and embracing the NNES identity. TESOL Quarterly, 46,
127–151.
Pennycook, A. (1998). English and the Discourses of Colonialism. New York: Routledge.
Phillipson, R. (1992). Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Platt, J. T. and Weber, H. (1980). English in Singapore and Malaysia: Status, Features,
Functions. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rampton, B. (1995). Crossing: Language and Ethnicity Among Adolescents. London:
Longman.

28984.indb 130 24/09/2014 09:41

 Identity matters 131
Rubdy, R., Zhang, L. J., and Alsagoff, L. (2011). The dynamics of Englishes in Asia:
Description, innovation and application in a globalized world. In L. J. Zhang, R. Rubdy,
and L. Alsagoff (Eds), Asian Englishes: Changing Perspectives in a Globalized World
(pp. 1–25). Singapore: Pearson.
Scheurich, J. J. (1997). Research Method in the Postmodern. London: Falmer Press.
Sekimoto, S. (2012). A Multimodal approach to identity: Theorizing the self through
embodiment, spatiality, and temporality. Journal of International and Intercultural
Communication, 5, 226–243.
Trent, J. (2011). Mainland Chinese students’ perceptions of language, learning, and iden-
tity in an English language teacher education program in Hong Kong. The Journal of
Asia TEFL, 8, 259–286.
Varghese, M., Morgan, B., Johnston, B., and Johnson, K. (2005). Theorizing language
teacher identity: Three perspectives and beyond. Journal of Language, Identity, and
Education, 4, 21–44.
Zhang, L. J. (2004). Awareness-raising in the TEFL phonology classroom: Student voices
and sociocultural and psychological considerations. ITL International Journal of Applied
Linguistics, 145, 219–268.
Zhang, L. J. (2010). Negotiating language, literacy and identity: A sociocultural
perspective on children’s language learning strategies in a multilingual ESL classroom
in Singapore. Applied Linguistics Review, 1, 247–270.
Zhang, L. J. and Ben Said, S. (2014). Toward a global understanding of local initiatives in
language teaching and teacher education: Global rules, local roles. In S. Ben Said and
L. J. Zhang (Eds), Language Teachers and Teaching: Global Perspectives, Local
Initiatives (pp. xix–xxx). New York: Routledge.
Zhang, L. J., Rubdy, R., and Alsagoff, L. (2011). Asian Englishes: Changing Perspectives
in a Globalized World. Singapore: Pearson Prentice Hall.

28984.indb 131 24/09/2014 09:41

28984.indb 132 24/09/2014 09:41
 Part III
Tracing identity through
narratives

28984.indb 133 24/09/2014 09:41

28984.indb 134 24/09/2014 09:41
 10 Tracing reflexivity through a
narrative and identity lens
Peter De Costa

In recent years, one area of research that has gained momentum in the investiga-
tion of identity and language learning is that of the language teacher and the
language teacher educator (e.g., Hawkins and Norton, 2009; Morgan and
Clarke, 2011; Varghese, 2011). Increasingly, teacher identity researchers have
also come to recognize that language teacher education is inherently ideological
(Simpson, 2009), thereby raising calls to examine the political dimensions of
being and becoming a teacher. Building on earlier research on teacher identity in
applied linguistics (e.g., Morgan and Clarke, 2011; Norton and Early, 2011) and
responding to recent calls to focus on teacher reflexivity (Edge, 2011;
Kumaravadivelu, 2012a), this empirical study examines the professional identity
development of a beginning female teacher in the US.

Non-native, reflexive, and narrative turn in

teacher identity work
In light of the ideological nature of language teacher education, teacher educators
such as Morgan and Ramanathan (2005) have called for an investigation of how
English language teaching can be decolonized. Crucially, they and other critical
scholars have proposed a decentering of the authority that Western interests have
in the language teaching industry. Also recognizing the significance of empha-
sizing local modes of learning and teaching, Ha (2008), who worked with Western-
trained Vietnamese teachers of English, explored how her teacher participants
constructed their own identities while negotiating identities defined by social
norms and institutional regulations. Identity negotiation was also the focus of
Xu’s (2012) China-based study. Drawing on Norton’s (2000) notion of imagined
communities, she examined how the imagined identities of four ESOL K–12
teachers were transformed during their early years of teaching. She illustrated
how the practiced identities of her case participants contrasted with their initial
imagined identities. Indeed, non-native teachers of English in particular encounter
varied ambiguities and tensions as they attempt to position themselves in ways
that legitimize them as language teachers and as English speakers. Focusing on
three EFL teachers and their schools in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca,
Sayer (2012) documents how ordinary practices of language educators are shaped

28984.indb 135 24/09/2014 09:41

 136 Peter De Costa
by their social context, and examines the roles, identities, and ideologies that
teachers create in order to navigate and negotiate their specific context. In view of
the growing number of non-native teachers, in particular non-native English-
speaking teachers (NNESTs), Kumaravadivelu (2012b) has called for a reforming
of teacher identities in this globalized world. Specifically, he has invoked an epis-
temic break, a break in the dependency on western knowledge of production,
center-based methods, and center-based cultural competence.
To expedite such an epistemic break on the scale proposed by Kumaravadivelu
(2012b), teachers inevitably need to engage in acts of reflexivity, which in turn
shape their professional identities. While there has been a strong and steady stream
of research on reflective teaching (e.g., Bailey, 2012; Richards and Farrell, 2011),
only a few teacher educators such as Edge (2011), Norton and Early (2011) have
chosen to focus on the pivotal role that reflexivity plays in educational praxis. In
contrast to a non-critical, neutrally-oriented focus on reflective teaching, a critical
reflexive approach advocates social justice and examines the power imbalances
that occur in language teaching as well as the ethical concerns surrounding it.
I am inclined to agree with Edge’s (2011) assertion that reflexivity can serve as
a valuable platform for teacher identity development. Distinguishing between
prospective reflexivity (i.e., the effect of the person on the work) and retrospective
reflexivity (i.e., the effect of the work on the person), Edge contends that these two
types of reflexivity are resources available to teachers. To this astute observation
I would add that reflexivity is discursively constructed, as practice informs and
also results from reflexivity. By the same token, both teacher identity and teaching
practice are inextricably linked as identity formation and practice support each
other in a symbiotic manner. Such a perspective is consistent with the findings of
Clarke (2008) and Kanno and Stuart (2011) demonstrated an intertwined relation-
ship between novice teachers’ identity development and their changing classroom
practice.
Thus far, I have illustrated that there has been a shift toward reflexive and non-
native concerns in recent teacher identity research. Such a shift has been accom-
panied by a growing methodological interest in narrative inquiry as a means of
examining how teacher identities develop over space and time. The narrative turn
can be traced back to Johnson and Golombek’s (2002) seminal edited volume
Teachers’ Narrative Inquiry as Professional Development. Over the past decade,
research on teacher identity has seen strong interest in narrative inquiry (e.g.,
Barkhuizen, 2010; Johnson and Golombek, 2011; Norton and Early, 2011; Tsui,
2007). This interest can be attributed in part to the fact that narratives provide
“rich insider accounts of the complex day-to-day work for educational practice as
well as how practitioners theorize and understand their work from the inside”
(Cochran-Smith and Lytle, 2009, x). One example of an insider account is Tsui
(2007) which used narrative inquiry to investigate the complexities of identity
formation involving an EFL teacher, Minfang. Drawing on Wenger’s (1998)
social theory of identity formation, she traced the lived experience of Minfang
as an EFL learner and EFL teacher his struggle with multiple identities. Studying
for a master’s degree provided Minfang the opportunity to theorize his personal

28984.indb 136 24/09/2014 09:41

 Narrative and identity lens 137
practical knowledge and subsequently reclaim ownership of meanings by inte-
grating traditional methods into Communicative Language Teaching (CLT).
While Tsui’s case study was based in China, my study uses narrative inquiry and
the notion of reflexivity to illuminate the teacher identity development of a
NNEST teacher from South Korea, Natasha (a pseudonym), who was enrolled in
a MA TESOL program in a US university. It is to my focal participant and the
context of the study which I turn next.

Research context
Originally from Busan, South Korea, Natasha was 33 years old when this
18-month study began in January 2011. Having taught English conversation and
a TOEFL preparation class for four years in her home country, Natasha started her
two-year MA TESOL program in January 2010. The four-semester program that
she was enrolled in was rigorous, and a breakdown of her core courses is listed in
Table 10.1.
I was her practicum instructor in Spring 2011 and her portfolio instructor in Fall
2011. The study continued into the following semester (Spring 2012) after Natasha
had graduated from the program. I elected to conduct a longitudinal case study in
response to Johnson and Golombek’s (2011) observation of the following gap in
teacher narrative research: “[a]lthough the accolades for narrative as a vehicle for
teacher inquiry abound, less attention has been paid to documenting what this
change looks like or how narrative activity fosters teacher professional develop-
ment” (p. 488). In Natasha’s case, developing a teacher practiced identity (Kanno
and Stuart, 2011; Xu, 2012) constituted a central part of her professional develop-
ment. To track this development, I examined Natasha’s written and spoken narra-
tives. The former took the form of reflections that she wrote for her various
courses, while the latter was constituted by an interview which was conducted in
May 2012, almost five months after she had graduated from the program. Cochran-
Smith and Zeichner (2005) suggest that methods courses must be “seen as complex
and unique sites in which instructors work simultaneously with prospective
teachers’ beliefs, teaching practices and creation of identities” (p. 15). As
Natasha’s instructor, I found myself fortunate to have been privy to the evolution

Table 10.1 Four-semester course load (January 2010–December 2011)

Semester Courses

1 (Spring 2010) Principles and Practices of Language Teaching, Classroom

Observation, Language Analysis, Introduction to Sociolinguistics
2 (Fall 2010) Curriculum Design, Structure of English, Second Language
Acquisition
3 (Spring 2011) Practicum, Applied Linguistics Research
4 (Fall 2011) Portfolio Seminar

28984.indb 137 24/09/2014 09:41

 138 Peter De Costa
of her beliefs, practices, and professional identity as she engaged in acts of
reflexivity over the duration of this study.

Shifting identities
As mentioned, Natasha was originally from Busan, South Korea. Her formal
English education started in middle school where classes were taught through the
grammar translation method, with the class size averaging above 50 students.
Consequently, there was limited interaction with the teacher whose primary objec-
tive was to enhance students’ vocabulary and reading skills; fostering oral commu-
nication in English, however, was not a key objective. And while Natasha
acknowledged that memorization was boring and difficult, she enjoyed learning
grammar rules and reading. Not surprisingly, she found orienting to life in the US
challenging at first. In her words: “I was not used to real-life English and . . . was
afraid of making mistakes and became humiliated in front of others. It took some
time but I gradually felt more comfortable with communicating in English”
(Principles and Practices Position Paper, Spring 2010).
Natasha’s predicament is not uncommon among EFL learners who face similar
problems when they transition into an English-dominant society like the US. And
while she does not explicitly mention that she was a non-native English speaker,
this account of her initial challenge with using English in a real world context
underscores the power imbalance encountered by non-native English speakers
which often translates into fear of being humiliated in the presence of native
speakers. This challenge was exacerbated by the need to also accommodate
different learning and teaching styles, which becomes evident in the next section.

From grammar translator to collaborative learner and teacher

Excerpt 1
“[C]ollaborating with other learners” (Kumaravadivelu, 2003, p. 140) was
not encouraged in the competitive learning environment in Korea, where you
should outperform peers in order to achieve your goal of getting into a good
university. I have now learned that language teachers should do the opposite
in order to facilitate more successful language learning: incorporating group
work that encourages students to interact and cooperate with one another
(Brown, 2007) and “integrating language skills to offer different opportuni-
ties for different types of learners” (Kumaravadivelu, 2003, p. 229).
(Principles and Practices Position Paper, Spring 2010)

At the end of her first semester of the MA TESOL program, Natasha had to write
a position paper on her views of language learning and teaching for her Principles
and Practices class. The course texts were Brown’s (2007) Teaching by Principles:
An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy and Kumaravadivelu’s (2003)
Beyond Methods: Macrostrategies for Language Teaching, two books which

28984.indb 138 24/09/2014 09:41

 Narrative and identity lens 139
continued to have a lasting impact throughout her tenure in the program. As seen
in the above excerpt, Natasha had begun to reflect on her own practice and was
concerned with cultivating collaborative learning, by way of group work, and
creating learning opportunities for her students.
By choosing to focus on a more equitable learning environment, she demon-
strated that she was also concerned with the moral dimensions of learning – iden-
tity traits associated with a reflexive teacher. This commitment to create a
classroom is further evidenced in the following narrative:

Excerpt 2
Additionally, I learned in Principles and Practices of Language Teaching
class that, if each student is assigned to a specific role in his or her group, such
as a scribe and a representative speaker, all students in a group will have more
equal opportunities to speak.
(Principles and Practices Position Paper, Spring 2010)

Norton and Toohey (2001) have highlighted the significance of creating positions
of power from which second language learners can speak. Embracing this prin-
ciple, we learn of Natasha’s intention to provide students a speaking platform by
assigning specific roles during group work so that they “will have more equal
opportunities to speak.” At the same time, her growth as a language professional
also needs to be recognized. In contrast to her previous experience as an EFL
learner who learned English through the grammar translation method and then
later as an EFL teacher in South Korea who had to strictly adhere to the lesson
sequences mapped out in a mandated course textbook, we observe how she gradu-
ally takes on the identity of a collaborative teacher.

Facilitator and authentic materials developer

Central to assuming the identity of a teacher who promoted collaborative learning
in her class was Natasha adopting the identity of a facilitator. As mentioned,
Natasha learned English in South Korea primarily through memorizing grammar
rules and reading, and as TOEFL instructor, her job had been to follow the course
textbook, American Headway, as closely as possible. During her MA program,
however, she found herself being drawn to the identity of a facilitator and authentic
materials developer. This new identity was manifested in a journal which she
wrote for her Classroom Observation class. For this journal entry, Natasha
reported on an advanced adult ESL class she had observed.

Excerpt 3
What I would like to adopt in my teaching practice from the lesson I observed
is the teacher’s approach of instructing the target form by having students
identify the errors on their own, instead of correcting them herself. That way,
students are more naturally involved in active discussions on the correct

28984.indb 139 24/09/2014 09:41

 140 Peter De Costa
target form and pay more attention to the difference between their output and
the target form. What I would do differently from this lesson is that I would
use an authentic text that contains the target form so that students can infer
the meaning of the target structure from the real-life contexts, instead of using
disconnected sentences.
(Classroom Observation Journal Entry 1, Spring 2010)

Natasha is ostensibly distancing herself from the identity of a teacher-as-expert by

deregulating teacher control in the class. In keeping with the principle of reducing
power differentials associated with a reflexive teacher, Natasha is attracted to the
prospect of having students self-correct, with the teacher receding into the back-
ground as a facilitator who promotes active class discussion. Also interesting is
how she initiates a lesson modification by suggesting that an authentic text be
used so that her students gain practice in using language in real-life contexts.
This identity change towards becoming a facilitator and authentic materials
developer is consistent with Blommaert’s (2005) assertion that as people shift
from place to place, “they frequently, and delicately, and each time in very
minimal ways, express different identities” (p. 224). So while Natasha may have
previously inhabited the identity of a competitive EFL learner and a teacher who
closely followed a textbook, she has become a proponent of teacher facilitation
and use of authentic materials. That Natasha is an agentive teacher is further
exhibited in the next excerpt, where she compares a French class at a local
language institute she observed with her TOEFL preparation class in South Korea.

Excerpt 4
Observing a class at the language institute also gave me an opportunity to
reflect on my TOEFL preparation class. I observed a French class and was
surprised to find that the class centered around “Communicative Language
Approach” (Brown, 2007, p. 46) in the sense that it focused both on “gram-
matical and pragmatic aspects of the language with the teacher as a facilitator
and students as active participants” (pp. 46–47). I expected that the class
would be focused mainly on drill practices since the goal of the class was to
prepare the students for an oral proficiency interview.
(Classroom Observation Journal Entry 2, Spring 2010)

As seen in Excerpt 1, Natasha constantly sought to merge theory with practice by

incorporating what she had read in her graduate courses. As in that earlier excerpt,
Brown (2007) is cited again with the objective of underscoring the role of “the
teacher as a facilitator and students as active participants” (pp. 46–47). Also note-
worthy is how the communicative approach that Natasha favors is applied in a
non-English language classroom. This point is particularly salient given that just
over a year after she wrote this journal, Natasha started work as a Korean language
instructor at the same language institute where she observed this French lesson.
One could argue that Natasha’s teacher identity development was not language-

28984.indb 140 24/09/2014 09:41

 Narrative and identity lens 141
specific; rather, she was able to apply the principles and practices of language
teaching which she had acquired during her MA TESOL program in different
language learning contexts.
Richards and Farrell (2011) observe that “Reading about philosophies of
teaching is one thing but developing your own philosophy of teaching through the
experience of teaching is another” (p. 4). In that respect, they are in agreement
with Crookes (2003) who stressed, “It is important for ES/FL teachers, as for any
other teachers or professionals, to be able to articulate their basic views and values
concerning their practice, that is their philosophy of teaching” (p. 45). In the
spring of 2011, Natasha enrolled in my Practicum class whose requirements
included writing a teaching philosophy statement and classroom teaching prac-
tice. For her teaching philosophy statement, Natasha articulated four points, two
of which – promoting a collaborative learning environment and providing mean-
ingful feedback – are elaborated below.

Excerpt 5
2. Promote a collaborative learning environment: I believe that students’
learning is facilitated through interaction and collaboration with peers. That is
why I often incorporate interactive tasks that involve pair or group work. Inter-
active tasks provide students with opportunities to scaffold their learning by
sharing each other’s knowledge and experience. These tasks allow them to
practice the target language in negotiation of meaning through social interac-
tion. Additionally, working with peers will promote learner autonomy as
students assume more responsibility for their peers’ and their own learning.
Group work such as peer review session often encourages learners to discuss
and reflect on their learning strategies and expand their repertoire of strategies.
3. Provide meaningful feedback: It is important to consider individual
students’ proficiency and the purpose of a class task or activity in order to
give students meaningful feedback. For example, when students are engaged
in tasks that focus on meaning and the development of fluency, I provide
feedback mainly on how effectively they manage the flow of communication
in completing the task. When students perform more accuracy-focused tasks,
such as pronunciation practice and grammar exercise, I believe the specific
feedback on the target linguistic features, rather than on every single error
produced, is more effective. I also give students the opportunity to identify
their errors by using their own oral or written output and having them self-
correct or discuss their errors with their peers. This way, students are more
actively involved in their learning, rather than passively do what they are told
to do by the teacher.
(Teaching Philosophy, Spring 2011; bold in original)

While Point 2 in Natasha’s statement indicates her enduring commitment to

creating a collaborative learning, Point 3 reiterates and reinforces a desire to facili-
tate her students’ learning process by providing just-in-time feedback to help them

28984.indb 141 24/09/2014 09:41

 142 Peter De Costa
complete tasks. Also conspicuous in Point 3 is a conviction to promote active
learners by having them “identify their errors by using their own oral or written
output and having them self-correct or discuss their errors with their peers”.

Enacting emergent identities

The preceding excerpts strongly suggest that in her first year in the MA program
Natasha had started to shift towards a combination of teacher identities, namely,
collaborative teacher, facilitator, and authentic materials developer. Equally impor-
tant to note that while juggling these new identities, she was also wrestling with the
identity of being a NNEST, that is, one of a non-native English-speaking teacher.
Up to this juncture, I have analyzed written narratives where she essentially
reflected on what she had read in her coursework and observed in other teachers’
classrooms. In the following excerpt, which comes from her second year in the
program, Natasha reflects on her actual teaching practice. In other words, we
witness her practiced identity (Kanno and Stuart, 2011; Xu, 2012), that is, an
identity that is performed while teaching. More importantly, we also see how
prospective reflexivity (i.e., the effect of the person on the work) is enacted by
Natasha. You may recall in the earlier excerpts that collaborative learning, the use
of authentic texts, and peer error identification were practices that have influenced
Natasha’s professional identity. These identity aspects were manifested in her
practicum teaching experience at a community college. At this college, she
worked with adult Spanish-speaking ESL immigrant learners with low literacy
levels. In Excerpt 6, a journal entry for Practicum, Natasha writes about a lesson
which I had observed her teach.

Excerpt 6
I started the lesson by asking students to look at the picture in the textbook. After
creating several sentences together in class, I called on a student multiple times
and asked him or her to describe the location of a certain place in the picture.
After going over all the prepositions of place on the list. I put students in pairs
and gave them two versions of the map of Smithville, in which two places were
marked in yellow and blue, respectively. In other words, two students in a pair
are to have different versions of the map from each other. Then I had them write
three sentences to describe the place in blue without revealing the name of the
store and read them to their partner so that their partner could find the place from
their map. After the activity, I had students go over the sentences they wrote,
identify errors, and correct them together with their partners.
(Practicum Journal Entry 3, Spring 2011)

Collaborative learning takes place on two levels here: Natasha first co-constructs
sample sentences for modeling purposes with her students; next she has them
work in pairs for the preposition exercise. Also important to note is how Natasha
has moved away from the textbook; for the preposition exercise, she used a local

28984.indb 142 24/09/2014 09:41

 Narrative and identity lens 143
map of the city in which her students lived in an attempt to honor the resources
that they bring to the classroom. Further, and consistent with her teaching philos-
ophy (Excerpt 5, Point 3), she has them provide feedback to their respective part-
ners whose errors are identified by peers. In sum, pedagogical practices such as
these helped solidify Natasha’s teacher identity as someone who promoted collab-
orative learning and facilitated the provision of meaningful feedback by using
authentic materials.

From TESOL to teaching Korean

As demonstrated in Excerpts 1 through 6, Natasha’s move from South Korea to
the US impacted the transformation of her professional identity. However, having
established such a professional identity in the first three semesters of her course-
work, she was able to capitalize on this new found identity when she started
working at the local language institute in July 2011, just before she began the
fourth and final semester of her MA TESOL program. In other words, in her last
semester, Natasha found herself juggling a full time job and taking a last class, the
Portfolio Seminar. What is significant to note, though, was that she was hired as a
Korean instructor and not as a TESOL instructor. In Spring 2012, I met up with
Natasha again, this time to find out how her teaching of Korean was coming along.
At the time of the interview in May 2012, it had been five months since Natasha
had graduated from the MA program. Even then, however, she continued to
espouse her firm belief in fostering collaborative learning.

Excerpt 7
I think collaborative learning plays a big part in students’ learning, at least
help students keep motivated. When I have students do certain tasks, like
when I do pair work, I can see the students not just do the activity itself. After
the activity, they always they talk about their experience too like how they
study, like vocabulary. Sometimes I realize that students, they can understand
better from their peers’ explanation, especially in terms of grammar features
than me or other teachers explaining to them again. When the students explain
grammar rules, they usually compare with English, their native language.
That makes it easier to understand for the students.
(Natasha Interview, Spring 2012)

Natasha’s narrative illustrates how she has continued to put into practice the princi-
ples of collaborative learning and tapping her students’ funds of knowledge
(Gonzáles et al., 2005) – a practice which she had advocated as a student teacher
and had subsequently implemented during her student teaching. According to Edge
(2011), prospective reflexivity refers to the effect of the person on the work while
retrospective reflexivity is the effect of the work on the person. On the one hand, it
could be argued that having taught Korean at the language institute for 10 months at
the time of the interview, Natasha’s teaching had impacted her identity by way of

28984.indb 143 24/09/2014 09:41

 144 Peter De Costa
retrospective reflexivity. However, as noted earlier, reflexivity is also discursively
constructed, that is, it would be difficult to distinguish the source of the effect
because both work and the person influence each other in a mutually constitutive
manner. Put differently, both her identity and work appear to have meshed in
together to create a language teaching professional. Perhaps a more important
consideration is how Natasha had made collaborative learning a pedagogical corner-
stone of her teaching, regardless of whether she was teaching English or Korean.

Negotiating the native and non-native divide

Natasha was in a unique position: having trained as a TESOL professional, she
was hired as Korean language instructor at a reputable language institute which
conducted intensive 64-week courses. Asked about the similarities between
teaching Korean in the United States and teaching English in South Korea,
Natasha identified two similarities. The first was that outside of the classroom,
both her Korean and English language students did not have many opportunities
to speak with native speakers of the target language. Second, she felt that neither
group of students learned the languages that she taught because of interest (for the
language per se?). Rather, they had chosen to learn English and Korean to advance
their careers. Perhaps more fascinating was what she saw as different in being a
Korean and English language instructor, as shown in Excerpt 8.

Excerpt 8
I think biggest difference for me, when I was teaching English in Korea, I
myself am an English learner. A lot of times I could foresee what difficulties
they would have. For example, what grammar features most students would
have difficulty with or what words my students would have difficulty with
pronunciation. So I was able to guess or foresee what kind of difficulties my
students would go through. But this time since I’m teaching my native
language and I didn’t learn it as a foreign language, so I cannot, I can never
guess what difficulties my students have.
(Natasha Interview, Spring 2012)

In keeping with much of the literature on NNESTs, Natasha articulates that being
a non-native English speaker afforded her the ability to anticipate student difficul-
ties when she was teaching English in South Korea. Writing from an intercultural
identity perspective, Menard-Warwick (2008) maintains that “the most highly
valued capacities a non-native teacher can bring . . . [is] interculturality
(pp. 635–636). However, Natasha found herself disadvantaged by her nativeness
when teaching Korean as she lacked the metalinguistic awareness of anticipating
problems encountered by her students of Korean. Thus one can surmise that
nativeness is not an asset where Natasha is concerned. In fact, she goes on to
deconstruct nativeness in the next excerpt when asked how her teaching ideolo-
gies had changed since she started work at the language institute.

28984.indb 144 24/09/2014 09:41

 Narrative and identity lens 145
Excerpt 9
I think when I was teaching in Korea and when I was in the TESOL program,
maybe because I was teaching English as a non-native speaker and also as I
was teaching English as a Second Language as a non-native speaker, I thought
that if I was a native English speaker, teaching would be easier. That my
workload would have been much less because I don’t have to look up the
words in the dictionary, I would know by instinct whether the word is correct
or not. Like I don’t have to do a lot of preparation if I’m an English native
speaker. Now I’m teaching my native language, I realize that how successful
my lesson is has nothing much to do with whether I’m teaching my native
language or my second language. I learned that if I have a good lesson I have
to prepare whether I’m a native speaker or not. I think that was my big change
because it was my first experience to teach my native language.
(Natasha Interview, Spring 2012)

Norton and Early (2011) assert that “small stories-in-interaction do not neces-
sarily create a coherent sense of self, but highlight diverse identity positions in
everyday interactive practices, and are highly significant for identity work”
(p. 421). In narrating her professional self through her interaction with me,
Natasha illustrated how she shuttled between her native and non-native speaker
identities. More significantly, she appeared to have come to the conclusion that it
was not nativeness that made her a good teacher but sound class preparation. In
some ways Natasha had renegotiated and even transcended the notion of native-
ness upon realizing that her teacher identity, constituted by collaborative learning,
facilitator, and authentic materials development practices, had informed her
pedagogy.

Conclusion
In his call to bridge the gap between pre-service and in-service education and
development, Farrell (2012) lamented that most novice teachers suddenly have no
further contact with their teacher educators. It is not uncommon to find novice
teachers like Natasha who find themselves navigating unchartered teaching waters
once they graduate from their teacher education programs. However, unlike other
novice teachers, Natasha was provided with the professional infrastructure both
during and after her graduate program to partake in reflexive thinking. As shown
in my analysis of Natasha’s written and spoken narratives, she was able to engage
in constructive acts of reflexivity.

References
Bailey, K. M. (2012). Reflective pedagogy. In A. Burns and J. C. Richards (Eds.), Peda-
gogy and Practice in Second Language Teaching (pp. 23–29). New York: Cambridge
University Press.

28984.indb 145 24/09/2014 09:41

 146 Peter De Costa
Barkhuizen, G. (2010). An extended positioning analysis of a pre-service teacher’s better
life small story. Applied Linguistics, 31(2), 282–300.
Blommaert, J. (2005). Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, H. G. (2007). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Peda-
gogy (3rd ed.). White Plains, NY: Pearson Longman.
Clarke, M. (2008). Language Teacher Identities: Co-constructing Discourse and Commu-
nity. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Cochran-Smith, M., and Zeichner, K. (Eds) (2005). Studying Teacher Education. New
York: Routledge.
Cochran-Smith, M., and Lytle, S. (2009). Inquiry as Stance: Practitioner Research for the
Next Generation. New York: Teachers College Press.
Crookes, G. (2003). A Practicum in TESOL: Professional Development Through Teaching
Practice. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Edge, J. (2011). The Reflexive Teacher Educator in TESOL: Roots and Wings. New York:
Routledge.
Farrell, T. S. C. (2012). Novice-service language teacher development: Bridging the gap
between preservice and in-service education and development. TESOL Quarterly, 46(3),
435–449.
Gonzáles, N., Moll, L., and Amanti, C. (2005). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices
in households, communities, and classrooms. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Ha, P. L. (2008). Teaching English as an International Language. Buffalo, NY: Multilin-
gual Matters.
Hawkins, M., and Norton, B. (2009). Critical language teacher education. In A. Burns
and J. Richards (Eds), Cambridge Guide to Second Language Teacher Education
(pp. 30–39). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Johnson, K. E., and Golombek, P. R. (Eds) (2002). Teachers’ Narrative Inquiry as Profes-
sional Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Johnson, K. E., and Golombek, P. R. (2011). The transformative power of narrative in
second language teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 45(3), 486–509.
Kanno, Y., and Stuart, C. (2011). Learning to become a second language teacher: identities-
in-practice. Modern Language Journal, 95(2), 236–252.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2003). Beyond Methods: Macrostrategies for Language Teaching.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2012a). Language Teacher Education for a Global Society. New
York: Routledge.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2012b). Individual identity, cultural globalization and teaching
English as an international language: The case of an epistemic break. In L. Alsagoff,
S. L. McKay, G. Hu and W. A. Renandya (Eds), Principles and Practices for Teaching
English as an International Language (pp. 9–27). New York: Routledge.
Menard-Warwick, J. (2008). The cultural and intercultural identities of transnational
English teachers: Two case studies from the Americas. TESOL Quarterly, 42(4),
617–640.
Morgan, B., and Ramanathan, V. (2005). Critical literacies and language education: Global
and local perspectives. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 25, 151–169.
Morgan, B., and Clarke, M. (2011). Identity in second language teaching and learning. In
E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning
Volume II (pp. 817–836). New York: Routledge.
Norton, B. (2000). Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity, and Educational
Change. Harlow: Longman.

28984.indb 146 24/09/2014 09:41

 Narrative and identity lens 147
Norton, B. and Toohey, K. (2001). Changing perspectives on good language learners.
TESOL Quarterly, 35(2), 307–322.
Norton, B. and Early, M. (2011). Researcher identity, narrative inquiry, and language
teaching research. TESOL Quarterly, 45(3), 415–439.
Richards, J. C. and Farrell, T. S. C. (2011). Practice Teaching: A Reflective Approach. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Sayer, P. (2012). Ambiguities and Tensions in English Language Teaching: Portraits of
EFL Teachers as Legitimate Speakers. New York: Routledge.
Simpson, J. (2009). A critical stance in language education: A reply for Alan Waters.
Applied Linguistics, 30(3), 428–434.
Tsui, A. B. M. (2007). Complexities of identity formation: A narrative inquiry of an EFL
teacher. TESOL Quarterly, 41(4), 657–680.
Varghese, M. (2011). Language teacher education and teacher identity. In F. M. Hult and
K. A. King (Eds), EducationalLlinguistics in Practice: Applying the Local Globally and
the Global Locally (pp. 16–26). Buffalo, NY: Multilingual Matters.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Xu, H. (2012). Imagined community falling apart: a case study on the transformation of
professional identities of novice ESOL teachers in China. TESOL Quarterly, 46(3),
568–578.

28984.indb 147 24/09/2014 09:41

 11 Teacher identity development in
the midst of conflicting ideologies
Selim Ben Said

Introduction
Within the field of education, research on emotions has been received growing
attention in recent years (Boler, 1999; Day and Lee, 2011; Linnenbrink, 2006;
Nias, 1996; Postareff and Lindblom-Ylänne, 2011; Schutz and Lanehart, 2002;
Schutz and Pekrun, 2007; Schutz and Zembylas, 2009). Relevance of research on
emotions has also been noted in the exploration of teacher identity formation
(Day, 2011; Day and Qing, 2009; Hargreaves, 1998, 2005; O’Connor, 2008; Van
Veen and Lasky, 2005; Zembylas, 2003, 2005, 2008). In particular, research on
teacher identity in TESOL has successfully shown the relevance of emotions in
teacher’s negotiated access to professionalism (Cowie, 2011; Golombek and
Johnson, 2004; Reis this volume). Following this research trajectory and building
on my previous work examining the role of narratives in teacher identity develop-
ment (Ben Said, 2013, 2014), this chapter explores the narrative engagement of a
beginner teacher – Krystle – whose display of emotionality emerges from her
reports of challenging and stressful situations experienced during her teaching
practice. The choice of singling out emotions of “alienation” (Menard-Warwick,
2011), is justified by the particularly increasing applicability it has in research on
teacher identity (several chapters in this volume mention its relevance particularly
Reis but also Bilgen and Richards, Nagatomo, Trent, and Yayli) but also based on
the premise that it is through the recount of challenging episodes faced by teachers
that one can capture the intricate, negotiated, and sometimes tumultuous process
of teacher identity formation. What this chapter aims to show is how a novice
teacher builds her professional self by imposing her identity to the multitude of
antagonistic voices, from her family, peers, and superiors.

Emotions, stress, and burnout

This study delves into the expression of a teacher’s emotions through discourse and
narratives/stories. In particular, it provides insights into how emotions and their
ability to capture teachers’ “lived performance” (Schutz and Zembylas, 2009) consti-
tute a window into teachers emerging1 identities. The emotions, which are of partic-
ular interest to this research, are the ones that are the result of teacher stress, burnout,
and other such feelings of frustration. Galton and MacBeath define burnout as:

28984.indb 148 24/09/2014 09:41

 Teacher identity development 149
a term that has now entered the teaching lexicon as teachers find that they
cannot sustain the intensity of investment in teaching and in meeting the
needs of their students.
(2008, p. 6)

Stress-related emotional experiences, in addition to being a gauge of teachers’

well-being within their community of practice (CoP henceforth) (Lave and
Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) are also reliable predictors of teachers either
remaining or leaving the profession. Disillusionment with teaching can ultimately
result in teachers exiting the field altogether and this downward spiral is becoming
more salient as years go by. It is most often the case that stress, anxiety, and diffi-
culties in adjusting are the plight of beginning teachers who are in the process of
accommodating to classroom situations and to their new professional environ-
ment and co-participants. In fact, based on survey findings, more than half of
teachers entering the profession leave within the first five years (Ingersoll, 2003;
OECD, 2001). This alarming indicator is the consequence of the ordeals that
teachers experience in their first years of teaching where they are the most vulner-
able, but they are also the product of changing times:

Teaching has had to rise to the challenge of a world in which the pace, nature
and contexts of learning have been radically transformed. Teachers entering
the profession today may expect classrooms to be like the ones they attended
but although a teaching space may look the surprisingly similar on the surface,
the quality and dynamics of what happens there are not what they used to be.
(Galton and MacBeath, 2008, p. 5)

Such situations of teacher experiencing strenuous pressures is rather common and

is reported in different countries from Australia (Wilhelm et al., 2000), Great
Britain (Galton and MacBeath, 2008), Hong Kong (MacBeath and Clark, 2005),
Japan (Shimahara, 2003), New Zealand (Ingvarson et al., 2005), or the United
States (Troen and Coles, 2004).
Commenting on the vulnerability of beginner teachers to professional chal-
lenges, Gold and Roth (1993, p. 3) observe:

The pressures of the profession manifest themselves very early. They are
very evident in the teacher preparation process well before students become
teachers in their own classrooms. There is evidence of perceived levels of
burnout by student teacher (. . .), and even as early as students in the profes-
sional methods courses. Teacher education students may be anticipating the
pressures of their future professions, and they are already experiencing
increasing perceived levels of burnout early in the teacher preparation
process.

The literature reporting on the challenges faced by teachers although abundant,

consists for the most part in theoretical pieces, sourcebooks, and “how to” manuals

28984.indb 149 24/09/2014 09:41

 150 Selim Ben Said
(Gold and Roth, 1993; Hayes, 2006; Lambert and McCarthy, 2006; Vandenberghe
and Huberman, 1999). In this respect, there is a dire need for research which brings
teachers’ voices, narratives, and personal testimonies at the center-stage and which
emphasizes how teacher development is a negotiated and dialogic process.

Study and participant

In this interpretive study which qualitatively examines the stories and narrative
reflections of an early professional, I explore how Krystle, a 28 year old Chinese
English teacher, is constructing her identity though the reporting of challenging
episodes either personally experienced or reported from her peers. Although new
to the teaching profession, Krystle had a rich baggage of professional experiences,
having first been working in the private engineering sector for an extended period.
Her mid-career shift to teaching was motivated by a short part-time experience
teaching children in a child care center, where as she reports, she experienced a
professional turning point and found her true vocation. At the time of data collec-
tion, Krystle had completed a six-month period of contract teaching as a relief
teacher and had just started taking courses to obtain her Post-Graduate Diploma in
Education (PGDE).2 It is important to note that based on her rich professional
background, Krystle represents a rather atypical profile when compared to the
dominant majority of the teaching population who follow the conventional career
path of teaching immediately after graduation. In fact, as will be reported in this
chapter, her prior professional experience allows her to claim her teacher identity
with more fortitude. Narratives were elicited from Krystle by asking her to report
on her contract teaching experience. Prior to the commencement of this profes-
sional phase, she had participated in a preparatory program where she underwent
a two-days course to be familiarized and acquainted with the school’s code of
conduct, and where she was explicitly taught practical teaching skills, ways to
write a lessons plan, and was also guided on how to manage a class. Krystle was
also given the opportunity to observe other teachers’ lessons.

Method of data collection

This chapter reports on research from a larger longitudinal project examining
teacher identity.3 Data collected consisted in semi-structured interviews conducted
at the teacher training institution where the participant was enrolled. Interviews
were then transcribed verbatim. Participant consent was requested and confidenti-
ality and anonymity were secured.

Discussion
As introduced earlier, the motivating factor which inspired Krystle to become a
teacher was a short but eye-opening experience working in a child-care center. Having
worked both with adults and children, she realized the important need to change “the
mindset of many adults.” Her career shift was therefore motivated by a deep-seated

28984.indb 150 24/09/2014 09:41

 Teacher identity development 151
desire to make an impactful contribution to children’s education. Commenting on her
educational beliefs, she states that teachers should prepare children to be:

Excerpt 1
(. . .) more open to suggestion and recommendation. Not like what adults we
see outside nowadays. Very closed-up mindset. Everything is for their . . . it
is only them who are right. Which I think is something that we need to change
especially when we talk about future generation. If we continue to be so . . .
rigid. That’s what I thought “Maybe I should go to the education industry to
try . . . to make children grow up to be more open minded, to be more creative
. . . so that they are not always rigid.”

From her testimony, it can be understood that the ‘rigid’ attitude of some of her
adult peers made her quit her previous job in favor of teaching. It is possible to
interpret Krystle’s move to greener professional pastures, as a way to both realize
her full potential and ambitions as an educator, but also to liberate herself from the
pressures of an inflexible working environment. Indeed, when asked about how
professionally fulfilled she felt in her new roles as a teacher, Krystle emphasized
the importance of having cooperative superiors and maintaining a certain degree
of autonomy in her teaching [emphasis added]:

Excerpt 2
But I think [teaching] is still manageable. Yah, it’s still manageable and
sometimes it really depends on the school management as well. If the school
management wants the teachers to do everything, obviously the teachers
won’t be able to handle. But if the school management is reasonable as in:
“Okay, we allow sometimes for you to manage certain things.” Then teachers
should be able to manage it better. Yah. Sometimes I think the management
also plays . . . plays an important role to whether the teacher is too stressed up
and leaves the service.

Based on the above excerpts, it appears that Krystle has developed a sense of
autonomy and initiative from her professional experience that she is now transfer-
ring to her role of teacher. She voices an important concern which relates to the
lack of maneuver management sometimes imposes on teaching and which is
identified as a major cause of teachers leaving the profession. This concern is
reiterated in a number of occurrences:

Excerpt 3
As much as the school wants . . . sometimes err . . . maybe the system is not
really favorable for teachers at times.

A crucial index of teacher stress and burnout is caused by the large quantity of
tasks that are assigned to them. This fact, which was reported in other narratives

28984.indb 151 24/09/2014 09:41

 152 Selim Ben Said
(Ben Said, 2014), is not uncommon in Singapore, and several new teachers come
to realize the large amount of work only when starting their professional experi-
ence. Commenting on this particular issue, Krystle observes:

Excerpt 4
Maybe it’s too stressful, too much work and all. I mean when there is too
much work, then obviously not just teachers, other occupation as well, when
there’s too much work, people will breakdown. Contract teaching . . . I would
say that is not little. I would say that is not little work. Err . . . I would say that
the work is quite . . . quite heavy.

As she puts it, stress is largely dependent on issues of accountability and

bureaucracy ‘as much as the school wants’ (Excerpt 3 above). Along with the
quantitative volume of duties, teachers are also expected to harbor a wide array
of (qualitative) responsibilities, which are not limited to actual praxis and
teaching:

Excerpt 5
So erm . . . is not just teaching and a class that’s it. Is like teaching plus
administrative plus err . . . like a nanny (laugh). You have to check why the
children is not here . . . you check their hair their . . . you know . . . discipline
and all. So it is really not . . . in term of the job err . . . itself err . . . the job
scope is not little, quite a lot.

Stress and the resulting resignation of teachers from the profession are reported by
Krystle to be the consequence of a constellation of different factors. Most impor-
tantly, they are the outcome of teachers fulfilling too many tasks and duties, which
are deemed by her to sometimes fall outside the scope of their expertise and to be
equated to working “like a nanny.” In another testimony, she comments on the
amount of work in primary education when compared to secondary.

Excerpt 6
Yah, I think . . . I mean from what I heard from them like . . . I didn’t experi-
ence what they had, but based on what I heard from them . . . it seem like
PGDE Primary (general) is quite . . . quite tough la in a sense that we have
like instead of 2 content subjects, we have 3. But for secondary schools and
Junior Colleges, they only have 2. I was quite shocked actually because . . .
my sister-in-law and some of my best friends they’re all in secondary school
erm . . . PGDE previously. So, they were telling me that although there’s a lot
of assignments but erm . . . it’s manageable.

This allocation of responsibilities is mostly attributed to inadequate managerial

skills by the school administration. This reported fact is also reflected in the litera-
ture. Commenting on this issue, Galton and MacBeath (2008, p. 5) argue:

28984.indb 152 24/09/2014 09:41

 Teacher identity development 153
teaching is not what it used to be. Not because the impulse to teach has dimin-
ished but because teachers now have to deal with pressures qualitatively
different than ever before. Since the invention of schooling teachers have had
to cope with undisciplined and troubled children and put up with unreason-
able demands from government bodies, but the scale, complexity and inten-
sity of pressures on them in the postmodern world are unprecedented.

The outcome of stakeholders’ decisions and the resulting constraints on teachers

identities is hinted to in Morgan (this volume). As emphasized by Krystle
(Excerpts 2), stress is highly correlated with the amount of maneuver/leeway and
control one has over decision-taking (Martin, 1997). It is also due to new teachers
learning how to manage challenging classrooms as Galton and MacBeath state
above. In the following excerpt, Krystle reports on her management of discipline
matters in the classroom. In her recollection of the situation, she expresses how
although initially difficult, the conflict was resolved through dialogue and nego-
tiation with the students. This again hints to her professional maturity and propen-
sity to be open to her students’ needs:

Excerpt 7
At the beginning erm . . . it was kind of challenging because I was given err . . .
classes that are not really very erm . . . disciplined. It maybe because that erm
. . . their teachers are always changing yah. Then . . . in fact what I did was I . . .
I . . . really talk to the children. I say “Why are you behaving in that manner?”
Like one to one sometimes. So they will tell me that they are bored. At times
the more vocal children will tell me that “Oh, because our teachers always
change, I think our teachers don’t want us . . . maybe because we misbehave
. . .” that kind of thing. Sometimes it is not just erm . . . teaching them the
subject but we have to manage their emotions as well . . . yah. Because without
the right mentality . . . I mean if they’re not happy, I don’t think they can learn.

Here, rather than blaming students’ behavior, Krystle is trying to find explana-
tions for their misconduct and at the same time offers solutions to alleviate the
classroom tension. From what is reported in the above excerpt, teacher frustration,
and particularly in the case of teachers who are yet to become more acquainted
with the classroom culture and space, class/pupil management is one of the most
challenging experiences. This fact is commented upon in Galton and MacBeath
(2008, p. 11):

Dealing with conflict in the many forms in which it is expressed proves to be

one of the factors which wears down school staff through a slow and unre-
lenting process of attrition. (. . .) Discipline issues overflow the classroom
and infect the teacher culture.

In her narrative Krystle reports on her ability to handle the situation, thus “storying
the teacher.” In spite of a relatively short teaching experience, she nonetheless

28984.indb 153 24/09/2014 09:41

 154 Selim Ben Said
demarcates herself by her capability to reach out to her students and to revert a
situation, which initially was a conflictual one. In this way, Krystle is positing
herself as a proficient member of the CoP and is progressively shifting from the
role of a peripheral participant to the one of central professional.
As was revealed throughout the interview, stress and tensions are also the
outcomes of professional peer pressure. In the following excerpt, Krystle mentions
that in several instances, superiors and management staff explicitly made it clear
that she had to expect teaching not to be a walk in the park.

Excerpt 8
Yah. So . . . actually . . . actually in the school, our management will tell us
“If you want to teach, you better think carefully because it is really not some-
thing . . . not a job that anybody can do.”

One might argue that these cautionary statements by superiors might in fact help
teachers become more prepared to confront the upcoming challenges of their
profession and develop coping and resilience strategies in anticipation of the chal-
lenges to come. However, as the subsequent excerpt reveals, Krystle’s colleagues
who have been teaching for a longer period than her, express similar concerns.
While reflecting on these voices of discontent, Krystle also mitigates their state-
ments in the light of her prior work experience:

Excerpt 9
I tell her [talking about a colleague] that. Because they didn’t have the experi-
ence outside. So they thought that “Yah, you know I’m here and I . . . I think
that is hell. So nothing can be worse than being a teacher” When I tell her
“no”, not true. Not exactly true. If you were to work outside, you may be
experienced the same hell or even much worse. You wouldn’t know.

She tries to explain her colleague’s reaction by the fact that unlike herself, other
teachers did not have a variety of professional experiences. She continues:

Excerpt 10
So I think is not very “right” to think in that kind of manner. And I do realize
that it seems . . . it seems quite common in teachers who really don’t have
teaching . . . don’t have other working experiences. They really think of
things like . . . not that . . . they are not that far sighted and don’t . . . they
don’t think in err . . . wider perspective.

In her narrative, she debunks some of the negative attitudes to teaching which she
is being exposed to through her interactions with colleagues. In her assessment of
these opinions, she attributes her colleagues’ negative experience to a profes-
sional immaturity and to their lack of objectivity in reporting on their professional
challenges. Her appraisal of colleagues’ comments and their lack of impartiality

28984.indb 154 24/09/2014 09:41

 Teacher identity development 155
(as will also be evidenced in excerpt 11 and when reporting on her family’s feed-
back – excerpt 12) are paralleled to her prior professional experience.

Excerpt 11
That which is a problem with a lot of teachers I would say. A lot of teachers
who . . . have no working experience they just go straight after graduation
straight to teaching . . . their . . . they’re not very erm . . . when they think
about things, they are not so err . . . open minded at times. And sometimes
they don’t think that widely . . . sometimes. That is the problem that I observed
in many teachers. Because my friend, she graduated erm . . . from Chemical
Engineering straight to . . . to [name of teacher training institution] and to be
a teacher so sometimes when we talk, I . . . I do realize that she thinks that
“Oh, teacher is the most tiring job in the whole world!” Than I would tell her
that actually not really. For every job, they have their challenges as well. I
wouldn’t say that teacher . . . being a teacher is relaxing, but I wouldn’t say
that it is the worst job ever.

As evidenced from excerpt 6 above, a considerable part of Krystle’s beliefs about

the challenges associated with teaching are shaped by the opinions collected from
her direct environment and particularly within the family cell. In the following
testimony, where she vocalizes some of her family’s concerns, Krystle reports on
a conversation with her parents and the feedback she received on her spending
long hours at work:

Excerpt 12
In fact for . . . when I was doing my contract teaching, they already feedback:
“How come you work err . . . for so long . . . like from the morning till the
evening but err . . . your sister-in-law when she started teaching was only up
to 2 . . .” is okay . . . “it’s only up to 2 or 3pm, she’ll be back home” things . . .
you know comments like that.

When asked to elaborate on the feedback she receives from her family about her
initial experience, Krystle surprisingly expresses disappointment, which she
attributes to their lack of understanding and encouragement. She states:

Excerpt 13
They are not very encouraging I would say . . . They are like at the beginning
. . . why you work so long . . . I was telling them if you are . . . if I’m not in
teaching, and back to my previous work. I think I would work longer (laugh).

Family is usually an important element in boosting teachers’ self-esteem espe-

cially if they are experiencing difficulties at work, in this case, Krystle defines her
teacher identity not backed by supportive family feedback but rather by carving
out a space of self-definition against her family’s criticism by legitimating her

28984.indb 155 24/09/2014 09:41

 156 Selim Ben Said
long working hours. Her recent career shift and the determination to achieve her
professional goals may constitute the driving factors, which allow Rachel to
persist in becoming a better teacher in the face of challenges:

Excerpt 14
Because the erm . . . becoming a full-fledged teacher comes with a lot of
responsibility and commitment. So that only with time you can really erm . . .
relax (laugh).

In fact, her desire to achieve professional success make Krystle shift her attention
from the peripheral aspects of teaching (teaching load, colleagues’ complaints,
etc.) which are for the most part related to out-of-classroom concerns, to a focus
on refining her teaching skills to address students’ needs and in-classroom.
Therefore, making abstraction of the challenges of her profession and focusing on
teaching and pedagogy, both in form and content allow Krystle to develop her
professional teacher identity. Here the statement recollected from her narrative
testimony seek to develop pupils’ well-being (Day and Qing, 2009).

Excerpt 15
Erm . . . I think the main challenges will be the lack of the pedagogical erm . . .
teaching aspect. Because we are not trained. When we were in contract teaching.
So we do not know err . . . at least for me I do not know whether my teaching
methods actually suit the children. Are they actually learning or is it that they are
just listening? Yah, they are just hearing but they are not really learning. So . . .
and because the lack of pedagogical knowledge, I won’t be able to know whether
the . . . my form of assessment is it going to be fruitful for the children.

Pressure not to perform well as a teacher is also a source of unease for Krystle as
she shares above, being pedagogically unskilled creates a situation where she is
left to guess what may or not be suited for her pupils’ needs. This is of crucial
importance to her as it is one of the reasons that motivated her into becoming a
professional teacher (Excerpt 1). The next narrative also explains why Krystle’s
ability not to be alienated by the professional teaching experience is because she
defines herself as a self-starter and someone who always wants to learn from other
professional contexts and situations. It is probably for this reason that she is able
to mitigate/relativize the infelicitous expertise reported by her colleague and
take some distance and perspective when emitting a judgment on the teaching
profession by being less emotional and more rational. This ability which she has
developed working in other fields and with different people allowed her to handle
different situations and work collaboratively, as she comments:

Excerpt 16
I think my work experience actually allows me to . . . to manage people
better. Because I realize the importance of erm . . . managing relationships.

28984.indb 156 24/09/2014 09:41

 Teacher identity development 157
Hence, although not technically a full expert teacher – despite her rich profes-
sional repertoire – Krystle is able to maturely assess the judgment of family
members (Excerpts 6, 12, and 13), mentors/supervisors (Excerpt 8), but also
colleagues (Excerpts 9, 10, and 11) and to voice her opinion and identity in the
midst of this maelstrom of alternative opinions. Some of the challenges expressed
by Krystle are therefore the result of her negotiating multiple identities, as a
daughter, sister, mentee, colleague, teacher, etc. Commenting on this difficulty in
conciliating between our multiple identities, which Wenger terms ‘negotiability’
(Wenger, 1998) Canagarajah (2012) states:

(. . .) tensions in identities cannot be easily resolved. In fact, they may never

be resolved. However, there are benefits for our professional life. We can be
very effective brokers who are able to bring values and practices from one
group of membership into another.
(p. 271)

This maturity which she reports in the interview is also the fruit of her
determination to go beyond her experience in the school where she taught as a
contract teacher and her endeavor to try other schools rather than be confined to
the same educational institution/space. Krystle’s personal identity which she
brings to fore when making professional choices is evidenced in the following
recount:

Excerpt 17
For me, I would want to try other schools so I . . . in fact my supervisors they
did ask us whether we want to go back. I was telling her that . . . I mean
I don’t mind going back I mean . . . I really don’t mind going back, but if I
have an opportunity to go and try out other schools I . . . I would take that
kind of opportunity. Yah. Because I think that it is good to look around, see
around to actually widen the perspective rather than just be comfortable in
one place where I’m already comfortable in. I think some changes will be
good to feel . . . to make oneself stronger and have a wider perspective about
things.

Teacher identity development, as this study has shown, is the complex interplay
of personal and professional identities, stories, and histories. In her path to develop
a teacher’s voice, Krystle is engaging with a variety of discourses that she evalu-
ates and questions. In this process, she develops a personalized understanding of
what being a teacher entails and progressively moves with more confidence into
the teaching CoP. While, as she admits, becoming a teacher has its fair deals of
challenges and difficulties (Excerpts 4, 5, and 6), it is still “manageable.” Through
her negotiated development of a professional self, Krystle is able to confidently
claim ownership of her teacher identity and refute discourse, which in her view,
represent an erroneous perspective on teaching.

28984.indb 157 24/09/2014 09:41

 158 Selim Ben Said
Conclusion
Challenges which teachers face are determining factors which come into play in
the development of a professional identity. While emotions are “an integral part
of cognition” (Swain, 2013, p. 195), they act as mediations in the development of
professional expertise and skills. Through the findings reported in this study, it
was revealed that Krystle’s development of a teacher’s identity is constructed in
relation to (and most often in contrast with) the discourses which surround her,
whether they are from family, mentors, or colleagues. This finding reveals that
although identity development is a co-constructed and negotiated process, identity
can still define itself through resistance to external cues and prompts (Ben Said
and Shegar, 2013). In this sense, Krystle defines her teacher self not by compli-
ance to external pressures but rather by repelling the identities and conceptual
categories which are made available to her (e.g. teaching is hell) and therefore
becoming more flexible and malleable in her posture, stance, and judgment of
situations. In spite of the relatively meager literature on teacher identity and chal-
lenges, it is hoped that more studies can be initiated which explore teacher agency
and particularly the less successful stories in the professional identity develop-
ment of teachers.

Notes
1 I use the expression ‘emerging’ due to the fact that the participant was still a beginner/
untrained teacher at the time of data collection and only practiced a short (six months)
period of contract teaching.
2 The PGDE is a 1-year program which prepares university graduates to become primary,
secondary school or junior college teachers in Singapore.
3 OER 15/11 LEL: Building an Evidence-Base for Teacher Education and Development:
A Longitudinal Study (Phase I).

References
Ben Said, S. (2013). “A Lighthouse on the Beach”: Stories, metaphors, and anecdotes in
teachers’ personal recounts. Bellaterra Journal of Teaching & Learning Language &
Literature, 6(4), 1–15.
Ben Said, S. (2014). Teacher identity and narratives: An experiential perspective. Interna-
tional Journal of Innovation in ELT and Research, 3(1), 1–16.
Ben Said, S., and Shegar, C. (2013). Compliance, negotiation, and resistance in teachers’
spatial construction of professional identities. In S. Ben Said and L. J. Zhang (Eds),
Language Teachers and Teaching: Global Perspectives, Local Initiatives (pp. 127–149).
New York: Routledge.
Boler, M. (1999). Feeling Power: Emotions and Education. New York: Routledge.
Canagarajah, A. S. (2012). Teacher development in a global profession: An autoethnog-
raphy. TESOL Quarterly, 46(2), 258–279.
Cowie, N. (2011). Emotions that experienced English as a Foreign Language (EFL)
teachers feel about their students, their colleagues and their work. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 27(1), 235–242.

28984.indb 158 24/09/2014 09:41

 Teacher identity development 159
Day, C. (2011). Uncertain professional identities: Managing the emotional contexts of
teaching. In C. Day and J. Lee (Eds), New Understandings of Teacher’s Work. Emotions
and Educational Change (pp. 45–64). Dordrecht: Springer.
Day, C. and Lee, J. (Eds). (2011). New Understandings of Teacher’s Work. Emotions and
Educational Change. Dordrecht: Springer.
Day, C. and Qing, G. (2009). Teacher emotions: Well being and effectiveness. In P. A.
Schutz and M. Zembylas (Eds), Advances in Teacher Emotion Research: The Impact on
Teachers’ Lives (pp. 15–31). Dordrecht: Springer.
Galton, M. and MacBeath, J. (2008). Teachers Under Pressure. London: Sage.
Gold, Y. and Roth, R. A. (1993). Teacher Managing Stress and Preventing Burnout: The
Professional Health Solution. Bristol, PA: The Falmer Press.
Golombek, P. and Johnson, K. E. (2004). Narrative inquiry as a mediational space: Exploring
emotional and cognitive dissonance in second-language teachers’ development. Teachers
and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 10, 307–328.
Hargreaves, A. (1998). The Emotional Practice of Teaching. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 14(8), 835–854.
Hargreaves, A. (2005). Educational change takes ages: Life, career and generational
factors in teachers’ emotional responses to educational change. Teacher and Teacher
Education, 21, 967–983.
Hayes, C. (2006). Stress Relief for Teachers: The Coping Triangle. New York: Routledge.
Ingersoll, R. M. (2003). Who Controls Teachers’ Work. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Ingvarson, L., Kleinhenz, E., Beavis, A., Barwick, H., Carthy, I., and Wilkinson, J. (2005).
Secondary Teacher Workload Study Report. New Zealand, Hawthorn, Victoria: A study
commissioned by the Ministry of Education: Australian Council of Educational Research
(ACER).
Lambert, R. and McCarthy, C. (Eds). (2006). Understanding Teacher Stress in an Age of
Accountability. Greenwich, CN: Information Age Publishing.
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation.
Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.
Linnenbrink, L. (2006). Emotion research in education [Special Issue]. Education
Psychology Review, 18(4), 307–314.
MacBeath, J. and Clark, W. (2005). School Self Evaluation and External School Review:
The Impact Study, First Interim Report. Cambridge: Cambridge Education.
Martin, P. (1997). The Sickening Mind. London: Flamingo.
Menard-Warwick, J. (2011). A methodological reflection on the process of narrative
analysis: Alienation and identity in the life histories of English Language Teachers.
TESOL Quarterly, 45(3), 564–574.
Nias, J. (1996). Thinking about feeling: the emotions in teaching [Introduction to special
issue on teachers’ emotions]. Cambridge Journal of Education, 26(3), 293–306.
O’Connor, K. E. (2008). “You choose to care″: Teachers, emotions and professional
identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24, 117–126.
OECD (2001). Teacher Exodus: The Meltdown Scenario. Paris: OECD Education.
Postareff, L. and Lindblom-Ylänne, S. (2011). Emotions and confidence within teaching in
higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 36(7), 799–813.
Schutz, P. A. and Lanehart, S. (2002). Introduction: emotions in education [Special Issue].
Education Psychology Review, 37(2), 67–68.
Schutz, P. A. and Pekrun, R. (Eds). (2007). Emotion in Education. Boston, MA: Academic.

28984.indb 159 24/09/2014 09:41

 160 Selim Ben Said
Schutz, P. A. and Zembylas, M. (Eds). (2009). Advances in Teacher Emotion Research:
The Impact on Teachers’ Lives. Dordrecht: Springer.
Shimahara, N. (2003). Teaching in Japan: A Cultural Perspective. New York: Routledge.
Swain, M. (2013). The inseparability of cognition and emotion in second language learning.
Language Teaching, 46(2), 195–207.
Troen, V. and Coles, K. (2004). Who’s Teaching Your Children? Why the Teacher
Crisis is Worse than You Think and what can be done about it. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Van Veen, K. and Lasky, S. (2005). Emotions as a lens to explore teacher identity and
change: different theoretical approaches [Introduction to special issue on emotion,
teacher identity and change]. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21(8), 895–898.
Vandenberghe, R. and Huberman, A. M. (Eds) (1999). Understanding and Preventing
Teacher Burnout: A Sourcebook of International Research and Practice. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Wilhelm, K., Dewhurst-Savellis, J., and Parker, G. (2000). Teacher Stress? An Analysis
of Why Teachers Leave and Why They Stay. Sidney, NSW: School of Psychiatry,
University of New South Wales.
Zembylas, M. (2003). Interrogating “teacher identity″: Emotion, resistance, and self-
formation. Educational Theory, 53(1), 107–127.
Zembylas, M. (2005). Discursive practices, genealogies, and emotional rules: A poststruc-
turalist view on emotion and identity in teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21,
935–948.
Zembylas, M. (2008). Interrogating “Teacher identity”: Emotion, resistance and self-
formation. Educational Theory, 58(1), 107–127.

28984.indb 160 24/09/2014 09:41

 12 Identity construction through
narratives
An analysis of student teacher
discourse
Elaine Riordan and Fiona Farr

Introduction
In this chapter, our aim is to examine the experiences recounted in the shared
professional discourse of student teachers during their teacher education program.
This is done against the belief that “experience becomes linguistically and socio-
culturally transformed through narrative genres and through the activity of
recounting experiences for, to, and with particular interlocutors” (Ochs, 2006,
p. 64). The ultimate goal is to investigate the ways in which the interactions
provide scope for the sharing of experience, and in turn, the co-construction and
development of knowledge and identity. This is a unique chapter in this volume in
that it draws on a corpus of teacher discourse, which is a new endeavor in Language
Teacher Education (LTE).
We see identity and narratives as being pivotal to an evidence-based analysis
because “[i]ndividuals may tell narratives in order to entertain, to resolve tensions,
to justify or explain their actions, to demystify and make sense of life events, to
complain, to instruct [. . .]” (Vásquez, 2009, p. 260), therefore we may examine
how people shape and re-shape their identities via their narrative (Georgakopoulou,
2006). It has been suggested that “different people experience the world through
different eyes, different bodies; they have different life stories; they have different
names” and therefore have “individual human identities” (Johnstone, 2008,
p. 158). As a result, identities are complex and plural (De Fina, 2006), dynamic
and not fixed (Benwell and Stokoe, 2006), and “the selves we present to others are
changeable, strategic, and jointly constructed” (Johnstone, 2008, p. 155). Hence,
from a Labovian perspective (Labov and Waletzky, 1967; Labov, 2001), this
chapter examines narratives found in discussions between student teachers and
tutors on an MA TESOL program through two different modes of communica-
tion: online and face-to-face. Drawing on discourse analysis techniques, our
investigation begins with a codification of the narratives found, followed by
an investigation of the topics under discussion, and, in turn, the narratives are
scrutinized further to trace the nature of the identities projected by the student
teachers as they move from peripheral to full and legitimate participation (see
Lave and Wenger, 1991) in the professional teaching community through the
duration of their program. Our analysis highlights the importance of having both

28984.indb 161 24/09/2014 09:41

 162 Elaine Riordan and Fiona Farr
formal and informal discussions to allow student teachers differing ways of
making sense of themselves as teachers in order to develop professionally. The
following section provides a background discussion of the concept of identity, a
theoretical account of narrative analysis and the ways in which both frameworks
can come together to help us better understand the process of identity construction
through language.

Background

Identity and LTE

Identity has been referred to as “the outcome of processes by which people index
their similarity to and difference from others, sometimes self-consciously and
strategically and sometimes as a matter of habit” (Johnstone, 2008, p. 151).
Identity has been described in terms of something belonging to an individual or
something which is socially constructed, something dwelling in the mind, or real-
ized within social interaction, something tied to an individual or a group, and as
something which is either personal or relational (De Fina, 2006). Identity is thus
shaped by the context of interaction, but at the same time shapes the context
within which the interaction is set (ibid). As this chapter discusses identity
construction via linguistic communication, we must also reiterate that identities
can be both individually and co-constructed (Clarke, 2008), and what is of utmost
importance is that language is a strong medium for the projection or expression of
specific identities (De Fina, 2006; Johnstone, 2008).
In terms of LTE, from about the 1970s, there was a move away from behav-
iorist views of learning, and more focused attention was placed on teacher situated
cognition, whereby “the thought processes of teaching included a much wider and
richer mental context” (Freeman and Johnson, 1998, p. 400). It was acknowl-
edged that “[t]eacher learning is not viewed as translating knowledge and theories
into practice but as constructing new knowledge and theory through participating
in specific social contexts and engaging in particular types of activities and
processes [thus known as practitioner knowledge]” (Richards, 2008, p. 6). This
transfer spanned from teacher learning being cognitive to that of situated and
socio-cognitive, making the physical and social setting in which learning occurred
important to the learning itself. This move encouraged dialogue and collaboration,
and draws on sociocultural theory, social learning, and, of importance to this
chapter, identity construction. Within this process, what is significant is the inclu-
sion of teacher roles, the discourses they create, the activities that take place and
the artefacts used, and that “[l]earning is seen to emerge through social interaction
within a community of practice” (ibid, p. 7).
While various methods have been proposed for teachers to reflect on their
professional identities (Korthagen, 2004; Richards, 2008), it was highlighted in
2004 that only recently had teacher identity been researched (Korthagen, 2004),
while there is now a stronger and growing interest in teacher identity (Vásquez,
2011). Korthagen (2004, p. 85) expresses how a professional identity can take the

28984.indb 162 24/09/2014 09:41

 Identity construction through narratives 163
form of a gestalt, “an unconscious body of needs, images, feelings, values, role
models, previous experiences and behavioral tendencies, which together create a
sense of identity,” or as Richards (2008, p. 9) puts it: “[i]dentity refers to the
differing social and cultural roles teacher-learners enact through their interactions
with their lecturers and other students during the process of their learning.” For
the student teachers in this research, their narratives with their peers and tutors
around theoretical and practical pedagogic issues are used to gain an insight
into the identities they assume and build. We now turn to a brief discussion of
narrative analysis and identity.

Narrative analysis and identity

A narrative has been defined as a way of “reporting past events that have
entered into the biography of the narrator” (Labov, 2001, p. 63). Narratives can
be viewed in “a narrow sense to specify the genre of a story or in a broad sense
to cover a vast range of genres, including not only stories but also reports,
sports and news broadcasts, plans, and agenda [. . .].” However, what they have
in common is the depiction of “a temporal transition from one state of affairs
to another” (Ochs, 2006, p. 68, italics in original). They can therefore be a
chronicle of events reflecting past, present, future or hypothetical time (ibid),
where the person narrating takes control of the floor for a longer length of time
than other interlocutors (Labov, 2001). The framework adopted for this chapter
derives from the work of Labov and Waletzky (1967), and has been extended by
Labov (2001).1
In their framework,2 there are a number of elements which can be traced. The
first and most obligatory of elements is the minimal narrative, which is made up
of a sequence of at least two clauses (narrative clauses) which are temporally
ordered, in that if their format is changed, the meaning and resulting interpretation
of the narrative changes (see Labov, 2001). As well as this obligatory constituent,
there are other features which can optionally be included in a narrative, and have
been discussed by many (for example, Benwell and Stokoe, 2006; Labov and
Waletzky, 1967). These include Abstract, Orientation, Complicating Events,
Evaluation, Result/Resolution and Coda.
Inasmuch as the narrative allows the narrator to let the listeners see their story
through their eyes, the narrators can also work through the narrative with their
interlocutors in terms of how they feel about a certain situation. This is of import-
ance to us in the context of the present chapter as narratives are often co-constructed
and the listeners are urged to reflect on issues arising from the shared stories. Of
relevance to us is that a narrative “is not only a genre, it is also a social activity
involving different participant roles” (Ochs, 2006, p. 77), thus raising the impor-
tance of the notion of identity, whereby via the narration of an event, we construct
identities (Benwell and Stokoe, 2006). The significance of narratives in indexing
identities has been further highlighted by De Fina (2006) and Johnstone (2008),
with the former noting that “they afford tellers an occasion to present themselves
as actors in social worlds while at the same time negotiating their present self with

28984.indb 163 24/09/2014 09:41

 164 Elaine Riordan and Fiona Farr
other interactants” (De Fina, 2006, p. 275). Narrative analysis thus creates a space
for looking at both the personal and shared identities people create, which, as we
will see in the analysis, is appropriate and important for investigating the student
teacher discourse. As was noted, language is key as it is a powerful mediating
tool, whereby people appropriate varied discourses depending on the roles they
see themselves in (Clarke, 2008). It must also be stressed that working through a
narrative is interpretative because a discourse analyst can only make tentative
claims about parts of a story as the speaker’s talk is only one aspect within an
interaction, the other two being the reception and reaction to that talk (Johnstone,
2008, p. 94). However, “if we wish to take seriously the study of situated social
identities of language teachers and learners – the time has come for the field to
also recognize and value the potential that sociolinguistic small story narrative
analysis can contribute to TESOL” (Vásquez, 2011, p. 536), which is precisely
our aim in this chapter. We will now outline our data and methodology in more
detail before moving to the analysis.

Methodology

Context and setting

We draw on a corpus collected in a third level LTE setting, namely what we call
the Teacher Education Discourse (TED) corpus which is data gathered from an
MA in TESOL program and consists of student teachers engaging in a range of
reflective discussions about teaching. The data is collected from five different
cohorts of student teachers over a ten year period. This corpus contains approxi-
mately 163,440 words, and consists of spoken interactions including Teaching
Practice (TP) Feedback and Group Discussion sub-corpora. TP Feedback includes
dyadic TP feedback (the feedback offered to student teachers after they have
taught their practice language lessons) between a cohort of student teachers and
tutors who are also lecturers on the program. The Group Discussion corpus
consists of interactions between a peer tutor and student teachers informally
discussing language teaching and pedagogy in a face-to-face setting. As well as
the spoken sub-corpora, the other part of TED contains online discourse, consisting
of two sets of blogs. The first sets of blogs are individual blogs written by a cohort
of student teachers as a weekly reflection on specific practice lessons. The second
sets of blogs are from the same three cohorts of student teachers as in the spoken
Group Discussion. These were used as private blogs by individual student teachers
for the purposes of general reflections on teaching and their LTE program, and
were only read by the peer tutor. The peer tutor’s task in these blogs and the Group
Discussions was to facilitate informal and pedagogical interaction and discussion,
and she was not in an authoritative position. Table 12.1 summarizes the data for
the following analysis.
Once corpus data is collected, and if relevant, transcribed, it is then available
for a range of quantitative and qualitative types of analysis. In other related
research we take a more automated and corpus-based approach through the

28984.indb 164 24/09/2014 09:41

 Identity construction through narratives 165
Table 12.1 Overview of TED corpus data

TED Corpus (163,440 words)

Face-to-Face Online

TP Feedback Group Discussion Blogs (tutor) Blogs (peer tutor)

82,000 words 51,000 words 12,220 words 18,220 words

One cohort of Three cohorts of One cohort of Three cohorts of
students students students students
MA TESOL MA TESOL MA TESOL MA TESOL
Tutor–Student Peer Tutor–Student Student Teacher Student Teacher
Teacher Teacher Discussions Individual Individual
Discussions Reflections Reflections

analysis of frequency and keyword lists, as well as concordances (Farr and

Riordan, 2012), but for the investigation of identity construction through narra-
tives, a more manually driven qualitative approach is more suitable and will be
used in this chapter. Traditional discourse analysis techniques are used to examine
some illustrative transcripts for each of the modes. The first stage of this research
consisted of manually tagging all of the narratives within the discourse using
Labov’s framework. The following section offers examples and corresponding
analyses of some of these narratives found within the online and face-to-face
modes both formally (between student teachers and lecturer), and informally
(between student teachers and peer tutor).

Findings

Face-to-face discourse
This section examines two narratives in some detail, one from the informal peda-
gogical discussions that the student teachers had with each other and a peer tutor
in a group setting, and the second where the individual student teachers are in a
feedback meeting with their tutor/lecturer, based on a specific recent lesson they
taught. Due to the asymmetrical relationship and the institutional evaluation
requirement surrounding the TP on which the feedback is based, it can tend to be
relatively more formal in nature. The first example of a narrative presented here
contains all features from Labov’s framework (coded in square brackets in this
instance for exemplification). Here the group of teachers are discussing (with the
peer tutor) dealing with tension in the classroom, and Dyne (pseudonyms used) is
narrating an event about a disruptive student in class, how she addressed the issue,
and what the result was. Dyne has completed a postgraduate diploma in teaching
at secondary level and therefore has slightly more experience than some of the
other members of her MA group.

28984.indb 165 24/09/2014 09:41

 166 Elaine Riordan and Fiona Farr
Extract 1: Group discussion
1 <Dyne> [ABSTRACT] If it became threatening towards yourself
then it is essential to get someone else because you can’t deal or get
into a shouting match or anything with students [/ABSTRACT]
[ORIENTATION] one instance I was teaching in a secondary school
and it was all girls and they were all about fifteen sixteen and one girl in
particular I was warned about
5 . . .[/ORIENTATION] [COMPLICATING EVENT] she came in one
day and I corrected her for talking and she stood up and started cursing
very confrontational person she started cursing and everything like
[/COMPLICATING EVENT] [EVALUATION] so I was a bit shook
up [/EVALUATION] [COMPLICATING EVENT] and then she
actually started moving up the room . . .
<Peer Tutor> Mmhm.
10 <Dyne> . . . so in that case I knew not to start shouting back cos it
was just gonna . . .
<Peer Tutor> You can’t.
<Dyne> . . . yeah so I just told her to step outside and sat down and
just let her to shout it out of her system she ran outside and then I sent
another girl for the vice principal [/COMPLICATING EVENT] cos
[EVALUATION] she was actually very intimidating
[/EVALUATION] like you
15 know . . .
<Peer Tutor> Mmhm.
<Dyne> . . . [COMPLICATING EVENT] very so that’s when
I got the vice principal involved cos she deals with the discipline
in the school like [/COMPLICATING EVENT] and
[EVALUATION] at the end of the day it’s not my job to put
myself in danger either
20 [/EVALUATION] . . .
<Peer Tutor> Mmhm.
<Dyne> . . . because of a student like that.
<Peer Tutor> Mmhm.
<Shovelyjoe> How did it work out?
25 <Dyne> [RESOLUTION] Am she was out of my class for two days
and then she came back and apologised . . . . . so I was like and I can’t
even remember now cos it was so long ago but I never ever had a
problem with her again. [/RESOLUTION]
<Peer Tutor> I was act= I was about to ask that.
<Dyne> I couldn’t get over [CODA] I couldn’t get over the
transformation in her like and she
30 was not a model student but . . .
<Peer Tutor> Yeah.

28984.indb 166 24/09/2014 09:42

 Identity construction through narratives 167
<Dyne> . . . but such improvement to her she looked like a model
student so it was . . .
<Peer Tutor> Mmhm.
<Dyne> . . . sometimes you need that for a student like that they need
confrontation like that to
35 get it out of their system and then they’re fine like you know once they
once they sit down [/CODA].

If we take the example narrative presented in Extract 1, we see a serious event

which happened in a school with a confrontational student, and from lines 1 to18,
Dyne relays the issue and depicts her position as a novice3 teacher needing assist-
ance from the principal (although we do recognize that this is the role of the prin-
cipal). While offering this information, she appears to be outlining reasons or
indeed justification for her needing assistance from the principal. This includes
addressing negative characteristics of the student in question, such as “I was
warned [about the student],” she was “a confrontational person,” and “she was
actually very intimidating”; the student teacher’s own feelings such as “I was a bit
shook up”; and the role of the principal in that “she deals with the discipline in the
school.” There is duality here in that she is up-keeping a professional identity in
the presence of her peers by explaining her rationale for the actions she took,
while depicting an inexperienced identity having difficulties in class. Dyne does,
however, become more assertive in her role in line 19, when she notes “it’s not my
job to put myself in danger.” This demonstrates her role as a practicing profes-
sional teacher, who is knowledgeable and confident in her position, or who has
learned through experience. In line 24, we see an example of the co-construction
of a narrative, as Shovely Joe, a complete novice, asks Dyne what the outcome
was. Here he could be using her narrative as a means of learning for his own future
role as a teacher, but also as a curious social listener wanting to hear the end of the
story.
While thus far, Dyne offers ample description of events, in line 26, she notes
that she does not remember the conversation between her and the student after the
event. Either she genuinely does not remember, or there are parts of the story she
wishes to withhold, once again to save face in front of her peers and the peer tutor.
From line 29 onwards she appears to offer a balanced view by explaining that the
particular student had transformed, but “she was not a model student.” By the end
of the final turn, Dyne presents a very good understanding of her students, and
therefore her identity here is of a more independent and experienced teacher who
knows how to react in certain situations. By retelling this story, she is thus offering
the listeners information/advice, which they may reflect on and draw upon for
their future roles, while also allowing herself to look through a window into past
experiences depicting her journey as a teacher. This is important for novice
teachers in terms of shaping their identities because at the beginning of their
learning they “position themselves along various continua of control, authority,
and expertise” (Urzúa and Vasquez, 2008, p. 1944).
An example of a narrative from the TP feedback can be seen in Extract 2.

28984.indb 167 24/09/2014 09:42

 168 Elaine Riordan and Fiona Farr
Extract 2: TP feedback

1 Tutor: Yeah well how did it compare with other classes, you . . . I
haven’t seen you teach before
ST: No it was okay before I think I just get before if they asked me a
question I would be able to answer it straight off but now I’m getting
more conscious of the “right” answer and solely the right answer so I
am thrown every time they ask me something, which is kind of, I don’t
know, because
5 when I talked to Mary teaching the week last, before last, the, my
lessons went really well and like I I everything I assumed came up and
when they asked me questions I was able to answer them and you, it was
fine and then last week I think something happ . . . was it last week? I
think, whatever group I had last week I got rattled again and now I am
kind of shaking when they ask me a question I’m going “no” (laughing)
so I’m not in the best of form with confidence of them asking me . . . .
10 Tutor: No I thought you were very confident in the classroom, I
thought your personality came across very nicely in the classroom and
you struck me as being somebody who was confident . . .
ST: Yeah
Tutor: . . . in the classroom.
ST: Yeah that is what I wanted, well, I don’t tend to feel as nervous
but when they ask me to
15 explain something it’s like “oh my god no” like and my mind goes
blank and it usen’t go blank before like when . . . and they both sounded
right . . .

This extract provides quite a comparison against Extract 1. Here we see the student
teacher presenting herself as novice and expressing feelings of fear and uncer-
tainty (lines 8, 9, 14) in a discussion with her tutor. The student teacher is not
trying to justify or excuse these feelings but is very open and honest. She may feel
that this is what is expected, a critical appraisal of her performance. She may be
very honest as she is not in the presence of her peers and is canvassing the support,
validation and advice of the more experienced mentor. And indeed, the tutor
provides this by reassuring through denying the identity presented by the student
teacher (lines 10, 11) (the paradoxical role of the tutor is also important here as
she is both a facilitator and assessor – see Farr (2011)). This is illustrative of
strongly guided co-construction between the teacher and tutor where the more
experienced “other” is helping to shape a novice teacher’s identity. It is possible
that this other (more experienced tutor) voice may need to be internalized by the
student teacher but it is certainly a legitimization of the identity formation and
presentation of a confident and capable teacher.
An interesting phenomenon evident in this extract is the reporting of mental
states and thoughts through hypothetical direct speech. In line 8 the teacher reports
thinking “no” and in line 15 “oh my god, no.” This is an important resource in

28984.indb 168 24/09/2014 09:42

 Identity construction through narratives 169
identity construction as it allows the teacher to represent her emotional state
through the urgency of her thoughts at a particular time. This makes it more
directly accessible to the tutor. Some writers have recently started to examine
direct quotations used to represent thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and perceptions in
professional identity construction (Vásquez and Urzúa, 2009). Such constructions
“tend to highlight uncertainty or insecurity, lack of knowledge, or even negative
feelings and emotions” (ibid, p. 13). This is exactly in line with what we see in this
extract. In general, Extract 1 represents a teacher in the presence of her peers
representing herself as a novice in the past but more experienced and knowledge-
able at the time of the TESOL program, and a possible model for others’ behavior.
She takes strong control over the expression and formation of her identity. In
Extract 2, the teacher plays the novice by highlighting her uncertainty and insecu-
rity. By doing this, she predisposes herself to having her identity strongly
co-constructed by the more experienced tutor. Of course these two contexts differ
and therefore the student teacher with the tutor in TP feedback may feel as if she
is doing what is required of her in this context. The following section now
addresses the discourse from the blogs.

Online discourse
A blog, or a weblog, is a website that contains posts, presented in reverse chrono-
logical order. They “have evolved to encompass any subject matter and they
reflect worldviews that range from the private world of the writer to the public
world of culture and current events, and everything in between” (Blood, 2002,
p. 6). Blogs are easy to create and maintain, do not require any technical back-
ground, and for these reasons are very attractive to the education arena (Ray and
Coulter, 2008). As a result, there has been a shift from writing in diaries and jour-
nals to that of blog writing (Higdon and Topaz, 2009). If we examine the informal
blogs the student teachers wrote privately, which could only be read by the peer
tutor (and were not assessed), an example of a narrative can be seen in Extract 3.
Here the student teacher is reflecting on her experience of observing another fully
qualified teacher’s class.

Extract 3: Blog Lostdog (for the peer tutor)

1 Reflecting on teaching observation
I forgot to mention last Friday I had my first chance to observe a
teacher instructing an elementary ESL class in the Foundation Building.
The teacher was a substitute, and she had no idea I was going to be
there, but she was very nice, and young. Her class was made up of 4
students, 2 Chinese, 1 Japanese, 1
5 French --- 2 girls and 2 guys. It was an extremely boring class and the
French kid kept yawning. Talking about countable nouns and how
much water you should drink every day (?). The teacher kept telling the
quiet Asian girls that they were “Good girls,” which sounded a bit
childish to me, since they were at least 18 years old, and when the 2

28984.indb 169 24/09/2014 09:42

 170 Elaine Riordan and Fiona Farr
guys said something right, the teacher would say “Good man!”
Sounded a bit sexist, but I’m probably overreacting. The students were
extremely quiet. When
10 the teacher left the room, they didn’t make a sound, and when she asked
them to do pairwork, they didn’t! At the end of the class while the students
were still sitting there, the teacher came up to me and apologized. “These
students never say anything,” she said, while they were sitting there
listening. It seemed rather insensitive. The teacher told me to observe
another class because I’d probably have a better experience. The teacher
was a substitute, so I know it wasn’t a typical class, but I think she
15 could’ve done more to engage the students and draw them out. Easy for
me to say since I’ve never tried it! But that’s my take on it. Just wait
until next semester when I try student teaching and I’ll be eating my
words.

This is an interesting extract because Lostdog, who is a mature student and a

complete novice, is depicting a novice identity of herself, because although she is
quite aware of important issues in teaching, she hedges her opinions quite a lot
(for example, I’m probably overreacting, and it seemed rather insensitive). She
begins her discussion of her experience of observing another teacher by noting
that this teacher “was very nice and young” (line 4). As her narrative goes on to
softly criticize this teacher’s approach, this positive character description is used
to lessen the force of what comes later, and shows the student teacher’s will to
critique the teaching and not her as a person. She then goes on to describe the class
which was “extremely boring” (line 5), and reflects on the teacher’s actions which
were at times patronizing to the students (lines 7 and 8) and other times “sexist”
(line 9) and “insensitive” (line 13). From a pedagogical perspective, the examples
she offers are indeed justified, which shows this novice teacher has an awareness
and understanding of teaching and learning contexts but she finds it difficult to
criticize the lesson, for example, she notes in line 9 that “I’m probably overre-
acting” and in line 14 that “I know it’s not a typical class.” Therefore this novice
makes some good arguments, and offers valuable insights into what she has
observed, but she ends her turn relinquishing her opinion, and stating that it is
“easy for me to say since I’ve never tried it.” She thus has sufficient knowledge to
make assessments of another teacher’s teaching, but her position as a novice
makes her question her own judgments, at least publicly for the peer tutor’s sake.
This echoes Copland’s (2010) study, where she found that novice teachers in
feedback sessions often lack confidence in their knowledge, and therefore with-
hold sharing opinions. Copland (2012) also discusses the notion of student
teachers not feeling legitimate in voicing their opinions, which could be the case
for Lostdog here, resulting from her novice stance. Vásquez and Urzúa (2009)
support this by noting that novice teachers may often be unsure of their roles, their
knowledge, and various aspects related to teaching.
An example of a narrative from the blogs written for a lecturer (and assessed)
following each TP lesson can be seen in Extract 4. As this blog is written for a

28984.indb 170 24/09/2014 09:42

 Identity construction through narratives 171
different audience, it offers a different opportunity for identity work as is seen
below.

Extract 4: Blog (for the TP tutor/lecturer)

1 I was pleased with the student’s use of fixed phrases during this lesson,
I think they understood the concept quite well and that fixed phrases
aren’t to be taken literally in meaning. I was also pleased with the
grammar section of the lesson, I think the students understood the tense
that was being taught very well for the level that they are at . . . . .
5 However, I wasn’t pleased with the last exercise of the my lesson plan
as I ran out of time and the students didn’t get to complete it. . . . . I
think I achieved four of my five lesson aims and outcomes. Students
practised and revised reading skills, listening skills, the past perfect
aspect and fixed phrases in the English language. . . . . The fifth aim/
outcome was not achieved as I ran out of time and students didn’t get to
practise accuracy and fluency skills in terms of speaking.
10 After watching the DVD recording of the lesson and after receiving
feedback from the supervisor, I think I came across very abrupt when
correcting certain exercises and activities during the lesson. I didn’t
give the students the credit or validation that they deserved for their
efforts. I would like to develop my correction techniques – I find that it
is very boring for the students and that sometimes I
come across as being quite abrupt with their answers and therefore I
don’t give them the validation and
15 credit that they deserve for their contribution.
Finally, I think pronunciation is the biggest problem I have noticed
amongst the EFL students. However I don’t think I give it enough time
or consideration during class. I need to focus on this area more in the
future and correct any pronunciation errors to prevent fossilization. In
the case of
intermediate students, I would like to focus more on pronunciation as
well as tenses and aspects as
20 these students tend to mix them up.

The scenario here is quite different, and in many ways the identity being
constructed is that of a successful student who should pass the course. A student
teacher has researched, prepared and taught a lesson. She has done some focused
reflecting, has had a feedback conference and has had a couple of days to reflect
further and complete a weekly blog. The blog counts as 10 percent of the overall
grade for the TP module on the program. Given these factors, there is an expecta-
tion among all parties that the student teacher will assume and project a more
confident and knowledgeable identity in her narratives and indeed this is very
much the case. This student teacher displays pedagogic knowledge (as evidenced,
for example, through her use of metadiscourse). She presents a lot of insight into

28984.indb 171 24/09/2014 09:42

 172 Elaine Riordan and Fiona Farr
the specific teaching and learning context under scrutiny, rightly or wrongly.
Toward the end of the narrative (line 10 onwards), the student teacher discusses
evidence she used in terms of an audio-visual recording and also what has been
discussed post-lesson with the observer, and uses both of these as a scaffold to
co-construct her own identity. This in itself is further evidence of professional
conduct befitting what she understands to be her role as a novice teacher well on
the way to becoming a part of the mainstream community.
While in both blog extracts presented here, the student teachers have a fair deal
of insight into teaching and learning, in Extract 4 the feedback from the tutor in
the TP meeting also appears to play a role in shaping the teacher’s identity, while
in Extract 3, the student teacher is less comfortable critiquing the teacher’s class
because she is less experienced. This scaffolding once again reiterates the impor-
tance of the experienced “other” in helping student teachers to define themselves
as teachers, and this may be more explicit in the formal student teacher/lecturer
dialogues than those with the peer tutor, where in the former they are making a
more conscious effort to display an identity. The following section attempts to
summarize the findings in terms of reflection and identity formation.

Reflection and identity construction

What we have attempted to depict in this chapter is the expression of identities by
our student teachers. In the face-to-face dialogues (Extracts 1 and 2), we saw
evidence of novice identities from the student teachers (although the first extract
shows the teacher with a professional identity at the time of speaking), while
simultaneously depicting their knowledge of the field. We also saw that the
student teacher in the group discussion is conscious of her peers listening to her,
and wants to portray herself in a positive light, while also offering the more novice
teachers scope for future reflections. The student teacher with her TP tutor is
reflecting backwards on her teaching, and being very open and honest, as is
expected in this context and potentially motivated by the formal assessment of the
practice around which the discussions take place.
In the blogs, we found the student teachers are again showing novice identities,
while demonstrating their knowledge of teaching. However, in Extract 3 the
teacher is uncomfortable evaluating someone’s teaching, whereas in Extract 4
the teacher is more confident in her evaluation. The presence of the tutor/
lecturer is important here as they facilitate – the co-construction and creation of
the student teachers’ identities, and therefore play an important role in their
learning and reflections. From our narrative analysis, we have shown how more
experienced teachers are able to reflect backwards and see how they dealt with
issues via their narratives, while novice teachers can reflect on the experienced
teachers’ narratives for forward projecting, which is what is expected in such
contexts. We also note that novice teachers have professional knowledge but are
not confident in this, and they are quite aware of the presence of their peers during
the discussions. The final section outlines some conclusions drawn from this
research.

28984.indb 172 24/09/2014 09:42

 Identity construction through narratives 173
Concluding remarks
What our narrative approach to this data has reaffirmed is that the student teachers
depict novice identities, but show evidence of knowledge and understanding, and
other issues within the context (for example, the formality of the interactions, the
presence of peers) play a role in the identities they project at any point in time. We
therefore support Vásquez’s (2007, p. 671) findings based on student teachers’
identities, which she notes are “less stable, less certain or less consistent”
(Vásquez, 2007, p. 671), than those of expert teachers (see also Urzúa and
Vasquez, 2008). For LTE, offering student teachers opportunities for dialogue
allows them to self and co-construct knowledge and move in their transition from
peripheral to legitimate participants of a teaching community. The student teachers
are individually and jointly negotiating their identities, in order to grow and
develop as teachers, and we suggest that both formal and informal discussions
allow student teachers differing ways of making sense of themselves as teachers
in order to develop professionally.
We also stress the importance of a more experienced “other” in assisting in
scaffolding and co-constructing knowledge and identities, and in relation to this,
it has been noted that teachers who are in the core of the CoP should work to
encourage the peripheral participants to move toward further participation, and
that we should cultivate CoPs at novice level so student teachers can participate in
them, which may encourage them to be more willing to participate when in their
future teaching professions (Fraga-Cañadas, 2011). With this in mind, we suggest
that educators employ techniques and strategies that add to and further the experi-
ence and quality of learning and practice for student teachers. Results such as
these should encourage teacher educators to implement policies for mentoring,
scaffolding, fostering communication, and community building for student
teachers to assist them within their practice of and identification with teaching.
We need to continue to find ways of promoting and advancing the learning experi-
ence for student teachers, and we need to encourage supportive and scaffolded
dialogue between members of such a teaching community.

Notes
1 Labov’s original motive was to elicit narratives from people through spontaneous
everyday storytelling, in order to reduce the effects of the Observer’s Paradox.
2 This framework has its critics (see Georgakopoulou, 2006) as a result of it being inter-
viewer-led. However, it is used here merely for the initial codification of narratives.
3 We define novice as someone who is in training or who has recently finished their
training and has minimal classroom experience.

References
Benwell, B. and Stokoe, E. (2006). Discourse and Identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univer-
sity Press.
Blood, R. (2002). The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining
Your Blog. Cambridge MA: Perseus Publishing.

28984.indb 173 24/09/2014 09:42

 174 Elaine Riordan and Fiona Farr
Clarke, M. (2008). Language Teacher Identities. Co-constructing Discourse and Commu-
nities. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Copland, F. (2010). Causes of tension in post-observation feedback in pre-service teacher
training: An alternative view. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26, 466–472.
Copland, F. (2012). Legitimate talk in feedback conferences. Applied Linguistics, 33(1),
1–20.
De Fina, A. (2006). Discourse and identity. In VanDijk, T. A. (Ed.), Discourse Studies
(pp. 263–282). London: Sage.
Farr, F. (2011). The Discourse of Teaching Practice Feedback: A Corpus-Based Investiga-
tion of Spoken and Written Modes, London: Routledge.
Farr, F. and Riordan, E. (2012). Student teachers’ engagement in reflective tasks: An inves-
tigation of interactive and non-interactive discourse corpora. Classroom Discourse, 3(2),
129–146.
Fraga-Cañadas, C. P. (2011). Building communities of practice for foreign language
teachers. The Modern Language Journal, 95(2), 296–300.
Freeman, D. and Johnson, K. E. (1998). Reconceptualizing the knowledge-base of language
teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 32(3), 397–417.
Georgakopoulou, A. (2006). The other side of the story: Towards a narrative analysis of
narratives-in-interaction. Discourse Studies, 8(2), 235–257.
Higdon, J. and Topaz, C. (2009). Blogs and wikis as instructional tools: A social software
adaptation of just-in-time teaching. College Teaching, 57(2), 105–110.
Johnstone, B. (2008). Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Korthagen, F. A. J. (2004). In search of the essence of a good teacher: Towards a more
holistic approach in teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 77–97.
Labov, W. (2001). Uncovering the event structure of narrative. In Tannen, D. and Atlatis,
J. E. (Eds), Linguistics, Language and the Real World: Discourse and Beyond. Round-
table on Languages and Linguistics (pp. 63–83). Washington, DC: Georgetown Univer-
sity Press.
Labov, W. and Waletzky, J. (1967). Narrative analysis. In J. Helm (Ed.), Essays on the
Verbal and Visual Arts (pp. 12–44). Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning. Legitimate Peripheral Participation.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ochs, E. (2006). Narrative in everyday life. In T. A. VanDijk (Ed.), Discourse Studies
(pp. 64–84). London: Sage.
Ray, B. B. and Coulter, G. A. (2008). Reflective practices among language arts teachers: The
use of weblogs. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 8(1), 6–26.
Richards, J. C. (2008). Second language teacher education today. RELC Journal, 39(2),
158–177.
Urzúa, A. and Vásquez, C. (2008). Reflection and professional identity in teachers’ future-
oriented discourse. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24, 1935–1946.
Vásquez, C. (2007). Moral stance in the workplace narratives of novices. Discourse
Studies, 9(5), 653–675.
Vásquez, C. (2009). Examining the role of face work in a workplace complaint narrative.
Narrative Inquiry, 19(2), 259–279.
Vásquez, C. (2011). TESOL, teacher identity, and the need for “small story” research.
TESOL Quarterly, 45(3), 535–545.
Vásquez, C. and Urzúa, A. (2009). Reported speech and reported mental states in mentoring
meetings: Exploring novice teacher identities. Research on Language and Social
Interaction, 42(1), 1–19.

28984.indb 174 24/09/2014 09:42

 13 Teacher identity in ELT/TESOL
A research review
Yin Ling Cheung

Introduction
As Burns and Bell (2011) point out in an article on narrative construction of
professional teacher identity, “To see teachers’ professional identities as narrative
constructions and to view them from the social constructionist point of view
where one’s identity is constantly constructed and reconstructed in interaction
with others offers a way for the teachers to empower themselves and overcome
the feeling of personal inadequacy in teaching” (p. 958). Teacher identity, as an
analytic tool to understanding teachers’ development (Beauchamp and Thomas,
2011; Varghese et al., 2005), has become a popular research topic in teaching and
teacher education over the past ten years (Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009; Lee,
2013; Trent, 2010; Tsui, 2007).
Since teacher identity research, especially narrative studies, has become an
increasingly important topic in the international academic community, the time is
ripe to identify how improved understanding of language teacher identity
might positively contribute to an improvement in teacher education. As
Beauchamp and Thomas (2009, p. 176) note, “Gaining a more complete under-
standing of identity generally and teacher identity in particular could enhance
the ways in which teacher education programs are conceived.” The purpose
of the review reported in this chapter is to survey and analyze key research output
that deals with the topic of language teacher identity based on narratives. The
review focuses on research papers published in international refereed journals
from 2003 to 2013. These journals are published by major established interna-
tional publishers in the field, and these papers have gone through a rigorous review
process.
The chapter begins by defining the selection criteria for the journals included
in the review. Next, it presents and discusses the results of the selected
research in terms of understanding teacher’s identity, factors affecting the
construction and re-construction of the identity, perspectives of nonnative
teachers of English of multilingual backgrounds, perspectives of novice teachers
of English, and importance of environments on the perspectives of teachers.
Lastly, future research directions and implications for teacher education are
discussed.

28984.indb 175 24/09/2014 09:42

 176 Yin Ling Cheung
Journal selection
An initial search was conducted using a keyword-based procedure available for
the online library system of the National Institute of Education (NIE) in Singapore,
for articles published between 2003 and 2013 that met the topic criterion of
teacher-identity research. An article was considered to match the topic tentatively
if it had any two of the following keywords in its title: teacher, reflection, identity,
narratives, NNES, and TESOL. If a tentative article was also available in elec-
tronic form in the NIE library, its match of topic was confirmed by an actual
reading of the article. A total of 28 articles were confirmed to match and therefore
included in this review. They are published in 16 journals, which are shown in
Table 13.1 in alphabetical order.

Table 13.1 Journals reviewed

1 Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education

2 British Educational Research Journal
3 Cambridge Journal of Education
4 Educational Theory
5 European Journal of Teacher Education
6 International Journal of Educational Research
7 Journal of Education for Teaching
8 Journal of Language, Identity, and Education
9 Journal of Second Language Writing
10 Journal of Teacher Education
11 Language Learning Journal
12 Professional Development in Education
13 Teacher Education Quarterly
14 Teaching and Teacher Education
15 TESOL Quarterly
16 The Modern Language Journal

Findings and discussion

Of the 28 articles that matched the topic of teacher identity, I classified them
into one of the following two categories: (1) Attempts to define teacher identity;
and (2) Focus on narratives in order to understand teacher identity. In the
process of reviewing the papers, if a paper could be classified to either category,
the first category was chosen. Where appropriate, however, the paper’s contribu-
tions may also be discussed under the other category. The two categories,
their focuses, and the number of papers in each one are listed in Table 13.2. In
the following section, I will discuss the papers under the two categories with
reference to relevant literature. The aim of this discussion is to establish the
trend of research on language teacher identity and put forward suggestions for
future research.

28984.indb 176 24/09/2014 09:42

 Teacher Identity in ELT / TESOL 177
Table 13.2 Categorization of the reviewed papers on language teacher identity in the
28 selected journals from 2003 to 2013

Category Focus No. of papers

1 Understanding Definitions of teacher identity, factors in 19

teacher identity influencing the construction and negotiation
of teachers’ professional identity
2 Narrative as a lens Perspectives of nonnative teachers of 9
to exploring teacher English of multilingual backgrounds,
identity perspectives of novice teachers of English,
importance of environments on the
perspectives of teachers

Definitions of teacher identity

Language teacher identity is regarded as an important part of teachers’ profes-
sional development (Burns and Bell, 2011; Lee, 2013; Tsui, 2007). To understand
language teacher identity requires knowledge of what has been documented in
related research. This section explores how the published research defines teacher
identity and the factors that influence the formation of this identity. The selected
papers reveal a consistent understanding that teacher identity is a rich and dynamic
concept that defies simple and unqualified definitions.
Among the 19 papers identified in the category of “Defining teacher identity,”
Beauchamp and Thomas (2009) give a comprehensive review on the under-
standing of identity in teacher development, which includes related issues such as
the place of the self; the role of reflection; issues of emotion, agency, narrative,
and discourse; and the impact of contextual factors. Their paper suggests that
identity is inherently difficult to define, due to the dynamically evolving (Beijaard
et al., 2004) and multifaceted (Gee, 2001) nature of the identity. It is a process that
keeps changing, subject to both internal and external factors (p. 177). Internal
factors refer to teachers’ emotional state (Rodgers and Scott, 2008; Van Veen and
Sleegers, 2006); external factors concern teachers’ work environment, life experi-
ences, and job circumstances (Flores and Day, 2006; Rodgers and Scott, 2008). At
the same time, teacher identity can be viewed as both process (i.e., the ongoing
interaction in teacher development) and product (i.e., an outcome of influences on
the teacher) (Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009, p. 177). This dual view underlines
the need to define the concept of teacher identity according to context and purpose.
Indeed, other researchers (e.g., Akkerman and Meijer, 2011; Tsui, 2007) have
echoed the comment that teacher identity is a rich concept, and the processes of
identity formation are intricate. They stress similarly the multifaceted or multi-
dimensional nature of teacher identity, the ongoing process of constructing teacher
identity (i.e., the unstable and shifting nature of identity, see Lee, 2013; Rodgers
and Scott, 2008), as well as the social nature of teacher identity (i.e., the inter-
action between the teacher and the social environment). As specific examples of

28984.indb 177 24/09/2014 09:42

 178 Yin Ling Cheung
multiple teacher identifies, Beijaard et al. (2004) propose the teacher as a peda-
gogical expert, subject matter expert, or didactical expert. Day et al. (2007) put
forth the three dimensions of teacher identity as situated identity, professional
identity, and personal identity. Akkerman and Meijer (2011) further introduce a
theoretical dialogical approach to studying teacher identity and discuss a number
of key issues which past research studies have failed to address. Within the hier-
archy of multiple identities of teachers, Mishler (1999, p. 8) questions how finer
“sub-identities” co-exist. He also questions what factors affect the shifting, as
well as what exactly is shifting, in teacher identity between moments and contexts.
With regard to the social nature of teacher identity, a key question is the ways in
which different social dimensions may influence the formation of teacher
identity.
It is my belief that, for future research, more attention needs to be paid to
explaining basic elements that constitute the multiple identities of teachers and
how sub-identities co-exist or come into conflict. I share the concerns of Akkerman
and Meijer (2011), regarding ways in which a social environment shapes or
reshapes teacher identity. Future researchers will need to sharpen the definitions
of social environment and contextual factors. Within the sharpened framework,
there is a need to investigate the shifting and unstable characteristics of teacher
identity in different educational settings, including, as Mishler (1999) points out,
how the shifts occur across time and contexts. There is also a need for more quan-
titative empirical research on the construction and negotiation of the professional
identity of teachers of special backgrounds such as dyslexia (e.g., Burns and Bell,
2011), which constitutes also an underexplored topic in general teacher education
and teacher development research. Future research on immigrant teachers is also
interesting, since it will throw light on how their professional identities are
constructed and negotiated by marked cultural and social changes.

Factors in influencing the construction and negotiation of

teachers’ professional identity
Burns and Bell (2011, p. 953) define teachers’ professional identity as “an under-
standing of himself or herself as a professional in relation to employment.” An
analysis of the selected papers (under the category of Understanding teacher iden-
tity) has identified unique factors in this understanding that influence the construc-
tion and negotiation of teachers’ professional identity. These factors include
teachers’ competence in their academic subjects (Clandinin et al., 2009; Lee,
2013; Liu and Xu, 2011; Trent, 2010; Tsui, 2007); their self-image, self-esteem,
job motivation, and satisfaction; their perception of their own jobs; their expecta-
tions for future job prospects (Czerniawski, 2011; Day et al., 2006). This under-
standing is formed within important socio-cultural contexts (Akkerman and
Meijer, 2011; Beynon et al., 2003; Burns and Bell, 2011; Day, 2012; Hall et al.,
2010; Hamman et al., 2010; Lee, 2013; Menard-Warwick, 2008; Park, 2012;
Pavlenko, 2003; Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2013, Samimy et al., 2011); workplace environ-
ment (Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009; Boyd and Harris, 2010; Burns and Bell,

28984.indb 178 24/09/2014 09:42

 Teacher Identity in ELT / TESOL 179
2011; McKeon and Harrison, 2010); and political contexts (Czerniawski, 2011).
It should be noted that in order to understand the construction and negotiation of
teacher identity, we cannot detach teacher identity from the above-mentioned
extrinsic factors which help to form the identity and which are in turn shaped by
it (Block, 2007). Analyzing teacher identity under explicit contextual factors may
also highlight the social-cultural-political environments in which teaching and
teachers’ other work duties take place.
It is worth pointing out that, of the 19 papers reviewed in this section, the
number of papers related to experienced in-service teachers is small compared to
those concerning newly qualified teachers. Of the 19 papers, only one paper is a
comparative study, which focuses on the construction of the professional identity
of newly qualified teachers in Norway, Germany, and England. There is a lack of
comparative studies about the professional identities of teachers in a more global
setting, e.g., in Asian countries in which the majority of English-language teachers
are nonnative speakers of English. The composition of the papers reviewed
suggests that there is a need for more systematic research on the formation and
negotiation of the professional identity of experienced teachers (e.g., teachers
who have five years or more of teaching experience), as well as a larger number
of comparative research studies among diverse global cultural contexts (e.g.,
Czerniawski, 2011).

Narrative as a lens to exploring teacher identity

The first category of the reviewed papers, discussed in the previous section,
attempts to define teacher identity. They note that such identity is a complex
concept, which has no universal definition because of its multifaceted nature. This
section moves on to review the second category of papers, which seeks to demon-
strate teacher identity in practice through teachers’ narratives of their professional
experiences. These papers take the position that the narratives of teachers offer a
lens into the teachers’ internal ownership of their identities (Bathmaker, 2010),
and that it is important to pay attention to teachers’ stories about their frontline
experiences because these experiences play a significant part in identity construc-
tion and negotiation (Burns and Bell, 2011; Bilgen and Richards, this volume;
Frank, 2000; Smith and Squire, 2007).
The reviewed papers focus on pre-service and in-service teachers (e.g. Burns
and Bell, 2011; Liu and Xu, 2011; Park, 2012; Pavlenko, 2003; Tsui, 2007), in
countries where English is used either as a first language (i.e., the United States)
or foreign language (i.e., China and Finland). Among the selected papers, only
four are about how narratives reflect language-teacher identity in secondary
school settings (e.g. Hall et al., 2010; Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2011, 2013; Trent, 2013).
None of the papers report research in primary school settings. Instead, most of
the papers reviewed are concerned with narratives and language-teacher identity
in tertiary institutions. This could be explained by the fact that most of the
researchers are affiliated with universities, and they are more likely to conduct
research about their familiar environments. However, a majority representation of

28984.indb 179 24/09/2014 09:42

 180 Yin Ling Cheung
language-teacher identity research in universities and secondary schools could
obscure the reality that many language teachers in fact work in primary schools.

Perspectives of nonnative teachers of English of

multilingual backgrounds
There is no doubt that narrative research is important in helping us understand
how teachers shape and re-shape their own identity (Bathmaker, 2010; Burns and
Bell, 2011; Bilgen and Richards, this volume). Currently, there are more non-
native English-speaking teachers teaching English worldwide than ever. These
teachers face various kinds of challenges in their teaching (Braine, 2010), and
understanding the development of identity among them deserves to be a research
priority, since this understanding could inform strategies for the teachers to cope
with their difficulties. For Finnish nonnative English-speaking teachers with
dyslexia, for instance, their biggest challenges include needing more time to
understand their textbooks and to write. These challenges are severe given the
high expectations for teachers in tertiary institutions.
Two of the reviewed papers stress that English teachers’ linguistic backgrounds
play an important role in the formation of their own professional identities. For
example, teachers may construe themselves as capable English-as-a-second-
language users rather than imperfect native speakers of English. Through this
alternative viewpoint, there is a shift from the marginalization of the teachers’
identity as nonnative English speakers to the acceptance of their nonnative-
English-speaking professional identity (Park, 2012; Pavlenko, 2003).
For example, persuaded by the popular use of autobiographical narratives as a
source of data, Park (2012) reports a qualitative study about Xia (pseudonym), a
female Chinese nonnative English speaking teacher of English in a US K–12
school, about her experiences before and during her TESOL program in the US.
Particularly, Park notes the initial disconnectedness between Xia’s prior teaching
experiences in China and her practicum experiences under a US mentor in her
TESOL program. The study reveals that, after the program, Xia was able to
connect TESOL theories learned in her coursework to her authentic teaching
experience, and she had changed, to positive effects, her perception from the
marginalization to the acceptance of her nonnative English-speaking teacher iden-
tity. The study provides a good example that TESOL programs and mentoring can
positively affect the construction and re-construction of the professional identity
of the student teachers. It will be interesting for future research to build on the
findings of Park, and explore further how TESOL programs and primary schools,
as training ground for practicum teachers, can form successful partnerships in
general to improve the education of the student teachers.
Regarding teachers of multi-lingual backgrounds as well, Pavlenko (2003) iden-
tifies that in contemporary theories of bilingualism, the notion of multi-competence
opens up an alternative imagined community of multi-competent and multilingual
speakers. Pavlenko (2003) contends that these language teachers, who imagine
themselves as multi-competent and multilingual, will be able to persuade students

28984.indb 180 24/09/2014 09:42

 Teacher Identity in ELT / TESOL 181
to view them positively and pass these views on to others outside of language class-
rooms. It should be noted, however, that the data of Pavlenko’s study was collected
from a one-off autobiography assignment for two cohorts of MA TESOL students
in a large urban university in the United States. It will be interesting to test the
generality of Pavlenko’s original concept of imagined community, as well as its
associated benefits, through broader field observations.

Perspectives of novice teachers of English

In a study performed in Finland, Ruohotie-Lyhty (2011) reports an interview
study of 11 newly qualified nonnative English-speaking teachers of English
regarding factors affecting their professional development during their education
and their first years at work. She notes the difficulties of novice teachers in putting
their theoretical knowledge into practice. She also notes pressure from the envi-
ronment, including authorities such as school principals, other teachers in the
same school, and certain students who expect them to practice certain teaching
methods against the novice teachers’ own preferences. Particularly, these teachers
were under tremendous pressure when occasionally they were told how to teach,
implicitly or explicitly, by their superiors.
Noting the importance of the development of newly qualified teachers,
Ruohotie-Lyhty (2013) contends that in order to enable continuing positive devel-
opment of their professional identities, it is important to understand that their
initial identities are linked to the philosophy and realities of the school in which
they teach. However, Ruohotie-Lyhty (2013) does not explore further the range of
factors that may influence the initial identities. One factor, for example, is the
teachers’ former school experience, including their experiences in college.
Furthermore, Ruohotie-Lyhty’s inquisition stops at the formative stage of the
teacher identity under studied. More generally, while there has been an increase in
the use of narratives to investigate the development of teacher identity in recent
years, so far the related studies mostly do not follow the progress of the novice
teachers’ identity as their careers progress, e.g., from their education to their first
years at work.
Trent (2013) makes a limited attempt to follow the progress of novice teachers.
He uses three in-depth interviews to reveal the difficulties that beginning teacher
educators faced at different points of constructing their professional identity. His
interviews were conducted with a group of beginning English teachers from Hong
Kong secondary schools. One interview took place at the beginning of the
teachers’ first semester taking up the position of full-time teachers, and the other
at the end of it. The third interview took place at the end of their first full academic
year as a teacher. The study finds that the process of identity construction, which
occurred over the one year, reflected the combined effects of a negotiation of
agency, competency, past experiences, and future ideals (p. 274). It will be inter-
esting to extrapolate the findings of Trent (2013) by a longitudinal approach that
follows the trajectories of identity development over a longer period of the
teachers’ early careers.

28984.indb 181 24/09/2014 09:42

 182 Yin Ling Cheung
Importance of environments on the perspectives of teachers
Conducted in Guangzhou, Liu and Xu (2011) is a narrative study examining how
ELT reform in China, as a prevailing macroclimate influencing education in
China, affects the identity of teachers in a workplace in which liberal and tradi-
tional pedagogies exist. Their data was collected from three rounds of interviews,
three reflection reports, three reflective journals, emails, and informal phone and
face-to-face conversations recorded for subjects participating in the study. Their
findings reveal the need for the teachers to shift their identities to survive changes
(e.g., in curriculum and pedagogy) arising from the reform. They also reveal that
practices imposed by the reform, which were perceived as unwelcome by the
teachers, affected the teachers’ identity negatively, to the extent that they resorted
to non-participation as a response strategy to cope with the reform. The findings
of Liu and Xu (2011) show that external events may be internalized as intense
emotions that affect the teachers’ performance in the workplace.
Hall et al. (2010) note the impact of contexts on the identity of pre-service
teachers as well, specifically how this identity is shaped by the teachers’ literacy
experiences when they were students. Their study uses narratives by a subject
named Rachel (pseudonym). They contend that Rachel’s negative high school
experience led her to consider how she might create better literacy experiences for
her own students using a curriculum that incorporates her students’ literacy back-
grounds. The study of Hall et al. (2010) suggests that both teachers’ and students’
understandings of identity can promote or inhibit literacy teaching and learning.

Conclusion, implications and suggestions for future research

This chapter gives a review on selected journal papers published between 2003
and 2013 that are related to the topic of language-teacher identity and narratives.
The first part of the chapter shows how the published research defines the complex
notion of teacher identity and discusses factors governing the formation and the
negotiation of teacher identity. The selected papers reveal a consistent under-
standing that identity is a multifaceted and dynamic concept that should be defined
according to context and purpose (Lee, 2013, p. 343). The second part of the
chapter shows that it is worthwhile to study teachers’ stories to learn about their
challenging experiences in their study and work environments, since their experi-
ences play a significant part in constructing and reconstructing their professional
identity as teacher (Bilgen and Richards, this volume).
I have reviewed relevant journal papers and summarized the contributions
made by the subject research on language-teacher identity. In doing so, I have
highlighted gaps in existing work that future research on professional teacher
identity needs to address. One recommendation is for graduate students and
researchers who are interested in the topic of language-teacher identity to consider
carefully the factor of teacher emotions in their future research. There are in fact
at least two existing special issues on the theme of teacher emotions. One is
entitled “Emotions as a lens to explore teacher identity and change: Different

28984.indb 182 24/09/2014 09:42

 Teacher Identity in ELT / TESOL 183
theoretical approaches,” published by Teaching and Teacher Education in 2005.
The other was published by Cambridge Journal of Education in 1996. The papers
in the special issues focus on theoretical approaches to understanding the link
between teachers’ emotions and their professional identities. It will be useful for
papers on narratives, such as those reviewed in this chapter, to then consider the
implications of this theoretical foundation.
More generally, I have pointed out the importance of comparative studies (e.g.,
Czerniawski, 2011) and quantitative research (Löfström et al., 2010). There is
also a need for more studies involving experienced language teachers, teachers of
diverse including special backgrounds, immigrant teachers, and primary school
teachers. I would also urge researchers to investigate language-teacher identity
using a longitudinal approach, in order to identify long-term impacts of teacher
identity formation and test the notion of imagined communities.
I am aware that this review is limited to 16 international journals from 2003 to
2013, so the discussions ought to be interpreted with caution. The findings are
specific to particular groups of teachers and specific contexts described in the
studies. They may not be generalizable. Despite this limitation, the review has
produced useful insights. For example, the review shows that mentoring support
rendered to novice teachers can be useful to the development of the teachers’
identity. Inspired by this observation, teacher training programs and professional
development courses could build in specific measures for mentors to observe and
give advice to the novice teachers in their jobs. Because teachers sometimes face
significant external challenges that may tax their emotions, mentoring support
may also do well to give explicit consideration for the emotional development of
teachers, so that through the input of their mentors the novice teachers can manage
both internal and external factors in forming a positive teacher identity.

References
Akkerman, S. F., and Meijer, P. C. (2011). A dialogic approach to conceptualizing teacher
identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27, 308–319.
Bathmaker, A. (2010). Introduction. In A. Bathmaker and P. Harnett (Eds), Exploring
Learning, Identity and Power through Life History and Narrative Research (pp. 1–10).
London: Routledge.
Beauchamp, C., and Thomas, L. (2009). Understanding teacher identity: an overview of
issues in the literature and implications for teacher education. Cambridge Journal of
Education, 39(2), 175–189.
Beauchamp, C., and Thomas, L. (2011). New teachers’ identity shifts at the boundary of
teacher education and initial practice. International Journal of Educational Research,
50, 6–13.
Beijaard, D., Meijer, P., and Verloop, N. (2004). Reconsidering research on teachers’
professional identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 107–128.
Beynon, J., Ilieva, R., and Dichupa, M. (2003). “Do you know your language?” How
teachers of Punjabi and Chinese ancestries construct their family languages in their
personal and professional lives. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 2(1),
1–27.
Block, D. (2007). Second Language Identities. New York: Continuum.

28984.indb 183 24/09/2014 09:42

 184 Yin Ling Cheung
Boyd, P., and Harris, K. (2010). Becoming a university lecturer in teacher education:
Expert school teachers reconstructing their pedagogy and identity. Professional Devel-
opment in Education, 36(1), 9–24.
Braine, G. (2010). Nonnative Speaker English Teachers: Research, Pedagogy and Profes-
sional Growth. New York and London: Routledge.
Burns, E., and Bell, S. (2011). Narrative construction of professional teacher identity of
teachers with dyslexia. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27, 952–960.
Clandinin, D. J., Downey, C. A., and Huber, J. (2009). Attending to changing landscapes:
Shaping the interwoven identities of teachers and teacher educators. Asia-Pacific Journal
of Teacher Education, 37(2), 141–154.
Czerniawski, G. (2011). Emerging teachers-emerging identities: Trust and accountability
in the construction of newly qualified teachers in Norway, Germany, and England. Euro-
pean Journal of Teacher Education, 34(4), 431–447.
Day, C. (2012). New lives of teachers. Teacher Education Quarterly, 39(1), 7–26.
Day, C., Kington, A., Stobart, G., and Sammons, P. (2006). The personal and professional
selves of teachers: Stable and unstable identities. British Educational Research Journal,
32(4), 601–616.
Day, C., Sammons, P., Stobart, G., Kington, A., and Gu, Q. (2007). Teachers Matter.
Connecting Lives, Work and Effectiveness. New York: McGraw Hill.
Flores, M. A., and Day, C. (2006). Contexts which shape and reshape new teachers’ identi-
ties: A multi-perspective study. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22, 219–232.
Frank, A. (2000). Illness and autobiographical work: Dialogue as narrative destabilization.
Qualitative Sociology, 23(1), 135–156.
Gee, J. P. (2001). Identity as an analytic lens for research in education. Review of Research
in Education, 25, 99–125.
Hall, L. A., Johnson, A. S., Juzwik, M. M., Wortham, S. E. F., and Mosley, M. (2010).
Teacher identity in the context of literacy teaching: Three explorations of classroom
positioning and interaction in secondary schools. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26,
234–243.
Hamman, D., Gosselin, K., Romano, J., and Bunuan, R. (2010). Using possible-selves
theory to understand the identity development of new teachers. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 26, 1349–1361.
Lee, I. (2013). Becoming a writing teacher: Using “identity” as an analytic lens to under-
stand EFL writing teachers’ development. Journal of Second Language Writing, 22(3),
330–345.
Liu, Y., and Xu, Y. (2011). Inclusion or exclusion?: A narrative inquiry of a language
teacher’s identity experience in the “new work order” of competing pedagogies.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 27, 589–597.
Löfström, E., Poom-Valickis, K., Hannula, M. S., and Mathews, S. R. (2010). Supporting
emerging teacher identities: Can we identify teacher potential among students?
European Journal of Teacher Education, 33(2), 167–184.
McKeon, F. and Harrison, J. (2010). Developing pedagogical practice and professional
identities of beginning teacher educators. Professional Development in Education,
36(1), 25–44.
Menard-Warwick, J. (2008). The cultural and intercultural identities of transnational
English teachers: Two case studies from the Americas. TESOL Quarterly, 42(4),
617–640.
Mishler, E. G. (1999). Storylines: Craft Artists’ Narratives of Identity. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.

28984.indb 184 24/09/2014 09:42

 Teacher Identity in ELT / TESOL 185
Park, G. (2012). “I am never afraid of being recognized as an NNES”: One teacher’s
journey in claiming and embracing her nonnative-speaker identity. TESOL Quarterly,
46(1), 127–151.
Pavlenko, A. (2003). “I never knew i was a bilingual”: Reimagining teacher identities in
TESOL. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 2(4), 251–268.
Rodgers, C., and Scott, K. (2008). The development of the personal self and professional
identity in learning to teach. In M. Cochran-Smith, S. Feiman-Nemser, D. J. McIntyre
and K. E. Demers (Eds), Handbook of Research on Teacher Education: Enduring Ques-
tions and Changing Contexts (pp. 732–755). New York: Routledge.
Ruohotie-Lyhty, M. (2011). Constructing practical knowledge of teaching: Eleven newly
qualified language teachers’ discursive agency. The Language Learning Journal, 39(3),
365–379.
Ruohotie-Lyhty, M. (2013). Struggling for a professional identity: Two newly qualified
language teachers’ identity narratives during the first years at work. Teaching and
Teacher Education, 30, 120–129.
Samimy, K., Kim, S., Lee, J-A., and Kasai, M. (2011). A participative inquiry in a TESOL
program: Development of three NNES graduate students’ legitimate peripheral
participation to fuller participation. The Modern Language Journal, 95(4), 558–574.
Smith, C., and Squire, F. (2007). Narrative perspectives: Two reflections from a continuum
of experience. Reflective Practice, 8(3), 375–386.
Trent, J. (2010). Teacher education as identity construction: Insights from action research.
Journal of Education for Teaching, 36(2), 153–168.
Trent, J. (2013). Becoming a teacher educator: The multiple boundary-crossing experi-
ences of beginning teacher educators. Journal of Teacher Education, 64(3), 262–275.
Tsui, A. B. M. (2007). Complexities of identity formation: A narrative inquiry of an EFL
teacher. TESOL Quarterly, 41(4), 657–680.
Van Veen, K., and Sleegers, P. (2006). How does it feel? Teachers’ emotions in a context
of change. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 38(1), 85–111.
Varghese, M., Morgan, B., Johnston, B., and Johnson, K. (2005). Theorizing language
teacher identity: Three perspectives and beyond. Journal of Language, Identity and
Education, 4, 21–44.

28984.indb 185 24/09/2014 09:42

 14 Tackling multiple identities in an
EFL teaching context, Turkey
Demet Yayli

Introduction
In the last two decades, much recent literature on teacher education has fore-
grounded the importance of identity (Duff and Uchida, 1997; Kramsch, 1993;
Norton, 1997; Sachs, 2005) which is a highly complex concept. While providing
a clear definition of identity is hard to achieve, the existing literature on teaching
and teacher education asserts the notion that identity is both multifaceted and
dynamic and that a teacher’s identity is prone to change in time with the influence
of external and internal factors: “internal to the individual, such as emotion . . .,
and external to the individual, such as job and life experiences” (Beauchamp and
Thomas, 2009, p. 177). Identity is a concept that is commonly discussed in rela-
tion to some of its dimensions (i.e., individual, social, personal and political). One
of the most challenging issues is the necessity to “comprehend the close connec-
tion between identity and the self, the role of emotion in shaping identity, the
power of stories and discourse in understanding identity, the role of reflection in
shaping identity, the link between identity and agency, the contextual factors that
promote or hinder the construction of identity” (Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009,
p. 176). For any analysis of identity development, researchers examine how
teachers’ identities are shaped and reshaped in their interactions with others in
their professional contexts. To put it succinctly, teachers’ identities shift in their
relationships with people, with learners and with colleagues. Thus, analyzing who
a teacher is, is relational in nature, and thus any analysis depends on how teachers
see others and how others see teachers in their shared experiences and negotiated
interactions (Johnson, 2003).
In a related vein, Gee (2001) suggests that identity refers to “a kind of person in
a context” (p. 99) and this core identity has multiple forms that are enacted across
different contexts. Linked to this, teacher professional identity forms the core of
the teaching profession. “It provides a framework for teachers to construct their
own ideas of ‘how to be’, ‘how to act’ and ‘how to understand’ their work and
their place in society” (Sachs, 2005, p. 15).
The potential of a framework for understanding teachers’ professional identity
mostly draws on Vygotskian sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978). Based upon
the caveat that sees teacher professional identity as a framework for teachers’

28984.indb 186 24/09/2014 09:42

 Multiple identities in Turkey 187
descriptions of themselves and their identities, this chapter aims to investigate a
group of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ ways of constructing their
teacher identities in their teaching contexts through a qualitative analysis of their
statements. These teachers were asked to describe their teacher identities and the
ways they use (WHAT?) while dealing with issues that stem from their own or
their students’ multiple identities. Hence, this chapter aims to answer the following
research questions: (1) What impacts the construction of teacher identities of a
group of EFL teachers?; and (2) How do these teachers deal with issues stemming
from their students’ and their own multiple identities?

Literature review
In the field of education, a growing body of research on teacher identity includes
the studies of teachers’ personal and professional lives (Atay and Ece, 2009;
Beijaard et al., 2000; Day et al., 2006; Flores and Day, 2006; Tsui, 2007), the
studies of teacher emotions (Ben Said, this volume; Evans, 2002; Reis, this
volume; Zembylas, 2003), the studies of teachers’ praxis (Britzman, 1991;
Santoro, 1997), and the ethno-politics of teacher identity (Butler, 2005; Clarke,
2009). Also, Beijaard et al. (2004) and Beauchamp and Thomas (2009) provide
useful and edifying overviews of existing literature on teacher identity. In essence,
the research on teacher identity formation has highlighted its multi-dimensional,
idiosyncratic and context-specific nature.
The studies with a focus on how teachers’ identities are shaped and reshaped in
their unique contexts mostly analyze teachers as the subject of their sociocultural
activities. There are some challenges observed though. First, there are not many
studies that ask teachers to describe their professional identity. Another challenge
is that “[r]esearch on language and identity have generally been conducted in
predominantly English-language native speaker settings” (Atay and Ece, 2009,
p. 21) and few studies have been conducted in EFL settings. In one of these rare
studies, Beijaard et al. (2000) investigated 80 experienced secondary school
teachers’ current and prior perceptions of their professional identity in the
Netherlands. The researchers analyzed teachers’ professional identity in terms of
the teacher as a subject matter expert, the teacher as a pedagogical expert, and the
teacher as a didactical expert. In this chapter, my purpose is also to capture how
the participating teachers describe their teacher identities. While the participants
in this chapter describe their professional identity, I observe that they also refer to
some “factors that may influence the teachers’ perceptions of their professional
identity” (Beijaard et al., 2000, pp. 755–756).
In another study, Flores and Day (2006) analyzed how the identities of 14
new teachers were shaped and reshaped in their first two years of teaching in
different school settings in Portugal. Data were gathered through semi-structured
interviews, the annual reports teachers wrote and a questionnaire. The data were
presented and discussed according to the three main influences: (1) prior influ-
ences; (2) initial teacher training and teaching practice; and (3) contexts of
teaching.

28984.indb 187 24/09/2014 09:42

 188 Demet Yayli
In a study based on the stories of an EFL teacher, Minfang, in another EFL
context, the People’s Republic of China, Tsui (2007) explored the complexities of
teachers’ identity formation. Through narrative inquiry, Tsui captured the lived
experiences of Minfang as an EFL learner and an EFL teacher for a period of six
years and analyzed the data according to Wenger’s (1998) social theory of identity
formation. The analysis revealed that identities are constituted by identification (it
is both reificative and participative) and negotiation of meanings.
In a study closer to the scope of the present chapter in terms of its research
purpose and the data collection tool, Atay and Ece (2009) analyzed the construc-
tion of the sociocultural identities of 34 prospective EFL teachers enrolled at the
Department of English Language Education of a public university in Turkey. The
participants were all third year students who were asked to reflect critically upon
their multiple identities. The analysis of the data which were collected through
in-depth interviews revealed the existence of Turkish and Islamic identities as the
dominant identities. The participants were conscious of their multiple identities
and considered learning English as a way of gaining awareness of different
cultures. Besides the construction of teacher identities, the present chapter is also
concerned with the issues stemming from both participating teachers’ and their
students’ multiple identities and how the participating teachers deal with these
issues.

Study
With the present chapter, I aim to investigate a small group of EFL teachers’ ways
of constructing their teacher identities in their teaching contexts. Thus, I designed
this small scale study based on a qualitative analysis of the participants’ state-
ments. The participants were three EFL teachers, two females (Rana, 26 years old
and Fitnat, 24 years old) and a male (Hasan, 27 years old). They were all gradu-
ates of four-year English Language Teaching (ELT) undergraduate programs
offered by Turkish public universities and also MA students in an ELT graduate
program at a public university in Turkey. On a voluntary basis, they answered a
survey questionnaire. After a perusal of some of the existing teachers’ profes-
sional identity studies, I designed the survey questions which basically asked
them to reflect upon the two main concerns of the study: (1) what impacts the
construction of teacher identities of a group of EFL teachers; and (2) how they
deal with issues stemming from their own and their students’ multiple identities.
Data analysis that I did on the participants’ statements was qualitative content
analysis as it has “become closely associated with qualitative research” (Dörnyei,
2007, p. 245). Content analysis went together with coding as “regardless of the
specific methodology followed, qualitative data analysis invariably starts with
coding” (Dörnyei, 2007, p. 250, italics original). I observed that the participants’
statements gathered in the survey reflected certain patterns especially while they
were describing their professional identity. While discussing who they were and
how they saw themselves in their profession, the patterns frequently raised were:
(1) their attitudes and perceptions toward learning/teaching English; (2) their

28984.indb 188 24/09/2014 09:42

 Multiple identities in Turkey 189
learning past; (3) their reasons for studying ELT as a career; (4) their perceptions
of their graduate studies; (5) their descriptions of their multiple identities as
students and as teachers; and (6) their descriptions of their students’ multiple iden-
tities. With repeated readings of the survey data, I noted down these commonly
occurring patterns (Bogdan and Biklen, 2003; Denzin and Lincoln, 2005; Dörnyei,
2007) and designed my interview questions to probe deeper into the issues within
them that were left unclear. The interviews were conducted in English and took
45 minutes to one hour in length. They were all audiotaped and transcribed
verbatim. I read the survey and interview data several times to discuss the already
identified patterns regarding the main concerns of this study. These patterns
helped me interpret the participants’ experiences in an organized way and finally
I enriched these patterns with direct quotations while reporting and discussing
them. The participants were given pseudonyms and I reflected some of the ques-
tions I asked with R (Researcher) in parentheses.

Context
Besides being a Muslim country, Turkey has also adopted Western cultural values
and norms following Kemal Atatürk’s revolutionary principles; and thus, people
in Turkey live in an environment that is neither thoroughly Western nor Eastern
(Atay and Ece, 2009). Turkish is the official language and the language of educa-
tion. English is the only language taught as a compulsory subject at all levels of
education while French and German are provided as selective courses. Since
Turkey has increasingly been influenced by forces of globalization through the
English language, the number of schools offering English education has increased
(K#dirkgöz, 2007). Entrance to English-medium Anatolian high schools and
private schools is achieved through a centralized test. These high schools offer
one year English language education in the first year. Similarly, in universities,
where the medium of instruction is English in some fields, schools of foreign
languages offer a one-year English education before students start their studies in
their fields. Among the three participating teachers of this study, Hasan is the one
with the most teaching experience (five years). After teaching at both a public
school and a university in Istanbul, he is currently employed in the school of
foreign languages at a public university in Denizli. Rana is also currently employed
in a prep school but in a private university in Izmir. She has a four-year teaching
experience that she gained from private institutions and a public university in
Izmir. Fitnat is also currently employed in a private institution, in Denizli. She has
a one-year experience of teaching at a school of foreign languages at a public
university in Ankara.

Results and discussion

The qualitative content analysis of the survey and interview data resulted in iden-
tifying and probing into certain patterns that will be used as subcategories in the
results and discussion part.

28984.indb 189 24/09/2014 09:42

 190 Demet Yayli
Attitudes and perceptions toward learning/teaching English
The first research question of this study aimed to analyze what impacts the
construction of teacher identities in a group of EFL teachers. Therefore, I asked
the participants to reflect on their attitudes toward this language and their English
learning past first. Some statements were as follows:

We live in a globalizing world and the only way to keep up with the develop-
ments in the world is to speak English.
(Hasan)

Learning or speaking can give people the ability to travel around the world
flexibly. As this language is spoken in all continents in the world, there is no
limitation for people who know how to speak English to travel wherever they
want. Personally I think that English makes the world smaller for people,
Also, through English, we learn how similar and different people are.
(Rana)

The biggest advantage is probably its popularity in world communication. I

can understand songs, I can keep up with people in the world so knowing
English means a lot to me. For instance, my brother does not know English,
and I feel superior.
(Fitnat)

Their attitudes toward speaking English were in line with Atay and Ece’s (2009)
emphasis on learning English as it is “particularly important for Turkish citizens to
enable the nation to pursue its international communication and keep up with devel-
opments in many fields in which English is the most-widely used language” (p. 217).
The participants were observed to see learning English as an investment in them-
selves “to signal the socially and historically constructed relationship of learners to
the target language and their sometimes ambivalent desire to learn and practice it”
(Norton, 1997, p. 411). These statements also remind us the fact that “[t]he English
language has had a history of imposition for political and material reasons in most
periphery communities” (Canagarajah, 1999, p. 57). A word of caution is due here.
The dominance of English over other foreign languages in Turkey and young
people’s desire to learn English as a sine qua non can be seen as the visible results
of the colonial expansion of English and Anglo-American imperialism.

Their learning past

While the participants expressed highly positive views about learning English, they
did not find themselves good at English classes at primary and secondary schools.
In fact, they were not so keen on learning English and they did not imagine them-
selves as English teachers. The reason for their lack of interest mostly stemmed
from the way teachers delivered classes and this was well put by Fitnat as follows:

28984.indb 190 24/09/2014 09:42

 Multiple identities in Turkey 191
My primary school teachers were not doing any motivating activities and
topics were not related to my interests. They were focusing on isolated
language forms, and they didn’t give me a sense of achievement in any way.
I clearly remember that in one of the exams, I made a minor mistake – I forgot
to write -s to the verb – and my teacher scolded me. After that, I was really
demotivated and English was not likeable to me.

However there were some turning points for each of the participants. Rana
attended a summer school, Fitnat and Hasan started to study a prep year in super
high schools where they admired their English teachers who inspired them to
study ELT in the following years. For the first time, they participated in some
activities (i.e., listening to English songs, playing games, working in groups
to do jigsaw tasks, etc.) that really attracted their attention and gave them a
sense of using the language for meaningful purposes. Similar to the participants
in Flores and Day’s (2006) study, while looking back on their learning past,
the participants both recalled negative and positive episodes which influenced
them and referred to the teachers they admired as people who shaped their
career choice. The teachers the participants of this chapter admired at high
school were following more communicative approaches and trying to involve the
whole class without paying much attention to their errors. The major reforms
in language teacher education in the mid-1990s in Turkey enabled teachers to
put greater emphasis on practical teaching methods, self and peer assessment
and reflection (Akyel, 2012). Practicum experience that Rana and Fitnat
gained at university was also important as this made an impact on their feelings
toward their future career, teaching English, in a highly positive way. Rana
mentioned how deeply she was affected with the great model her cooperating
teacher presented in her classes and Fitnat stated that she learnt a lot from
blogging experience that her supervisor teacher provided for their reflections.
Again the power of teachers in creating the necessary motivation in students was
explicitly expressed.

Their reasons for studying ELT as a career

When I asked for their reasons for studying at an ELT undergraduate program,
their answers emphasized their wish to become an English teacher. Job opportuni-
ties and privileges of studying ELT over other programs were also stated. In
Flores and Day’s (2006) study, 10 out of 14 participants decided to become
teachers because they saw teaching as a stable and secure job while two teachers
referred to destiny and the other two mentioned a personal commitment to become
teachers. In this study, however, personal commitment to and job opportunities in
teaching were observed to be equally important:

English is the main tool of communication and when I was at high school I
liked reading books in English, listening to English songs, doing grammar
so I decided to be an English teacher. Even at high school I tried to do

28984.indb 191 24/09/2014 09:42

 192 Demet Yayli
challenging things. Our teacher said that we could not read newspaper and I
started to read newspapers. (R: Are there any other reasons?) Yeah, job
opportunities are great. You can work as a tourist guide or at a bank besides
teaching.
(Hasan)

Since I decided to be a teacher, I chose an ELT program at university entrance

exam. I did not want to study literature or linguistics because ELT is the main
program whose graduates become teachers. I also scored high enough to be
accepted to Uludağ University ELT program.
(Rana)

The prep year at high school was a milestone. I really admired my teachers
and decided to study ELT to become one of them.
(Fitnat)

Their perceptions of their graduate studies

Studying at an ELT graduate program was also raised in our discussions of
factors influencing their professional identity. Similar to Minfang in Tsui’s study
(2007), who gained a better view of his dual identity as a faked Communicative
Language Teaching practitioner and a real self that believed in eclecticism
after being empowered with the theoretical input in an MA program, all the
participants stated that they became better observers of their students and their
teaching through the new perspectives they gained in the theoretical readings
provided by the graduate program. They also stated that they felt superior, appre-
ciated and privileged among their colleagues, as illustrated in the following
statements:

I feel more confident in class now. Last week for instance I realized that I talk
a lot sometimes in class and remembered the article we read on teachers’
talking time. I said “Rana you should talk less, don’t you remember?” I also
feel privileged among my colleagues. They give more importance to my
ideas in meetings. With this degree, I can be promoted to a higher position, I
can be a course coordinator or a head in time.
(Rana)

MA makes me feel more professional. We study theories here and while

teaching I test these theories to see how they work. For example, we studied
the barriers students have in the Second Language Acquisition class and I
started to analyze my students accordingly. Another thing is that my
colleagues see me as a different person. They always ask me how my presen-
tations are going. I am highly appreciated at school.
(Hasan)

28984.indb 192 24/09/2014 09:42

 Multiple identities in Turkey 193
The participating teachers’ descriptions of their multiple identities as
students and as teachers
In their attempts at defining their multiple identities, the participants of this study
mentioned their Turkish and Muslim identities as the dominant identities and this
is in line with the pre-service English teachers’ views reflected in Atay and Ece’s
(2009) study. It is likely that ethnicity and religion are among the most important
markers of identity. The sample statements are as follows:

I’m Turkish, Muslim, a daughter, an MA student and a mother-to-be. (R:

Which one of these identities are dominant while teaching, you think?) I
cannot separate my identities but I believe we face a lot of issues in which we
compare Turkish culture with Western culture or talk about religious beliefs.
(Rana)

I am Turkish, Muslim, a son of my parents and male. I make use of these iden-
tities in different situations. For instance, I’m a boy and I create some sentences
that attract boys and make girls angry. While teaching “tend to” for instance, I
say “Girls tend to gossip more than boys” and this creates a lot of talk. I use
my Islamic identity while giving examples from my religion. (R: Such as
what?) For instance, for the “shouldn’t/mustn’t” structures, I ask “We mustn’t
eat pork. Is it true or false?” and students say yes, it is true teacher.
(Hasan)

When asked whether the existence of these dominant identities caused any prob-
lems in their teaching, all of them said that as teachers they were highly flexible
and positive about other cultures and teaching Western values. Similar to Atay
and Ece’s (2009) results, the participants of this study were not observed to regard
Western identity or Western values as a threat to their existing identities but
believed that knowing about other cultures broadened their worldview. Similarly,
they believed that it was one of teachers’ tasks to introduce and comment on other
cultures and values:

I have a lot of Christian friends that I made in the US where I stayed for 4
months with work and travel program. I know that there are people with
different beliefs and customs. While teaching English, we also teach different
cultures and I am aware that each culture is unique and we can learn from
others.
(Rana)

English is everywhere in Turkey, in the names of cafes and restaurants I mean

and I know it is impossible to avoid teaching the target culture while teaching
a language. It is not a big deal because I know that I can teach it or learn it but
I don’t have to behave like them because I like my culture.
(Hasan)

28984.indb 193 24/09/2014 09:42

 194 Demet Yayli
I am not a nationalist kind of person. I am open to new horizons, new
things to learn and experience. I can learn and teach American culture or
Christianity. These do not matter much. (R: Have you ever felt threatened
while learning or teaching these values?) Never. Knowing about a culture or
religion does not mean that you will change your identity.
(Fitnat)

All the participants believed that being exposed to Western values while studying
or teaching English did not mean assimilation. They viewed their exposure to
Western culture as a tool to broaden their horizons. However, having such flexi-
bility toward other cultures, Western culture especially, was not always there but
was achieved with time. Hasan for instance described the identity crisis he used to
have at secondary and high school and how his opinions have changed in time.
The following statements illustrate this:

I am a person who values moral qualities. (R: Can you explain this further?)
There are certain things we should not do. For example when we learn English
we see certain things which are not acceptable in our culture. (R: Such as
what?) Maybe . . . You know relationships. There is more freedom in terms
of romantic relationships in the USA and England. Some live together in the
same place without getting married. We see such couples Sandra and Jack
living together then I start to question if it is acceptable in my culture. I had a
lot of doubts like these when I was a student but now I am more flexible. As
I learnt English and their culture more, my opinions changed. I believe these
couples can live together.

Although Hasan felt disturbed at first by the free life style reflected at some text-
books printed in the USA or the United Kingdom, he got used to living with such
examples as his experiences with English increased in time. He now believes that
his moral values are not harmed as he has learnt to be more flexible toward others’
value systems. His increasing knowledge of the English language and the Western
values indicated that Hasan has developed his mind and views through interaction
with the world around him, and this development is one of the fundamental
premises of Vygotskian sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978).

Their descriptions of their students’ multiple identities

Similarly, in terms of the multiple identities of their students, the participants
referred to Turkish and Islamic identities as the dominant identities besides some
other less dominant identities. Rana complains that only very few of her students
learn English because they really like the language and are interested in Western
culture and life style.

I mostly observe students’ Turkish and Muslim identities. (R: When do you
observe those?) I observe their Turkish identity when the topics are girl and

28984.indb 194 24/09/2014 09:42

 Multiple identities in Turkey 195
boy relationships or famous places or cuisines in the world. When the topic is
about God, hell and heaven for instance, their Muslim identity comes forward.
(Fitnat)

I can classify the students’ basic identities into four categories: The first
group of students believes that they do not have to tire or bore themselves by
trying to learn English. If foreigners want to talk to them, they should learn
Turkish. These students state that they hate the dominance of English all over
the world, and trying to learn their language means to accept the superiority
of British and American people. These students’ strongest identities are their
Turkish and Islamic identities. They are also low scorers in exams. The
second group of students is the reckless ones. They just stay in class and do
nothing. They do not know how to learn or do something without help. I call
the third group of students the pragmatists. These students are eager to learn
English as they know that it will be beneficial in their lives. They want to
learn English for a good job or position in the future, some want it to live
abroad, and some want it to communicate with foreign people. The last group
consists of students who want to be like native speakers of English. They are
my favorites because they want to learn not only the target language but also
the target culture. They are curious about traditions, daily routines, life styles
of the target cultures. In fact, they pay attention to intonation, spelling and
grammar, I mean everything attached to language. Unfortunately the number
of such students is very low.
(Rana)

How the participating teachers deal with issues stemming from their
own and their students’ multiple identities
As for the second main concern of the study, I asked the participants to reflect on
how they dealt with the issues stemming from their own and their students’
multiple identities, and the participants mostly referred to the strategies they
developed in time. They stated that students’ Turkish and Islamic identities caused
problems when the textbooks presented some behaviors that are at odds with those
of their students. Some statements are as follows:

The students’ most visible identities are their Turkish and Muslim identities.
Some feel resented or disturbed when they see some characters in the book
who drink till the morning and suffer from being hang over next day. (R: How
do you deal with this?) We make connections with our lives. I say “Look,
they drink too much and miss the exam next day. So what do we learn from
this text?” but some students are very religious and they do not want to talk
about such issues. I cannot make jokes to such students, either. When I want
to make a joke, I choose more extravert talkative students who I know can
take the joke. There are also nationalistic students in class. I ask them ques-
tions about Turkey. Some other students like Western culture and they like

28984.indb 195 24/09/2014 09:42

 196 Demet Yayli
drinking. I talk about such issues with these students but not with religious
students who can give me a harsh reaction. I mean I try to be selective in my
choices of students for different topics. As time passes, I better figure out my
students’ distinct identities.
(Hasan)

(R: When do you receive resistance from your students?) When students feel
disturbed with some cultural differences. (R: What do you do then?) We
discuss the differences. I say, for instance, “It is not OK in our culture to live
together before marriage but it is their culture and it is very important to learn
about other people’s lives. Of course you do not have to implement these in
your lives. If you learn these things, you can have an idea about their lives.
Maybe you will have foreign colleagues in the future and you will need
to exchange such pieces of information.” But when it comes to religion, I
avoid discussing things in detail because it is not possible to change people’s
religious beliefs. Therefore, I prefer not to talk about politics and religion.
They are taboo topics to me.
(Fitnat)

Last year, I had some students whose Kurdish identity was very strong. While
studying “can” questions, they expressed that they can also speak Kurdish.
The other students felt disturbed (R: What did you do?) I stopped it immedi-
ately because class is not an appropriate place to talk about politics, I mean
Turkish-Kurdish issues or similar delicate issues.
(Rana)

When the participating teachers observed an issue stemming from their students’
multiple identities, they mostly made comparisons between cultures or religions,
shared their flexible and positive views toward other cultures and religions, made
a careful choice among students while discussing certain issues or changed the
topic all together not to deepen the identity crisis that they observed in their
students. Making comparisons between cultures is in line with Alptekin and
Alptekin’s (1984) suggestions for teachers in EFL contexts “that local and inter-
national contexts which are familiar and relevant to students’ lives should be used
(instead of unfamiliar and irrelevant contexts from the English-speaking world)”
(p.14).
The participants also stated that they preferred not to discuss certain topics
which they called “taboo” or “delicate” issues such as politics and religion in
class. Among the taboo topics, Rana complained about the issues that arise from
some of her students’ Kurdish identity. The Turkish-Kurdish conflict in Turkey
has existed since the Ottoman Empire and it is an issue that remains unsolved
because of a number of “conflicting goals and interests as well as the unavaila-
bility of acceptable solutions” (Saatci, 2002, p. 560). Religion is seen as another
taboo topic. It is certain that there is a huge bond between religion and identity.
Religious meaning systems define a great range of relationships “to self; to others

28984.indb 196 24/09/2014 09:42

 Multiple identities in Turkey 197
near and distant, friendly and unfriendly; to the non-human world; and to God”
(Seul, 1999, p. 558). Because of its enormous dimensions and its greater claims
upon individuals than other norms, it is not an easily disputed topic in classes.
In terms of the three types of expertise as put forward by Beijaard et al. (2000),
the strategies employed by the participants of this chapter mostly referred to the
existence of the teacher as a pedagogical expert “who bases his/her profession on
knowledge and skills to support students’ social, emotional, and moral develop-
ment” (p. 754). These participating teachers stated that they struggled hard at
some points to change the highly negative atmosphere created by an identity crisis
in their classes. They also stated that their teaching experiences and their close
observations of their students’ attitudes and behaviors while discussing certain
issues contributed to their problem solving skills and strategies to a great extent.
These strategies were mostly based on some empowering factors similar to those
of Minfang’s; lived experiences in the classroom and an MA degree, and these
empowering factors are among the best guides for teachers’ pedagogical decision
making (Tsui, 2007).

Conclusion
This chapter reflects on what impacts a group of EFL teachers’ construction of
their teacher identities and how they deal with the issues stemming from their own
and their students’ multiple identities through a qualitative analysis of their state-
ments. The most dominant identities observed were the Turkish and Muslim iden-
tities and the participants developed certain strategies to deal with their students’
identity crises which especially raised when students were exposed to some mate-
rials in class that were at odds with their values. Since Turkey is geographically
situated like a bridge between the East and the West, it accommodates a variety of
life styles, beliefs and values. Therefore, while this results in richness in world-
views and attitudes, this also brings about potential identity crises not only
between individuals and also within individuals while learning a foreign language.
This chapter presents certain insights into teachers’ identity construction but it has
certain limitations as well. It has a fairly small sample and uses one-time survey
questionnaire and semi-structured interviews as data collection tools. To address
several issues attached to teachers’ professional identity construction, a more
longitudinal approach with participants in various teaching settings is needed.

References
Akyel, A. S. (2012). Preservice English language teacher education in Turkey. In
Y. Bayyurt and Y. Bektaş-Çetinkaya (Eds), Research Perspectives on Teaching and
Learning English in Turkey (pp. 25–37). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Alptekin, C. and Alptekin, M. (1984). The question of culture: EFL teaching in non-English
speaking countries. ELT Journal, 38, 14–20.
Atay, D. and Ece, A. (2009). Multiple identities as reflected in English-language education:
The Turkish perspective. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 8, 21–34.

28984.indb 197 24/09/2014 09:42

 198 Demet Yayli
Beijaard, D., Verloop, N., and Vermunt, J. D. (2000). Teachers’ perceptions of professional
identity: An exploratory study from a personal knowledge perspective. Teaching and
Teacher Education, 16, 749–764.
Beijaard, D., Meijer, P., and Verloop, N. (2004). Reconsidering research on teachers’
professional identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 107–128.
Beauchamp, C. and Thomas, L. (2009). Understanding teacher identity: An overview of
issues in the literature and implications for teacher education. Cambridge Journal of
Education, 39(2), 175–189.
Bogdan, R. C. and Biklen, S. K. (2003). Qualitative Research for Education: An Introduc-
tion to Theory and Methods. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Britzman, D. (1991). Practice Makes Practice: A Critical Study of Learning to Teach.
Albany, NY: SUNY.
Butler, J. (2005). Giving an Account of Oneself. New York: Fordham University Press.
Canagarajah, A. S. (1999). Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Clarke, M. (2009). The ethno-politics of teacher identity. Educational Philosophy and
Theory, 41(2), 185–200.
Day, C., Kington, A., Stobart, G. and Sammons, P. (2006) The personal and professional
selves of teachers: Stable and unstable identities, British Educational Research Journal,
32(4), 601–616.
Denzin, N. K. and Lincoln, Y. S. (2005). Introduction: The discipline and practice of quali-
tative research. In N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (Eds), Handbook of Qualitative
Research (3rd ed.), (pp. 1–41). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research Methods in Applied Linguistics: Quantitative, Qualitative
and Mixed Methodologies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Duff, P. A. and Uchida, Y. (1997). The negotiation of teachers’ sociocultural identities and
practices in postsecondary EFL classrooms. TESOL Quarterly, 31, 451–487.
Evans, K. (2002). Negotiating the Self: Identity, Sexuality, and Emotions in Learning to
Teach. New York: Routledge.
Flores, M. A. and Day, C. (2006). Contexts which shape and reshape new teachers’ identi-
ties: A multi-perspective study. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22(2), 219–232.
Gee, J. P. (2001). Identity as an analytic lens for research in education. Review of Research
in Education, 25, 99–125.
Johnson, K. (2003). “Every experience is a moving force”: Identity and growth through
mentoring. Teaching and Teacher Education, 19, 787–800.
Kırkgöz, Y. (2007). English language teaching in Turkey: Policy changes and their imple-
mentations. RELC Journal, 38, 216–228.
Kramsch, C. (1993). Context and Culture in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Norton, B. (1997). Language, identity and the ownership of English. TESOL Quarterly, 31,
409–429.
Saatci, M. (2002). Nation-states and ethnic boundaries: Modern Turkish identity and
Turkish-Kurdish conflict. Nations and Nationalism, 8(4), 549–564.
Sachs, J. (2005). Teacher education and the development of professional identity: Learning
to be a teacher. In P. Denicolo and M. Kompf (Eds), Connecting Policy and Practice:
Challenges for Teaching and Learning in Schools and Universities (pp. 5–21). Oxford:
Routledge.
Santoro, N. (1997) The construction of teacher identity: An analysis of school practicum
discourse, Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 25(1), 91–99.

28984.indb 198 24/09/2014 09:42

 Multiple identities in Turkey 199
Seul, J. R. (1999). “Ours is the way of God”: Religion, identity, and intergroup conflict.
Journal of Peace Research, 36(5), 553–569.
Tsui, A. B. M. (2007). Complexities of identity formation: A narrative inquiry of an EFL
teacher. TESOL Quarterly, 41(4), 657–680.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning andIidentity. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society (Eds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Zembylas, M. (2003) Emotions and teacher identity: A poststructural perspective. Teachers
and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 9(3), 213–238.

28984.indb 199 24/09/2014 09:42

28984.indb 200 24/09/2014 09:42
 Part IV
Teacher identity and
responding to changing
times

28984.indb 201 24/09/2014 09:42

28984.indb 202 24/09/2014 09:42
 15 Exploring the multiple identities
of L2 writing teachers
Juval Racelis and Paul Kei Matsuda

Over the past two decades, teacher identity has emerged as an important issue
among applied linguists and education specialists interested in strengthening an
understanding of professional development and teacher education processes
(Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009; Beijaard et al., 2004; Varghese et al., 2005). This
research has highlighted the important role that professional identity plays in
teachers’ beliefs and everyday practices (Cohen, 2010). Central to current defini-
tions of teacher identity is its characterization as a “collective term referring to the
dynamic organization of sub-identities that might conflict with or align with each
other” (Mishler, 1999, p. 8). Despite recognition of the importance of multiple
identities, few studies have investigated how teachers form and negotiate these
multiple identities as they develop professionally.
This chapter presents a study that aims to understand teachers’ multiple identi-
ties by investigating how L2 writing teachers in university composition courses
construct and negotiate their identities through talk about course goals, practices,
and roles as teachers of multilingual writers. To this end, we draw on the notion
of identity as something embedded in teachers’ practices and negotiated primarily
through discourse (Block, 2007; Connelly and Clandinin, 1988; Gee, 2000).
Qualitative analysis of interviews with seven composition teachers revealed three
overarching identities: (1) general writing teacher identity; (2) language teacher
identity; and (3) L2 writing teacher identity. These identity positions were closely
tied with teachers’ beliefs about L2 writing instruction.

Research on language teacher identity

Existing research on teacher identity has painted a complex picture of identity with
several key characteristics. First, teacher identity is seen as a dynamic process
shaped by personal educational experiences and an ongoing negotiation of various
institutional contexts (Beijaard et al., 2004; Coldron and Smith, 1999; Varghese
et al., 2005). This identity is also multifaceted, including multiple identities or sub-
identities that can sometimes result in tension (Gee, 2000; Mishler, 1999; Volkmann
and Anderson, 1998). Teachers are also active agents in the construction and main-
tenance of these identities through both their discourse and practice (Beijaard et al.,
2004; Gee, 2000; Varghese et al., 2005). Previous research has also highlighted the

28984.indb 203 24/09/2014 09:42

 204 Juval Racelis and Paul Kei Matsuda
importance of teacher knowledge and the development of subject matter knowl-
edge as important factors that shape identity (Connelly and Clandinin, 1999).
Within research specifically on language teachers, several studies have focused
on the dynamic nature of identity formation as teachers negotiate previous beliefs
with new understandings of language learning gained from teacher education
programs and in-service teaching experiences (Childs, 2011; Duff and Uchida,
1997; Golombek, 1998; Tsui, 1996, 2007). Tsui, (2007), for example, explored how
the identity of one teacher was initially influenced by his previous language learning
experiences in China but underwent change as he transitioned from language learner
to language teacher. This change was further influenced by complex institutional
factors, demonstrating the highly situated nature of teacher identity. Similarly,
Varghese (2004) explored the professional development of a group of bilingual
teachers and found that their identities were also closely tied with how they learned
to become participants in their professional communities. Taken together, these
studies support the definition of teacher identity as dynamic and highly situated.
Other studies have investigated how pedagogical and subject matter knowledge
shape identity development (e.g. Antonek et al., 1997; Beijaard et al., 2000;
Rogers, 2011). Kanno and Stuart’s (2011) study of two novice ESL teachers
revealed that they developed both general teaching skills and expertise in ESL
through their classroom practices, which led to a stronger sense of identity as
language teachers. Connelly and Clandinin (1988, 1999) have argued that it is
through this development of teacher knowledge that teachers construct their iden-
tities in connection with the subjects they teach.
Lee’s (2013) study of L2 writing teachers’ professional development further
contributes to an understanding of the connection between subject matter knowl-
edge and teacher identity. Her findings showed that, through specific coursework
on L2 writing and subsequent practice in the writing classroom, teachers began to
shift identities from language teacher to writing teacher. This transition between
two identities supports previous conceptualizations of teacher identity as a
“dynamic organization” process where teachers negotiate multiple identities as
they develop professionally (Mishler, 1999, p. 8).
Farrell (2011) more explicitly examined how teachers negotiate multiple identi-
ties. In his study of the professional identities of three ESL teachers, Farrell identi-
fied three overarching roles: “teacher as manager,” “teacher as acculturator,” and
“teacher as professional” (p. 57). He observed that balancing these multiple roles
often resulted in tensions as teachers negotiated their desire to foster language
learning (teacher as professional) and their discomfort with perceived expecta-
tions to also entertain students and maintain enrollment numbers (teacher as
manager). These findings support research by Volkmann and Anderson (1998),
who observed teacher identity to be a matter of managing multiple roles that
teachers felt they were expected to perform.
Aside from Farrell’s (2011) study, however, research specifically examining
how language teachers negotiate and reconcile multiple identities remains scarce.
The few studies that have implicitly addressed multiple identities have generally
tended to emphasize a shift in identities such as from student to teacher (Kanno

28984.indb 204 24/09/2014 09:42

 Multiple identities of L2 writing teachers 205
and Stuart, 2011) or language teacher to writing teacher (Lee, 2013). Given the
relatively limited knowledge on language teachers’ multiple identities, the current
study investigates the multiple identities and the factors that influence the construc-
tion of these identities as the teachers discuss their teaching experience.

Operationalizing teacher identity

This study draws upon the works of Gee (2000) and Lave and Wenger (1991) in their
conceptualization of identity as the recognition of being “a certain ‘kind of person’ ”
(Gee, 2000, p. 99). Lave and Wenger connect identity and learning by describing the
learning process as becoming “a kind of person” within a community of practice and
thus identity, knowledge, and membership in a community are intertwined (p. 53). In
this vein, teacher identity means being recognized as a certain kind of teacher with
certain knowledge situated within a specific community of practice.
This study also relies on an understanding of teacher identity as something
embedded within teacher practice (Wenger, 1998) and discursively constructed
through talk about practice (Block, 2007; Connelly and Clandinin, 1988; Freeman,
1996; Gee, 2000). Varghese et al. (2005) have argued that an understanding of
both identity-in-practice and identity-in-discourse are crucial to investigations of
teachers’ professional identities. They contrast these two aspects of identity, the
former being an observable identity and the latter being a narrated identity.
However, identity-in-discourse and identity-in-practice are not necessarily mutu-
ally exclusive. While identity-in-discourse exists only in discourse, identity-in-
practice can be understood through direct observation of the practices or through
the representation of those practices in the discourse. For the purpose of this study,
we focus on identity-in-discourse and identity-in-practice as they are constructed
through the teachers’ discourse (Gee, 2000). While examining the actual practice
can be important in understanding how identities are enacted, our primary interest
is in examining the negotiation of identity that is salient in the teachers’ own lived
experience. For this reason, this study focuses on the discursive construction of
identity which includes teachers’ self-identification (e.g., “I am a language
teacher”) and their discussion of classroom practices (e.g., “I provide corrective
feedback to facilitate language development”).
The research questions guiding this study are:

1 What L2 writing teachers’ multiple identities emerge as they talk about their
teaching practices?
2 What factors influence how these teachers construct these identities?

The study

Setting and participants

The data for this study were collected as part of a larger study investigating the
issues composition teachers face when dealing with low-proficiency multilingual

28984.indb 205 24/09/2014 09:42

 206 Juval Racelis and Paul Kei Matsuda
Table 15.1 Teacher profiles

Educational background Experience Experience FYC Course

teaching teaching being taught at
writing multilingual time of study
courses writers

Emily Ph.D. Rhetoric & 30 years 20 years Multilingual

Composition
Ben Ph.D. Linguistics 14 years 14 years Multilingual
Adam Current Ph.D. student in 11 years 11 years Multilingual
Rhetoric & Composition
Claire Current Ph.D. student in 5 years 4 years Multilingual
Rhetoric & Composition
Grace MFA* in Film Current 3 year 3 years Multilingual
TESOL Master’s student
Farah Ph.D. in Literature 11 years >1 year Multilingual
Rebecca MFA* in Creative Writing 11 years >1 year Mainstream

* MFA – Master of Fine Arts

students in the First-Year Composition (FYC) program at a large US university.

The program offers a two-semester sequence of required FYC courses, and L2
writers can choose from mainstream or multilingual tracks. The goals and objec-
tives of both FYC tracks are to introduce and prepare students for university-level
writing as stipulated in the Writing Program Administration Outcomes Statement
for FYC, a national guidelines for university writing programs in the United States
(Matsuda and Skinnell, 2012). All FYC courses at this institution complete three
multiple-draft writing assignments. Teachers are required to adopt a textbook
from the list of textbooks approved by a committee, although teachers can design
assignments and additional course materials themselves.
The participants for this study included seven FYC teachers (pseudonyms are
used), including 1 teacher from the mainstream track and six from the multilin-
gual track (see Table 15.1). Because some multilingual students elect to take the
mainstream track course, recruitment letters were sent to all teachers of FYC. The
letter solicited participants who currently had low-proficiency multilingual writers
in their classes. The participants’ experiences with writing instruction ranged
from three to thirty years. Their experience with multilingual students also varied,
with two teachers stating they have had little to no previous experience with
multilingual populations while one of the teachers had 20 years’ experience.

Data collection and analysis

The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with each of the seven
teachers. Each teacher was interviewed once with each interview lasting approxi-
mately one hour, totaling seven hours of interview data. The interviews were
conducted at the end of the Fall semester of 2012 by the first author of this study.

28984.indb 206 24/09/2014 09:42

 Multiple identities of L2 writing teachers 207
Interview transcripts were analyzed repeatedly, first noting salient themes
(Auerbach and Silverstein, 2003). Based on these themes, categories were devel-
oped to organize the data with special attention paid to data that highlighted the
multiple nature of teacher identity. These categories were: (1) teacher self-
identification (e.g. “I am a linguist”); (2) teacher conceptualization of their FYC
course (e.g. “This is a writing class, not an English class”); (3) tasks and assign-
ments (e.g. assigning presentations to enhance verbal skills); and (4) teachers’
assessment of students. Each transcript was then coded based on these categories.
Finally, individual transcripts were reread for patterns in how teachers positioned
themselves as certain kinds of writing teachers.

Findings
The following identity positions were observed: (1) general writing teacher iden-
tity; (2) language teacher identity; and (3) L2 writing teacher identity. Each iden-
tity was characterized by distinct positions regarding how teachers understood
their students’ needs and how they worked to address these needs. However,
many elements of these identities inherently overlapped; some teachers constructed
identities representing two or more identities at the same time. Despite possible
overlap, not all teachers shared all three identities, highlighting the distinct char-
acteristics of each identity.

General writing teacher identity

While it may seem obvious – given that the program focuses centrally on writing
instruction – that all teachers exhibited characteristics of a writing teacher iden-
tity, it is important to understand how this specific identity was articulated and
how it differs from the other identities. At the most basic level, writing teacher
identity was communicated through a shared emphasis on writing concepts such
as rhetoric and argument, discourse communities and audience, and an under-
standing of the writing process. For example, when assessing her students’
performance on the final draft of their first writing assignment, Farah mentioned
audience awareness as one of her assessment criteria:

I found that the personal narrative paper was much improved when I read the
final draft because they filled in a lot of spots that any audience would say,
“well, why this?” and “what happened next?” and that sort of thing.

In contrast to other elements of the writing teacher identity, discussed below,

these more fundamental concepts of argument, audience, and process were often
incorporated in discussions of assessment and task creation. The teachers often
communicated these ideas implicitly as part of their shared professional language
as writing teachers. This adoption and usage of such shared jargon is an important
element in the development and maintenance of one’s professional identity
(Freeman, 1996; Hall et al., 2010).

28984.indb 207 24/09/2014 09:42

 208 Juval Racelis and Paul Kei Matsuda
A central concern for all the teachers was the preparation for university-level
writing. This was most clearly articulated in discussions of goals and objectives.
For example, Claire mentioned:

If I had to articulate for myself, um, for my students, it would be, um, getting
to know the academic genres of writing. Being able to not just be able to live
a successful life, you know, but a huge part of that is being able to learn how
to communicate in the academy. So that could be writing papers, writing
essays.

Preparation for university was also articulated in teachers’ assessments of their

students. Emily described one particular student as not being ready for his future
business writing class:

It really concerned me. But um, you know, he wants to do well. And I just, I
can’t pass them on and particularly because they, most of them are going into
business and they’ve gotta take [business writing]. And I hear the [business
writing] teachers talk all the time about things that simply don’t add up.

Most interesting in this excerpt is her implicit positioning of herself with respect
to instructors for discipline-specific writing courses. As a writing teacher, she is
responsible for understanding students’ writing needs, a responsibility she feels
unique from that of her discipline-specific colleagues.
All teachers also emphasized the relationship between critical thinking
and writing, a goal clearly articulated in the writing program’s teacher guide.
This emphasis was observed both in teachers’ discussions of goals as well
as their assessment criteria. This was the case for Rebecca, as she described an
assigned writing task as well as the assessment of a student’s performance on this
task:

He’s been struggling with the, like the other students who struggle with
writing and abstract thinking, he struggles with understanding the assign-
ment. And I’m not sure, I’m not convinced that it’s a difficulty with language.
I get the sense, because they have to do one page responses on the assigned
readings. Anytime there’s assigned readings. And the responses aren’t
summaries, they’re more analytical responses. And this is not, this not an
expression of his writing ability. That the level of his thinking just is not that
complex.

Although the student Rebecca mentioned was a multilingual writer, she stated that
his problems were similar to other students in her mainstream writing class.
The characteristics of the general writing teacher identity reflect the overall
goals of the FYC program. However, the teachers’ communication of these goals
also reflects the shared understanding among members of this professional
community. These characteristics also reflect their conceptualization of their

28984.indb 208 24/09/2014 09:42

 Multiple identities of L2 writing teachers 209
subject matter, knowledge of which is directly related to their identity
construction.

Language teacher identity

In the L2 writing classroom, where the writing teacher often addresses two distinct
goals – learning to write and writing to learn language (Manchón, 2011) – the
distinction between the writing teacher identity and the language teacher identity
often becomes salient. This distinction is further reinforced by differing discipli-
nary backgrounds – i.e., composition studies and second language studies – that
teachers bring to the classroom. In contrast to the general writing teacher identity,
language teacher identity is characterized by additional concern for addressing
students’ proficiency in non-writing skills such as oral communication skills.
For the teachers who communicated a language teacher identity, improvement
in other forms of communication in English was seen as equally important to
learning how to write. Ben, for example, emphasized the importance of moving
beyond “only writing.” His goals included purposeful acknowledgment of both
writing and language in general:

I try to work on, needless to say, writing skills, in which you can talk about
rhetorical strategies, critical thinking, critical reading, but also, intercultural
competence. And on pragmatic competence, in writing, and in language, as a
part of the ESL class. ’Cause I think that is an equally important component
that is frequently overlooked.

This emphasis on general language skills is also reflected in his choice of tasks
and assignments. In addition to the writing tasks, Ben included a multi-media
project involving outside classroom observations, note-taking, and an oral presen-
tation that specifically targeted verbal and presentation skills. Ben stated that he
felt his students were enjoying his class because he included a wider range of
activities beyond the required writing tasks. As he put it: “I never thought that I’m
supposed to teach only writing.”
An important factor influencing Ben’s identity as a language teacher was his
educational background. From the outset, he stated: “I’m a linguist.” He then
continued on to list bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD degrees with Linguistics
focuses. It was clear throughout the interview with him that his identity as a
language teacher was a primary influence on his approach to teaching multilingual
students, as evidenced in his descriptions of tasks, feedback and assessment.
Emily also communicated a language teacher identity, but her negotiation of
this identity was not as straightforward as Ben’s, whose educational background
connected relatively neatly with his approach to teaching. Emily received her PhD
in Rhetoric and Composition and, throughout her discussion she emphasized the
importance of understanding the writing process, improving organization, and
developing strong rhetorical arguments as central for preparation “to survive in
the university.” When assessing students, however, Emily viewed problems in

28984.indb 209 24/09/2014 09:42

 210 Juval Racelis and Paul Kei Matsuda
their writing as a reflection of overall weaknesses in their language proficiency.
Emily emphasized the need to speak in English both in and out of the classroom.
When discussing a group of “struggling” Chinese students, for example, Emily
said she suggested those students to make friends with other non-Chinese students
in order to improve their language skills. This emphasis was also reflected in
Emily’s handling of classroom management. In discussing the demographics of
her class, Emily expressed that it was difficult creating mixed groups because of
dominant populations:

It’s been hard for me this term because I have five Arab students and fifteen
Chinese. And I don’t want the Chinese students all in one group because they
need to keep speaking in English better.

Although Emily also focused on specific areas of writing, her classroom was a
space for targeting her students’ language needs as a whole. It is not surprising
then that Emily included a presentation task that also focused on verbal skills and
oral communication, reflecting her role in improving her students’ language
proficiency.
While Ben and Emily negotiate their identities differently, neither of them
saw writing and language teacher identities to be in opposition with one another.
Ben focused primarily on general language issues but also communicated the
importance of rhetorical knowledge and process as key elements in his
teaching. Emily’s identity as a writing teacher, on the other hand, complemented
her identity as a language teacher in addressing the needs of her multilingual
students.
In contrast to Ben and Emily, who both had extensive experience teaching
multilingual writers, Farah was at the beginning of her experience teaching multi-
lingual students. A “literature professor” without background in TESOL or
linguistics, she seemed to be negotiating her writing teacher identity in light of her
developing understanding of the new student population. At the time of the inter-
view, she had 11 years’ experience teaching mainstream sections of FYC but this
was her first semester teaching a multilingual section. When discussing her goals
as a writing teacher, she was clear in highlighting the importance of voice, audi-
ence, and “classical argument,” but she was far more tentative in discussing how
she addressed the needs of multilingual students. For example:

I did provide other readings, because the textbook I selected, this is my first
time teaching [a multilingual section], I’m not familiar with the needs of
international students. I did not consider the textbook in finding readings that
were more cultural based, that connected with their culture. Most of the read-
ings in this text were for an American audience. So I paid, I spent a lot of time
in selecting the book for [next semester] and I did look for textbooks that had
readings on different cultural groups. And I’m going to spend some time
during Christmas break looking for other readings that I can use to enhance
the course.

28984.indb 210 24/09/2014 09:42

 Multiple identities of L2 writing teachers 211
Farah quickly became aware that her students’ cultural backgrounds played an
important role in understanding how to create and adapt material to best meet their
needs. Improving her practice to reflect this awareness, however, was an ongoing
process marked with trial and error.
This tentativeness was also apparent in her discussion of classroom manage-
ment. When recalling advice she received from a colleague to promote an “English
only zone” in the classroom, she was unsure of how well this met her students’
needs as multilingual students:

She (Farah’s colleague) said, um, “you want to make sure that students under-
stand that . . . they only speak English” . . . And so I did that at first, and I felt
a little awkward . . . later in the semester, I stopped. I just felt, I don’t know,
I didn’t feel comfortable saying that. But maybe that, is that something you
[Juval] do?

Her question directed at Juval, who was interviewing her, seems to indicate that
Farah is still negotiating her understanding of teaching multilingual students and
the extent to which teaching this population involves other non-writing language
skills. Although her identity still seems to be emerging, it seems that language
issues are looming large in her negotiation of teacher identity.
In these teachers’ narratives, the language teacher role seems to entail more
than teaching written English. Instead, all of their instructional goals seem to
encompass classroom communication and oral proficiency, which go beyond the
goals and objectives of the FYC program.

L2 writing teacher identity

L2 writing teacher identity, to a certain extent, could be viewed as an extension of
the general writing teacher identity. It differs from the writing and language
teacher identity, however, in its orientation toward understanding multilingual
writers’ needs. Claire, for example, addressed these needs by valuing her
students’ writing, both the process and the product, despite difficulties they may
have with the language. Claire expressed that learning how to move beyond
simple grammar errors was an important step in her development as an L2 writing
teacher:

Well, before I really got into the theory behind second language learners and
second language writers, a lot of what I would focus on was grammar related.
And I’ve noticed that a lot of my friends now who have that one or two ESL
students in their class, that’s what they can’t get past, trying to fix every
single error, it doesn’t sound native-like at all, and so earlier in my teaching
career that’s what I would focus on.

Claire no longer believed that “trying to fix every single error” was effective, and
now felt it to be a misinterpretation of multilingual students’ needs as writers. She

28984.indb 211 24/09/2014 09:42

 212 Juval Racelis and Paul Kei Matsuda
later goes on to explicitly position herself as an L2 writing teacher when comparing
her expertise to “non-L2 people” who overemphasize grammar:

I know that a lot of other instructors in different areas, like a lot of my

students, are in um engineering or in architecture or business, or things like
that, um and they’re not necessarily going to be as attuned to the specific L2
issues and needs that they [students] have. And I think that a lot of that is
frustrating for non-L2 people, teachers, because they just wanna focus on
grammar and they just don’t really get it. And then it’s also frustrating for the
students ’cause the kinds of things that other teachers are pointing out have
nothing to do with, um, how to fix it.

Instead of being overly concerned with grammar issues, Claire emphasized her
role in familiarizing students with the writing process and the different written
genres that they may encounter in university coursework. This also meant creating
tasks that acknowledged the diverse cultural and educational backgrounds of her
students. In describing her writing assignments, she emphasized choosing topics
that were accessible to students, something she accomplished both through careful
crafting of the assignment itself as well as working with students on topic
selection.
Claire’s development as an L2 writing teacher can be connected to her
education, a master’s degree in TESOL and a current PhD student in Rhetoric
and Composition. Her experience with multilingual writers also played an
important role in her development. Although her first experience teaching
FYC was in a mainstream course five years prior, she emphasized that she
“always had a few students whose proficiency or their first language was not
English. So I’ve always been – it’s always been a factor.” Thus, it seems that her
identification as an L2 writing teacher began early on in her career even before
being fully aware of how to effectively address her students’ needs. As she further
developed professionally, her identity as an L2 writing teacher became more
established.
Adam, who had extensive experience teaching writing to multilingual students,
was similar to Claire in avoiding an overemphasis on grammar. In discussing his
experiences with his current class, his goals as an L2 writing teacher are clear:

I think that the writing they produce is, some people might get confused by
this, but they’re producing as complex and deep writing as I would see for
freshman in my mainstream classes. But of course there are the grammatical
differences. But I think that when you’re able to overlook those that it’s not,
there isn’t a big gap . . . So I think by and large, the writing has been really
great. There are a few students who at this level still have some grammatical
issues. I think that people put too much stress on those actually.

Adam’s identification as an L2 writing teacher and as a writing teacher in general

was further maintained by explicit rejection of the broader language teacher

28984.indb 212 24/09/2014 09:42

 Multiple identities of L2 writing teachers 213
identity. In his assessment of students’ oral communication skills, he prioritizes
proficiency in written communication in his assessment:

I have noticed there’s a big gap in between their written communication –

some of the students communicate very proficiently in their writing, but they
have a hard time having a conversation. So there’s a big gap . . . One of them
is actually getting an A in my class, ‘cause this is a writing class. It’s not an
English class at large.

While acknowledging that the needs of his multilingual students’ may extend
beyond writing skills, Adam chooses to focus primarily on his students’ writing
needs. His conceptualization of his course as a writing and not a language course
and his role as a writing teacher are further seen through the tasks and activities he
assigned throughout the semester. Adam’s L2 writing teacher identity stands out
further when contrasted with the language teacher identities of Ben and Emily,
who did conceptualize their practice to include addressing their students’ language
needs beyond writing.

Discussion and conclusion

The study reported in this chapter investigated the multiple identities that
composition teachers communicate as they talk about their class goals, practices,
assignments, and assessments. Many of the findings resonate with previous
research on the nature of language teacher identity. As was the case in previous
studies, the identities communicated by these writing teachers involved the
negotiation of both personal factors and context factors (Beijaard et al., 2004;
Coldron and Smith, 1999; Varghese et al., 2005). These teachers actively
constructed their identities through their practice as they communicated goals
that they shared with their professional community of FYC teachers. Through
this participation in their professional communities, their identities were
situated within social and institutional contexts (Kanno and Stuart, 2011; Lee,
2013; Tsui, 2007). They also constructed their identities through their discourse as
they positioned themselves as experts in contrast to other “non-L2” teachers. As
previous studies have suggested (Antonek et al., 1997; Beijaard et al., 2000;
Connelly and Clandinin, 1999; Kanno and Stuart, 2011; Rogers, 2011), devel-
oping expertise in one’s subject matter is an important part of teacher identity
development. The L2 writing teacher identity, for example, was communicated
by expressing expertise in teaching L2 writing, by avoiding an overemphasis
on grammar, and by understanding the cultural issues that these multilingual
students face.
The findings also highlighted the multiple nature of teacher identity. Although
the three identities – (1) writing teacher, (2) language teacher, and (3) L2 writing
teacher – were described separately, they represent overlapping and dynamic
categories. All teachers exhibited the writing teacher identity. However, the extent
to which teachers also identified as a language teacher and/or an L2 writing

28984.indb 213 24/09/2014 09:42

 214 Juval Racelis and Paul Kei Matsuda
teacher varied, with some teachers resisting certain identities and others commu-
nicating identities still in development.
As Lee (2013) also described, L2 writing teacher identity involved the negotia-
tion of language teacher and writing teacher identities. For the teachers in Lee’s
study, developing a writing teacher identity involved transitioning away from being
just a language teacher, something that involved focusing less heavily on grammar
and more on writing issues such as genre, purpose, and context. In this study, the L2
writing teacher identity was similarly characterized by the avoidance of extreme
positions on grammar feedback – i.e., either correcting everything or correcting
nothing. However, individual teachers’ negotiations of these identities were more
complex and dynamic. Ben and Emily, each with more than ten years of experience,
maintained both writing teacher and language teacher identities, while both Adam
and Claire articulated an identity that focused on writing.
In contrast to previous studies that have implicitly described multiple identities
as a shift from former to new identities (Kanno and Stuart, 2011; Lee, 2013), the
multiple identities represented here at times aligned with each other, as in the case
with Emily, who maintained both writing and language teacher identities. These
identities could also be subordinated, as in the case with Ben, who identified
primarily as a language teacher and subsequently as a writing teacher. In the case
of Farah, these identities were in conflict as she negotiated her understandings of
the students’ needs with her existing conceptualizations of writing instruction.
There are several limitations to this study. First, the data consisted of a one-time
interview with each participant without opportunities for follow-up interviews. For
this reason, it is not possible to make inferences about the long-term development of
these identities, an important issue in light of the dynamic and ongoing process
central to identity construction. Further investigations of how language teachers
continue to develop and maintain multiple identities beyond a single semester or
course can help strengthen current understandings of language identity. In addition,
because this study was primarily concerned with the identities communicated through
teachers’ discourse, observations of actual practice were not conducted. As Varghese
et al. (2005) suggest, it is important to investigate both how teachers discursively
construct their identity as well as how this identity is realized in the classroom.
Despite these limitations, however, this study showed varied relationships among
L2 writing teachers’ multiple identities, suggesting the possibility that, with experi-
ence, teachers may be able to find a balance among multiple identities rather than
replace their previous identities with new identities they develop. This prospect
seems particularly important in transdisciplinary knowledge space, such as language
and writing classrooms, where knowledge from multiple disciplinary perspectives
inform teachers’ day-to-day decisions in instruction as well as identity construction.

References
Antonek, J. L., McCormick, D. E., and Donato, R. (1997). The student teacher portfolio as
autobiography: Developing a professional identity. The Modern Language Journal,
81(1), 15–27.

28984.indb 214 24/09/2014 09:42

 Multiple identities of L2 writing teachers 215
Auerbach, C. F., and Silverstein, L. B. (2003). Qualitative Data: An Introduction to Coding
and Analysis. New York: New York University Press.
Beauchamp, C., and Thomas, L. (2009). Understanding teacher identity an overview of
issues in the literature and implications for teacher education. Cambridge Journal of
Education, 39(2), 175–189.
Beijaard, D., Meijer, P. C., and Verloop, N. (2004). Reconsidering research on teachers’
professional identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 107–128.
Beijaard, D., Verloop, N., and Vermunt, J. D. (2000). Teachers’ perceptions of professional
identity: an exploratory study from a personal knowledge perspective. Teacher and
Teacher Education, 16, 749–764.
Block, D. (2007). Second Language Identities. London: Continuum.
Childs, S. S. (2011). “Seeing” L2 teacher learning: The power of context on conceptual-
izing teaching. In K. E. Johnson and P. R. Golombek (Eds), Research on Second
Language Teacher Education: A Sociocultural Perspective on Professional Develop-
ment (pp. 67–85). New York: Routledge.
Cohen, J. L. (2010). Getting recognised: Teachers negotiating professional identities as
learners through talk. Teacher and Teacher Education, 26, 473–481.
Coldron, J., and Smith, R. (1999). Active location in teachers’ construction of their profes-
sional identities. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 31(6), 711–726.
Connelly, F. M., and Clandinin, D. J. (1988). Teachers as Curriculum Planners: Narra-
tives of Experience. New York: Teachers College Press.
Connelly, F. M., and Clandinin, D. J. (Eds). (1999). Shaping a Professional Identity:
Stories of Educational Practice. New York: Teachers College Press.
Duff, P. A., and Uchida, Y. (1997). The negotiation of teachers’ sociocultural identities and
practices in postsecondary EFL classrooms, TESOL Quarterly, 31(3), 451–486.
Farrell, T. S. C. (2011). Exploring the professional role identities of experienced ESL
teachers through reflective practice. System, 39(1), 54–62.
Freeman, D. (1996). Renaming experience/reconstructing practice: Developing new under-
standings of teaching. In D. Freeman and J. C. Richards. (Eds), Teacher Learning in
Language Teaching (pp. 221–241). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gee, J. P. (2000). Identity as an analytic lens for research in education. Review of Research
in Education, 25, 99–125.
Golombek, P. R. (1998). A study of language teachers’ personal practical knowledge.
TESOL Quarterly, 32, 447–464.
Hall, L. A., Johnson, A. S., Juzwik, M. M., Wortham, S., and Mosley, M. (2010).
Teacher identity in the context of literacy teaching: Three explorations of classroom
positioning and interaction in secondary schools. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26,
234–243.
Kanno, Y., and Stuart, C. (2011). Learning to become a Second Language Teacher:
Identities-in-Practice. Modern Language Journal, 95(2), 236–252.
Lave, J., and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lee, I. (2013). Becoming a writing teacher: Using “identity” as an analytic lens to under-
stand EFL writing teachers’ development. Journal of Second Language Writing, 22(3),
330–345.
Manchón, R. M. (Ed.) (2011). Learning-to-Write and Writing-to-Learn in an Additional
Language. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
Matsuda, P. K., and Skinnell, R. (2012). Considering the impact of the WPA Outcomes
Statement on second language writers. In N. N. Behm, G. Glau, D. H. Holdstein, D.

28984.indb 215 24/09/2014 09:42

 216 Juval Racelis and Paul Kei Matsuda
Roen, and E. White (Eds), The WPA Outcomes Statement: A Decade Later
(pp. 230–241). Anderson, SC: Parlor Press.
Mishler, E. G. (1999). Storylines: Craft Artists’ Narratives of Identity. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Rogers, G. (2011). Learning-to-learn and learning-to-teach: The impact of disciplinary
subject study on student-teachers’ professional identity. Journal of Curriculum Studies,
43(2), 249–268.
Tsui, A. B. M. (1996). Learning how to teach ESL writing. In D. Freeman and J. C. Rich-
ards (Eds), Teacher learning in language teaching (pp. 97–119). New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Tsui, A. B. M. (2007). Complexities of identity formation: a narrative inquiry of an EFL
teacher. TESOL Quarterly, 41(4), 657–664.
Varghese, M. (2004). Professional development for bilingual teachers in the United States:
Articulating and contesting professional roles. In J. Brutt-Griffler and M. Varghese
(Eds), Re-writing Bilingualism and the Bilingual Educator’s Knowledge Base (pp. 130–
145). Clevedon Multilingual Matters.
Varghese, M., Morgan, B., Johnston, B., and Johnson, A. (2005). Theorizing language
teacher identity: Three perspectives and beyond. Journal of Language, Identity, and
Education, 4(1), 21–44.
Volkmann, M. J. and Anderson, M. A. (1998). Creating professional identity: Dilemmas
and metaphors of a first-year chemistry teacher. Science Education, 82, 293–310.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. New York:
Cambridge University Press.

28984.indb 216 24/09/2014 09:42

 16 Developing professional identities
in applied linguistics
From doctoral study to professional
practice
Richard Donato, Heather Hendry and
G. Richard Tucker

Introduction
Interviewer: Has your professional identity as an applied linguist changed since
the time you finished your doctoral program in foreign and second language
education?

Respondent: I am not sure if the word change is the right word for me. I think my
identity expands horizontally and vertically. When I started my career after my
doctoral program, I taught, did some research, and presented papers. Later, I took
on a series of administrative jobs. Then, I was asked to be a workshop leader for
Thai schoolteachers and was invited to be a guest lecturer at other universities in
Thailand. Last year, I started giving lectures at universities outside of Thailand, for
example in the Philippines. I am now organizing the Thailand Association of
Applied Linguistics, writing a proposal, preparing a constitution, and asking
friends to join the organization. A leadership role like this is new to me and it is
challenging. I am not sure what I will encounter personally and professionally, but
I tell myself that I will gather the rose buds while thee may.

The response given by a professionally active applied linguist of approximately

ten years working in Southeast Asia represents the content matter of this study –
ten practicing professionals in applied linguistics and their accounts of their own
identities over time, their preparedness for assuming professional positions, and
the challenges that they confronted at points of transition from their identity as a
student to that of a professional.1 Additionally, our study examines how the
common graduate school experience of these ten applied linguists all participating
in an apprenticeship model of doctoral training (Walker et al., 2008), contributed
(or not) to their transition to professional life. We believe that the research on
identity formation across the boundaries of doctoral student and working profes-
sional in applied linguistics has not been sufficiently explored despite numerous
professional recommendations and opinions about the nature and contents of
doctoral training (see, for example, “The Formation of Scholars: Rethinking
Doctoral Education for the Twenty-First Century, 2008).2 Using the concept of

28984.indb 217 24/09/2014 09:42

 218 Richard Donato et al.
identity as a framework for analysis, we will examine the pathways and trajecto-
ries of ten former doctoral students in applied linguistics as they construct accounts
of the contributions, obstacles, and situational factors that played a role in the
formation of their professional identities.

Purpose of study and research questions

The purpose of this study is to examine the identity formations, trajectories, and
points of transition of ten post-doctoral applied linguists3 against the backdrop of
their previous experiences in an apprenticeship model of doctoral training. We
seek to understand how apprenticeship opportunities during doctoral training may
have shaped the professional identity of these individuals and potentially prepared
them for their respective university positions in applied linguistics. Given that
identity is mutable, is transformed in time and space, and is often manifested
when moving across major life boundaries (Adawu and Martin-Beltrán, 2012;
McKinney and Norton, 2008; Weedon, 1997), we acknowledge that struggle
and contradiction may have occurred when these individuals transitioned from
the position of doctoral students to professional applied linguists. We also
acknowledge, as Pavlenko (2007) has pointed out, that when individuals are
asked to comment on themselves in the present in light of the past, they may
also simultaneously construe new identity formations during these moments of
reflection. Identity formation is, therefore, not a stable psychological or
affective product but a co-constructed process of juxtaposing the past with
the present and with an envisioned future and figured world (Holland, et al.,
1998). As Pavlenko (2007) states, participants’ narrative accounts cannot be
analyzed simply as factual data replete with generic themes but must be
understood as interpretive events where individuals position themselves in
certain ways and as particular kinds of individuals in time and space (pp. 166–167).
From this perspective, the “data” we present should not be understood as
simply post-hoc intact accounts but must be viewed as present and emerging
constructions of the self analyzed in the context of past experiences, present
realities, and the discourses that participants used to mediate their representations
and interpretations of self.
The research questions for this study are as follows:

1 What are the language choices that participants use for authoring their
accounts and how do these language choices reveal their commitment to and
evaluation of their past and present experiences and the sources of legitimacy
that they ascribe to their identity claims?
2 How do these individuals describe the transition from doctoral study to
professional life and what individual differences emerge in the analysis?
What accounts for these different pathways?
3 What are the identity trajectories of a group of practicing applied linguists
who participated in an apprenticeship model of doctoral study? A corollary to
this question is what affordances does this model of doctoral training provide

28984.indb 218 24/09/2014 09:42

 Professional identities in applied linguistics 219
that enables or constrains the development of a professional identity after
graduation?

Conceptual framework
The conceptual framework for this study is derived from two sources. The first
source is the recent work on apprenticeship models of doctoral training proposed
by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) and fully
articulated in its book-length report The Formation of Scholars: Rethinking
Doctoral Education for the Twenty-First Century (2008). The second source of
our conceptual framework is taken from Trent (2013). In his study of identity
trajectories of language teachers in Hong Kong, Trent documents the accounts of
language teachers who have transitioned to the role of teacher educator. In his
study, Trent combines several approaches taken principally from Wenger (1998),
Laclau and Mouffe (1985), and Fairclough (2003) into an integrated framework
for the investigation of identity formation. Each of the two conceptual frame-
works is described below in the context of our collaborative work with doctoral
students.

Conceptual framework: Apprenticeship models of doctoral training

Two of us (Donato and Tucker) have been collaborating on a variety of foreign
language education research initiatives for more than 20 years. We have continu-
ally involved our doctoral students (Donato at the University of Pittsburgh and
Tucker at Carnegie Mellon University) in our research in what we came to refer
to as a research apprenticeship program.
As time passed, and our experience with diverse students continued, we
searched to understand better the characteristics of an effective research appren-
ticeship program and the ways in which this type of mentoring served to shape the
professional identities of our students as fully participating applied linguists after
graduation.
We examined a variety of reports and sources – notably among them, a compen-
dium of reports on assessing doctoral education (e.g., Maki and Borkowski, 2006)
and a report by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
(Walker et al., 2008). It was this latter volume, in particular, that focused a good
deal of attention on “apprenticeship” in doctoral training.
Based on the pioneering work of Brown et al. (1989) on apprenticeship peda-
gogy, theories of instructional scaffolding (Wood et al., 1976), and recent work on
teacher expertise (Grossman and McDonald, 2008), the Carnegie Foundation for
the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) outlines several defining features that are
critical to a successful and effective apprenticeship model of doctoral education.
Five features are relevant to a successful apprenticeship model of graduate
education and will be used in this study for the purpose of coding responses to
assess the effectiveness of the previous graduate school experiences of our partici-
pants and how these experiences may have helped to shape their professional

28984.indb 219 24/09/2014 09:42

 220 Richard Donato et al.
identities. The CFAT committee viewed successful apprenticeship models as
comprising a set of five features. Below are the five features defined by CFAT
followed by a brief explanation of how these features were instantiated in our
work with graduate students (see Chapter 5 of The Formation of Scholars for a
fuller account of these features).
Intentionality was described as a way for mentors to construct occasions for
students to move gradually, with support, from more sheltered toward independent
work. Intentionality also refers to the ability of mentors to make explicit various
aspects of professional and scholarly expertise. These aspects of academic work
are often invisible and assumed to be understood by novices in the field. In our
version of the model, students begin effectively as research assistants on our Early
Language Learning Research Team (ELLRT) helping in the selection or construc-
tion of data collection tools, and then assisting with data collection, analysis, and
interpretation.
Multiple relationships described the important ways in which young scholars
benefit from getting to know the field through a variety of lenses. In this case,
Donato is a foreign language educator with a special interest, and training, in quali-
tative methodology and a theoretical grounding in sociocultural theory while Tucker
is a psycholinguist with training in quantitative methodology and a grounding in
cognitive psychology.4 The opportunity to expose students to diverse ways of ques-
tion posing, information synthesizing, data reduction and analysis, and oral and
written argument presentation is consistent with this second criterion.
Collective responsibility described the ways in which young scholars become
true partners in the research endeavor and become accountable together with their
mentors for ensuring that the various tasks of developing data collection tools,
collecting diverse sources of information, and analyzing quantitative and qualita-
tive information are carried out. This set of activities culminated in the collective
writing of manuscripts that are submitted for publication with both mentors and
students represented as authors.
Recognition represented for us the ways in which the young scholars
participated in jointly authoring manuscripts of publication in refereed journals
in our field as well as participating in collaborative presentations at meetings
of professional organizations in applied linguistics and foreign language
education.
Respect, trust, and reciprocity described the ways for us in which the young
scholars participated as full members of the Early Language Learning Research
Team. As they gained experience working with us, they became true partners in
our collective attempts to understand the diverse factors that impacted upon
students’ attempts to learn Japanese or Spanish as additional languages. Eventually,
some of the students working with us would decide to carve out a research topic
of their own within the broad framework of our collaborative research and develop
this successfully into their own doctoral dissertation research (cf., Dominguez,
2002; Hendry, 2009; Igarashi, 2003).
In reflecting on the various features in the volume by Walker et al. (2008), we
maintained that the apprenticeship model that we embraced benefited both faculty

28984.indb 220 24/09/2014 09:42

 Professional identities in applied linguistics 221
and students because students were “apprenticed with rather than apprenticed to”
(p. 115).

Conceptual framework: identity formation

Identity is a complex construct that has evolved over time and has been defined
and theorized in numerous ways. Much of the contemporary work on identity
formation is based on Weedon’s (1997) social poststructuralist theory in which
identity is understood as the enactment of one’s subjectivity in discursive interac-
tions where conscious and unconscious thoughts of self arise and are negotiated,
and where ways of relating the self to the world emerge. As Block (2003) points
out, Weedon’s theory maintains that individuals embody multiple senses of the
self (i.e., subjectivities) that are in a state of continual change and are managed
through thinking and speaking in and through various modalities of communica-
tion (e.g., gestures, written texts, vocal intonation, physical manifestations,
graphic representations, etc.).
The conceptual framework for this study is based upon the work of Trent (2013)
and his integrated approach to the examination and study of identity formation.
We find that Trent’s framework captures several important poststructuralist views
of identity, incorporates issues of time and space at boundary crossings as poten-
tial sites of conflict and contradiction, and gives primacy to discourse as the arena
where “what one does” and “what one says” converge to reveal one’s subjectivity,
agency, and identity (see Figure 16.1). As such, this framework is appropriate for
an analysis in this study because we attempt to understand how, over time, partici-
pants perceived their previous experience as doctoral students, in what ways they

Figure 16.1 Trent’s integrated framework for examining identity formation (2013).

28984.indb 221 24/09/2014 09:42

 222 Richard Donato et al.
express their transitional experiences to professional life, and what impact this
movement from one domain to another might have had on their identities as
researchers, scholars, and legitimate central participants (in contrast to peripheral
participants) in the community of practice of applied linguistics.
Trent’s integrated framework is consistent with Weedon’s (1997) contempo-
rary view of identity as a situated discursive construal of the self and integrates
both “identity-in-practice” and “identity-in-discourse” (p. 263) as two mutually
constituting features of identity formation and transformation. Practices are
constituted in discourse and discourse shapes practical activity. In this way, iden-
tity formation and one’s subjectivity can be said to emerge in discursive
practices.
Based on Wenger’s (1998) community of practice theory, Trent identifies three
features of identity-in-practice that are consequential to identity formation –
engagement, alignment, and imagination. Taken together, these three features
underscore how one’s identity and sense of self are often shaped through partici-
pation in joint activity (engagement) where one identifies with the enterprise of a
larger group (alignment) and envisions one’s current and future position in it
(imagination). Within this social configuration, individuals negotiate and create
personal meanings that are asserted, recognized, and accepted, or, conversely,
blocked and rejected resulting in marginalization of the individual from the
community of practice, which, in turn, lead to potential contradiction and conflict
with the community and with the self.
The construct of identity-in-discourse (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985) posits that
discourse constitutes and reconstitutes one’s subjective position, which is precari-
ously contingent (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985: Weedon, 1997) upon what discourses
prevail or are excluded as one attempts to engage, relate, and imagine oneself with
others. In the context of our study, as we will show, competing discourses that
create identity conflict are found, for example, in situations where discussions of
language pedagogy among faculty members exclude or marginalize the concepts
and previous formative experiences of a newly hired applied linguist.
To analyze the issue of identity-in-discourse, Trent’s model incorporates the
work of Fairclough (2003) who asserts that “different discourses are different
perspectives on the world, and are associated with different relations that people
have with the world, which in turn depends on their positions in the world, their
social and personal identities, and their social relationships in which they stand to
other people” (p. 124). As such, discourse and relationships with others and the
self are related in complementary, competitive, submissive, or dominate ways. In
short, a discourse-based theory of identity emphasizes that identity and one’s
agency are formed in large part in the discursive relationship in which individuals
engage. It is through these texts that identity can be examined and analyzed.
To this end, Fairclough argues that the texturing of identity (p. 164) can be
analyzed across three dimensions of language use – commitment, evaluation, and
legitimation. When individuals speak of who they are, they often do so in terms of
a commitment to what is necessary and required for their lives. Discursive
manifestations of these commitments are found in various linguistic modality

28984.indb 222 24/09/2014 09:42

 Professional identities in applied linguistics 223
types (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004, p. 618) of obligation (must, should, ought
to, supposed to), probability (probably, possibly, certainly), and inclination
(willing to, determined to, eager to). Evaluations of one’s identity are realized
discursively in attributes of emotion and desire signaling what is desirable, good,
bad, acceptable, or unacceptable. Finally, one’s identity claim can be “textured”
and legitimized in reference to sources of authority (social institutions, traditions
in various domains, laws), personal rationalizations, and value systems. For
example, one respondent justifies her decision not to accept a language
teaching position because of her own views about language instruction shaped
during her PhD program. She states “Justification for my decision is based
on knowledge from my PhD program” and a realization of the professional
and theoretical compromises she would need to make to “obey their style of
teaching.”
For our analysis, we will draw on Trent’s integrated model since it encom-
passes several theoretical strands on identity, combines “doings” and “sayings” as
the site of identity and agency, and presents a unified discursive theory of self
incorporating both internal (e.g., personal commitments and attributive evalua-
tions of self) and external factors (e.g., legitimizing interpretations of self in the
context of institutional structures, expectations, laws, etc.) as constitutive of one’s
identity. Additionally, we will reference our analysis to the features of the appren-
ticeship model of doctoral training (e.g., intentionality, multiple relationships,
collective responsibility, etc.) to contextualize the analysis in light of previous
graduate school experiences and current professional positions.

Methodology

Context, participants, and data sources

The participants in our study were ten of our former doctoral students (five of
whom had graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with Donato and five of
whom had graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with Tucker). By chance,
all of these participants are female.
Participants were requested to complete a series of essay prompts in which they
were asked to: describe their position(s) since completing their doctorate; reflect
on specific components of their doctoral program indicating the ones that had
been helpful, informative and perhaps transferable and those that had been less so;
and generally reflect on their doctoral training overall.
In a subsequent follow-up request, we asked them specifically about the ease or
difficulty that they experienced in making the transition from their identity as a
doctoral student to an identity as an applied linguist (e.g., language teacher,
teacher educator, program administrator, researcher, etc.).
In terms of their present occupations, the ten respondents fall into three distinct
categories. Six of them are employed as fulltime faculty members in colleges or
universities (three in the United States and one each in Israel, Qatar, and Thailand)
where they have responsibilities for teaching, research, and service.

28984.indb 223 24/09/2014 09:42

 224 Richard Donato et al.
Two of the respondents are employed at universities in the United States where
they have transitioned from their roles as applied linguist, teacher, and researcher
to a fulltime English as a second language department administrator, in one case,
and, in the other case, to an Asian Studies Scholar.
The other two respondents, one living in Canada and the other in Mexico, have
for a variety of reasons not been able to find fulltime academic employment. Each
of them has, however, drawn upon the skills and experiences that they acquired as
doctoral students in a variety of ways in establishing, for example, a summer
language institute or working part time as a language education consultant for a
variety of non-governmental organizations.
Thus, the ten participants comprise a group of individuals who have followed
three different pathways as they have more or less successfully navigated the
transition from doctoral students to their current positions.

Findings

Identity work as commitment

To answer research question one, we looked closely at the language that respond-
ents used to reveal their commitment to, and evaluation of, their past and present
experiences as students and professionals and the sources of legitimacy that they
ascribe to these accounts of personal trajectories. To this end, we asked respond-
ents to comment on their perceptions of their current professional identity in light
of previous experiences as doctoral students. Additionally, we asked respondent to
provide advice to current doctoral students based on their retrospective accounts of
the time when they were in this position. We believe that their replies to this ques-
tion are suitable for examining a discursive construal of self because it unites and
evaluates past and present, addresses the type of commitment that respondents
claim is needed to develop as applied linguists in professional settings, and provides
justifications for their assertions. Indeed, suggestions to current doctoral students
were expressed with several modals of obligation and commitment, such as “must,
should, need to, and ought to”, (e.g., [graduate students] “should approach profes-
sors and ask to be involved in research”, “you need to know how to communicate
with others”, “students must be positive and must know their roles and responsibili-
ties”.) In three cases, recommendations were constructed exclusively with impera-
tive verb forms (e.g., Keep a wide network of contacts, Get experience writing
grants, Go to conferences, Be honest with yourself and be realistic).
Nine out of the ten respondents evaluated their transition from student to profes-
sional as “easy” and “unproblematic” for certain dimensions of their work. The
majority of the respondents stated that teaching was the easiest part of their new
positions and that they had effectively established their identities as instructors
during their doctoral programs. As one respondent stated, “I know that my ten
years of teaching experience prior to grad school gave me a firm connection to my
identity as a professional . . . throughout the PhD program, I taught Master of Arts
in Teaching courses and supervised foreign language student teachers so I was

28984.indb 224 24/09/2014 09:42

 Professional identities in applied linguistics 225
part professional and part student the entire way.” This hybrid identity was
revealed in eight out of the ten surveys indicating that professional identity forma-
tion is a complex process and cannot be easily reduced to one aspect of life in the
academy, namely research.
When asked to provide advice for transitioning from the world of graduate
students to a that of a contributing faculty member, all respondents strongly
suggested in some form that, in addition to connecting with research, graduate
students need to commit to the larger university mission and to engage in building
“networks”, “communities of practice”, and “collaborative research and profes-
sional opportunities”. As one respondent succinctly noted, graduate students need
to be committed to gaining “experience in the big three – teaching, service, and
scholarship . . . so it’s not a surprise when you find yourself on all kinds of
committees.” Indeed, one noteworthy finding of this study is that, in the majority
of responses, the commitment to service required by a university faculty member
was beyond what respondents had imagined as part of their future professional
identities-in-practice. One respondent remarked, “There are many roles [in the
university] possible beyond the traditional researcher identity.”
This observation is not to suggest that research experience, including collabora-
tive and independent research projects, joint publication, professional presenta-
tions, and grant writing, was not evaluated as being as important as other aspects
of graduate student life. All respondents spoke of the need to commit to research
endeavors as a means of shaping one’s identity as a practicing applied linguist in
a university setting. When speaking of the need to connect to the research enter-
prise, it was clear that previous research experience during graduate work in light
of present positions was instrumental and critical for self-identifying as a profes-
sional and, as one respondent stated, “played a very central role in this identity-
building process.”

Identity work as evaluation and legitimation

The ten applied linguists were asked to give advice to current doctoral students on
how to prepare for their futures in the field. The evaluative language of the
respondents revealed a strong positive reaction to aspects of their graduate school
formative experiences that they legitimized based on their current positions and
work as applied linguists (e.g., language instructors, tenure stream faculty
members, non-tenure stream language and culture specialists, directors of
programs, etc.). All respondents identified the need to be involved with research
(e.g., research teams, collaborative projects, independent research mentored by
professors) during their graduation training, evaluating it as critical and founda-
tional to professional life. Respondents described these experiences as important,
invaluable, realistic, and positive.
Based on their present positions, respondents legitimized building “collegial rela-
tionships” during doctoral study as a way to develop the needed ability to “commu-
nicate and work with others . . . in an academically and humanly [sic] manner” in a
professional setting. Respondents spoke to the need to view oneself not only as

28984.indb 225 24/09/2014 09:42

 226 Richard Donato et al.
specialized in one area but connected to broader concepts that may be applied to
one’s own research. As one respondent stated, “this overlap seems to be where some
of the most fascinating research projects occur.” Interestingly, the value of collabo-
rative relations beyond one’s specialization appeared in seven of the ten respond-
ents’ comments. One respondent put it quite succinctly. “Being able to communicate
effectively with people in different fields is just as important as communicating with
people in your own field. Deepening one’s knowledge in the specialized field and
keeping things in perspective with the big picture in mind are both necessary.”
All respondents ascribed value to their previous experience as doctoral students
and the role that this experience played in “helping to assume a professional iden-
tity.” In retrospect, these practicing professionals often expressed the view that
while these experiences were invaluable, they would have liked to have strength-
ened their research skills even more, such as by conducing independent research,
writing grants, presenting research to and communicating with diverse audiences,
and preparing manuscripts for external review.

Identity pathways
To examine the identity pathways (Holland and Lave, 2001) of these individuals
and how they differed in their transitions from student to professional life, we
asked respondents to describe the relationship of their respective formation during
doctoral programs with their current positions in the field of applied linguistics.
Three prominent threads emerged in the respondents’ answers to this question.
First, a number commented on their lack of preparation for the service expecta-
tions that they encountered as they transitioned to faculty positions. As one
respondent stated, “At the time I finished my doctoral program, I was not familiar
with community service and did not expect to be involved in it . . . I had no idea
of the time commitment that service requires.”
Second a number mentioned their susceptibility to conflicting demands and
expectations since their current academic position is not within a department of
applied language education at a research intensive university. For example, in the
words of one respondent, “I’m struggling because the university in which I teach
relies on generalists and I see myself as a foreign language educator and an applied
linguist.” Another respondent speaks to her need to make “a quick transition to
identify [herself] as an Asian Studies Scholar and as an Applied Linguist.”
The third prominent thread, and the most positive from our point of view,
expressed by numerous respondents was the ways in which they have continued
to grow their professional identities. The following accounts of the respondents
illustrate this pathway to expanding identities in the field: “My identity expands
horizontally and vertically.” My identity “keeps on changing as I advise more
Master’s students, participate in professional meetings and publish more.” “My
position as administrator fits very well with earlier goals to influence the quality
of language education beyond my classroom teaching – there are many possible
roles that one can play: be aware of your goals.” “My work experiences have
enriched my identity but I still keep my core principles.”

28984.indb 226 24/09/2014 09:42

 Professional identities in applied linguistics 227
The eight respondents who have transitioned to fulltime academic positions
have encountered unexpected challenges along the way, but each has seemingly
made a positive transition to professional life albeit with the need for some degree
of flexibility and persistence along the way. Even one of the two respondents who
are currently unemployed reports that she is “more confident when I assist people,
for example, analyzing survey data.” In terms of identity, what these respondents’
experiences indicate is the integration of one’s professional and discursive prac-
tices in the exercise of agency to construct one’s identity in changing contexts of
professional activity (Bendle, 2002). From Bendle’s perspective, identity malle-
ability and fluidity are not merely the result of passive responses to environmental
stimuli but an individual’s active process of adapting to internal psychological
conflict and contradiction in order to construct a sense of self in the context of
external conditions of change.

Identity trajectories: from apprenticeship to full participation

When analyzing the respondents’ transition from peripheral participants supported
in an apprenticeship model of doctoral formation to full participation in a commu-
nity of professional practice, several observations can be made. First, we noted,
consistent with Weedon (1997), McKinney and Norton (2008), and Adawu and
Martin-Beltrán (2012), all ten of the respondents indicated that their identities are
mutable, and constantly transforming in time and space. When describing this
change, three respondents used terms such as, “looking back,” suggesting that the
construction of these identity trajectories was brought about during these moments
of reflection, as argued by Pavlenko (2007).
How this change occurred, however, differed across respondents. Six of
the respondents indicated that their identities have been transformed due to
their engagement in additional communities of practice. As one respondent
described, “It’s not about my identity so much, but more about what I do.”
Prior to the start of her doctoral program, her goal was to pursue her interest
in applied linguistics research. Now, due to her faculty position requirements,
her identity has expanded to include a balance of teaching, service, and
research. As cited in the introduction, a second respondent indicated that her
identity “expands horizontally and vertically” because of her engagement
in various school, university, and professional communities. Her tasks
changed from solely researching and teaching to include leading workshops
for teachers, speaking at other universities, and initiating a new professional
organization for applied linguists. A third respondent’s identity expanded
from applied linguist to applied linguist and Asian studies scholar due to
her current faculty position within a literature department. Other respondents
indicated that their identities changed to include research mentor and member
of a faculty department as they engage in new communities within their university
positions.
In contrast to these six respondents, four of the respondents indicated that their
imagined professional worlds (Holland et al., 1998) have not been fully realized

28984.indb 227 24/09/2014 09:42

 228 Richard Donato et al.
due to a lack of engagement, or alignment, with a community of practice. For
example, one respondent stated that her goal at the end of her doctoral program
was to conduct classroom-based research. However, her current administrative
position does not support her participation in research. Another respondent, who
has worked for a variety of non-governmental organizations, claimed that her
professional identity seems to “adapt to the needs of her employer.” A third
respondent who lacks full-time employment also commented that her lack of
participation in an academic community almost forced her to “eliminate her
professional identity.” Finally, another respondent referred to an “identity
struggle” due to her current full-time faculty position that engages her in a commu-
nity of generalists and not applied linguists.
Although these four respondents have experienced factors that have challenged
their view of themselves, they have all discovered creative solutions for main-
taining their professional identities. For example, one of the respondents is able to
use her research abilities when evaluating programs. In addition, another
respondent has been able to use her knowledge of applied linguistics to make
informed decisions about her children’s foreign language education and to design
and coordinate a summer Japanese language program. Finally, a fourth respondent
has continued to publish in the field of foreign language education while expanding
her participation in professional conferences that cater to interests in all areas of
research in education.
It was also found that identity trajectories changed from broad and rather
generic imaginings of future professional life at the beginning of their doctoral
programs to specific goals for the future at the completion of doctoral study. For
example, initial identity positions when starting their respective doctoral programs
included taking the next logical step after obtaining a Master’s degree, changing
from a language teacher to a teacher educator, conducting research in applied
linguistics, or to serving the government. When asked what their goals were after
participating in their doctoral programs, the respondents verbalized specific and
well-focused goals such as: to teach and research academic writing by using
systemic functional linguistics and corpus linguistics; to teach, research and
mentor students Master’s research, to conduct program evaluations, and to
conduct classroom-based research on language learning.
Self-identifying as a researcher was a major change that occurred at the
boundary of student and professional. When discussing goals at the beginning of
their doctoral study, only three of the participants mentioned conducting research.
In contrast, when articulating their goals after their doctoral study, nine out of the
ten participants expressed that they wanted to conduct research in addition to
teaching. On respondent described this change explicitly.

When I began the program, my goal was to get a PhD so that I could teach at
a college. I had no intention to work at a research-oriented university and
thought that I would end up at more of a teaching-oriented college. Once I
became a full-time PhD student (I was part-time for two years), I realized that
perhaps I was capable of doing research.

28984.indb 228 24/09/2014 09:42

 Professional identities in applied linguistics 229
The ways that the respondents’ describe their doctoral program suggest that their
participation in a doctoral apprenticeship has influenced changes in their identi-
ties. When rank-ordering the various components of their doctoral program, eight
out of ten of the respondents ranked collaborative research as the first or second
most useful to their academic career. The respondents recognized the intention-
ality of the research apprenticeship stating that experienced professors guided
graduate students to design research studies and collect, analyze, and interpret
data. In addition, several respondents claimed that through the apprenticeship,
they were able to establish multiple relationships with language teachers, school
administrators, and other researchers. Learning to participate collaboratively on a
team of researchers with collective responsibility, respect, and trust, was also
mentioned when describing the research apprenticeship. Finally, the respondents
referred to the recognition that they received through publishing, presenting at
national conferences, and conducting dissertation work.
The changes in the respondents’ identity trajectories can be traced to aspects of
the apprenticeship model, suggesting that participation in this model of doctoral
training has influenced the respondents’ professional identities and allowed them
to grow based on changes in professional circumstances. As mentioned above, the
respondents indicated that their identities changed because they encountered and
engaged with additional professional communities. This ability to engage in new
communities could be attributed to the skills that were developed through the
collective responsibility, respect, and multiple relationships that were constitutive
of the apprenticeship model. In addition, the respondents’ identity trajectories
shifted to include research as a goal and creative solutions to professional
constraints. Because change in identity trajectories were linked directly to compo-
nents of the apprenticeship model, it seems reasonable to assume that the research
apprenticeship gave the respondents’ the tools for their professional identities to
develop, expand, and be transformed once they entered professional life.

Discussion
Several findings concerning the development of professional identity and its rela-
tions to doctoral training can be drawn for this study. Based on the analysis of
these practicing professionals, three findings appear clear.
First, it appears that our attempts to apprentice doctoral students into the culture
of the academy and the profession were relatively successful allowing former
students to relate past experiences to current work and to continue to expand and
transform professional identities in positive ways. All participants identified
aspects of the apprenticeship model as outlined above that integrated centrally
into their current professional lives and identities as applied linguists. For example,
participants spoke of the aspects of their doctoral programs that allowed them
to benefit from connections to a larger network of research beyond their
specializations, from their participation in designing research studies, analyzing
data, and co-authoring with professors, and from learning from the intentional
presentation of the implicit aspects of professional life. As one respondent reported

28984.indb 229 24/09/2014 09:42

 230 Richard Donato et al.
in her advice to current doctoral students based on her own experiences as a
doctoral student, “Doctoral students have certain expectations. Professors also
have expectations. Make these expectations transparent and parallel so you know
you are on the right track.” In all cases, the present identities of the respondents as
constructed in their narratives included aspects of the apprenticeship model that
they had experienced as graduate students, including opportunities for intensive
teaching in departmental programs.
But this conclusion is only a partial account of their identity formation. Despite
the myriad benefits gained from previous doctoral study, respondents expressed
candidly some of the limitations of the research apprenticeship model that
presented challenges to their figured identities once they assumed positions in a
university.5 Thus, a second important finding of this study is that the current prop-
osition (e.g., the Carnegie Report discussed above) to re-define doctoral study as
a research apprenticeship is certainly necessary but insufficient to prepare students
fully for their future university positions. Several respondents reported being
entirely unprepared for the service requirements that they were expected to assume
once hired as assistant professors or instructors in university language programs.
One second-year assistant professor stated clearly the difficulty of making this
transition in her identity as a practicing professional:

I had no idea of the time commitment that service requires. I thought that I
couldn’t possibly be busier than during my dissertation year, but that was
nothing compared to now. Aspects of service such as serving on committees,
meeting with students, visiting schools, attending conferences, and providing
professional development are extremely time-consuming. It is difficult to
know when it is okay to say “no” and when it is not. I often feel pressure to
provide service when I feel that I should be working on my research instead.

Based on this finding, we maintain that broader aspects of future professional life
need to be incorporated into discussions of apprenticeship models. Absent from
the apprenticeship model is developing professional identities that include being
a “good citizen”, understanding that local and external service is an important
requirement of a faculty member in contemporary university programs and depart-
ments, and realizing that full participation in academic and professional life is not
exclusively about teaching and research. This all too often ignored part of one’s
professional identity-in-practice needs to be addressed intentionally during
doctoral study to ease this boundary crossing from student to professional.
This finding suggests that in many cases doctoral training may unintentionally
romanticize life in the academy leading to serious identity-in-practice contradic-
tions in new faculty members. The same assistant professor above goes on to state
“sometimes I feel like I am experiencing an identity struggle. My interests lie in
the field of foreign language education and applied linguistics, but the size of the
university in which I teach relies on faculty who are more like generalists.” The
essential question then is how to prepare doctoral students for the complex
professional and personal identity of a university faculty member beyond that

28984.indb 230 24/09/2014 09:42

 Professional identities in applied linguistics 231
of researcher for them to be successful in the tripartite requirements for
promotion with tenure – research, teaching, and service. One possible way to
achieve this is to apply the principle of intentionality to service by embedding
service into the life of graduate students and making explicit and visible the
purpose of service when these internal and external service opportunities arise
during doctoral study (e.g., planning a conference, attending faculty meetings,
providing service to area school districts or agencies, etc.). The assistant professor
in an East Asian language department expresses similar astonishment concerning
the need to reconfigure her identity to align it with current professional service
requirements:

At the time that I finished the doctoral program, I was not familiar with
community service and did not expect to be involved with it. Currently, I and
another two colleagues, work with a few school districts and a Japanese
heritage school. We provide workshops for teachers and parents, observe
classes, and offer advice. In addition, service at the department level, the
college level, and the university level are required. One third of my work is
community service. In summary, my teaching load has become heavier and
community service is an important part of what I must accomplish.

A third finding of this study is that despite challenges to one’s professional identi-
ties that occurred at boundary crossings, the individuals in this study often found
creative solutions to identity conflict. These solutions, as the analysis indicates,
were largely the result of having apprenticed into various aspects of professional
life during doctoral study. Developing collaborative relationships with communi-
ties of practice representing diverse ideas and research initiatives allowed these
individuals to resolve unexpected conflicts and contradictions that arose when
they crossed the boundary from student to professional.
Indeed, in all ten cases, conflicts of various kinds arose along the pathway from
student to professional. We are compelled to point out, however, that the most
conflict emerged when the newly minted PhD was a trailing spouse; that is, where
the recent graduate followed the husband to his new position. In contrast, for
seven out of ten cases, the partners or husbands of our respondents were trailing
spouses and moved to a new location so that their partners or wives could assume
a new position. In these cases, fewer challenges to identity emerged.
The experience of one trailing spouse reveals how agency interacts with iden-
tity and how creative and concrete reformulations of the self may take place when
present reality does not coincide with figured professional worlds developed
during graduate study. A trailing spouse recounts her inability to find work suit-
able to her academic background but explains how she has creatively ‘recovered
[her] professional identity” through her children, her work in a university summer
language program, and her involvement in professional organizations.

I have recovered my professional identity whenever we make a decision

about my children’s language education. For example, my daughter now

28984.indb 231 24/09/2014 09:42

 232 Richard Donato et al.
goes to French Immersion, . . . and to Japanese Saturday Supplemental
School. Justification for my decisions is based on the knowledge from my
Ph.D. program, and I believe it has been working very well when we see our
daughter’s language proficiency in three languages.

She goes on to state:

Last year, I had an opportunity to offer my own program, an intensive summer

Japanese language program in Toronto. This is part-time, but still I could do
everything I wanted for the program as a coordinator. By teaching in the
summer intensive program, I started to participate in the professional
organization for Japanese as Foreign Language in Canada. Since I’m not a
university professor in the group, I’m still not in the position of someone who
can give advice. But some people in the organization started to recognize my
professionalism and asked me to help them . . . I’m rather happy to work on
something I could not do before PhD training. I’m more confident when I
guide people – my professional identity sustains me.

It is noteworthy that this trailing spouse concludes her account with the statement
that her professional identity sustains her in a professionally restrictive environ-
ment. Although, she is not able to participate fully in professional life, her iden-
tity, which she ascribes to her doctoral formation, becomes a source for creative
solutions to the problem of lack of employment opportunities and for finding a
redemptive identity-in-professional practice, albeit part-time and volunteer.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the narratives of these ten individuals who have followed different
pathways since the time of their doctoral study present us with a lens through
which we can trace the journey from doctoral training to professional life, assess
our work with doctoral students, and understand more completely issues of profes-
sional identity formation and re-formulation in the field of applied linguistics. Our
hope is that by giving voice to these dedicated professionals through their discur-
sive constructions of self in the context of their current positions, their work with
others, and their life events, we have a deeper understanding of how professional
identities are shaped, modified, and enacted in the various contexts of work in
applied linguistics.

Notes
1 We sincerely thank the respondents for their detailed and candid comments to our survey
questions.
2 Recent discussions on doctoral education have emphasized that among all the educa-
tional innovations in primary, secondary, and tertiary education that have taken place
during the past decade, doctoral education remains the one area that has not undergone
significant innovation and improvement.

28984.indb 232 24/09/2014 09:42

 Professional identities in applied linguistics 233
3 Although all participants permitted us to use their responses in this study and the univer-
sity review board for research granted us permission to do so, we will not provide exten-
sive details of their present positions, university affiliations, or professional associations.
Information on each respondent will be provided in the analysis to provide the necessary
contextual information to support our interpretation of responses.
4 Although one member of the research team was primarily a quantitative researcher, we
opted for only a qualitative analysis in this study. As Block (2003, p. 53) points out,
quantitative analysis in identity studies (e.g., likert scales) reveals very little about how
individuals construct themselves in language or the kind of language practices they
engage in when discussing identity issues.
5 One partial problem may be with the concept of scaffolding that the apprenticeship
model entails (see Walker, et al., 2008). Scaffolding implies learning from expert assist-
ance to complete specific tasks. Conceptual development is not part of the metaphor of
scaffolding. A better way of conceptualize assistance during doctoral study is mediation.
That is, where scaffolding attempts to assist the novice with the task at hand, mediation
is directed toward the development of new cognitive functions, which in turn, may have
an impact of one’s identity, self-efficacy, and self-regulation (Chaiklin, 2003; Davin and
Donato, 2013; Poehner, 2008).

References
Adawu, A., and Martin-Beltrán, M. (2012). Points of transition: Understanding the
constructed identities of L2 learners/users across time and space. Critical Inquiry in
Language Studies, 9(4), 376–400.
Bendle, M. (2002). The crisis of identity in high modernity. British Journal of Sociology,
53(1), 1–18.
Block, D. (2003). The Social Turn in Second Language Acquisition. Washington, DC:
Georgetown University Press.
Brown, J. S., Collins, A., and Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of
learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32–42.
Chaiklin, S. (2003). The zone of proximal development in Vygotsky’s analysis of learning
and instruction. In A. Kozulin, B. Gindis, V. S. Ageyev, and S. M. Miller (Eds), Vygot-
sky’s Educational Theory in Cultural Context (pp. 39–63). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Davin, K. and Donato, R. (2013). Student collaboration and teacher-directed classroom
dynamic assessment: A complementary pairing. Foreign Language Annals, 46(1), 5–22.
Dominguez, R. (2002). Curricular Innovation in Elementary School: A Case for Spanish
Language Literacy (unpublished doctoral dissertation). Carnegie Mellon University,
Pittsburgh, PA.
Fairclough, N. (2003). Analyzing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London:
Routledge.
Grossman, P. and McDonald, M. (2008). Back to the future: Directions for research in
teaching and teacher education. American Educational Research Journal, 45, 184–205.
Halliday, M. A. K. and Matthiessen, C. (2004). An Introduction to Functional Grammar.
(3rd edn). London: Arnold.
Hendry, H. J. (2009). Foreign LanguageLlearning of Students with Language Learning
Disabilities: An Activity Theory Perspective of Three Middle School Students.
(Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.
Holland, B., Lachicotte Jr., W., Skinner, D., and Cain, C. (1998). Identity and Agency in
Cultural Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

28984.indb 233 24/09/2014 09:42

 234 Richard Donato et al.
Holland, D. and Lave, J. (Eds). (2001). History in Person. Santa Fe, NM: School of
American Research Press.
Igarashi, K. (2003). Documenting Language Play in FLES Students from a Sociocultural
Perspective: Exploring its Impact on L2 Development. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation).
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.
Laclau, E. and Mouffe, C. (1985). Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical
Democratic Politics. London: Verso.
Maki, P. L. and Borkowski, N. A. (2006). The Assessment of Doctoral Education: Emerging
Criteria and New Models for Improving Outcomes. Sterling, VA: Stylus.
McKinney, C. and Norton, B. (2008). Identity in language and education. In B. Spolsky
and F. M. Hult (Eds). Handbook of Educational Linguistics (pp. 192–205). West Sussex:
Blackwell.
Pavlenko, A. (2007). Autobiographic narratives as data in applied linguistics. Applied
Linguistics, 28(2), 163–188.
Poehner, M. E. (2008). Dynamic Assessment: A Vygotskian Approach to Understanding
and Promoting L2 development. Berlin: Springer.
Trent, J. (2013). Becoming a teacher educator: The multiple boundary-crossing experi-
ences of beginning teacher educators. Journal of Teacher Education, 64(3), 262–275.
Walker, G. E., Golde, C. M., Jones, L., Bueschel, A. C., and Hutchings, P. (2008). The
Formation of Scholars: Rethinking Doctoral Education for the Twenty-first Century.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Weedon, C. (1997). Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory. (2nd edn). Cambridge:
Blackwell.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Wood, D., Bruner, J. S., and Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem solving.
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 17(2), 89–100.

28984.indb 234 24/09/2014 09:42

 17 Teaching for market-place utility
Language teacher identity and the
certification of adult ESL teachers in
Ontario

Brian Morgan

Introduction: insights and blind spots in LTI research

The fact that the topic of Language Teacher Identity (LTI) warrants full treatment
in an edited collection is to be celebrated for its innovative expansion and revitali-
zation of the knowledge base of language teacher education (LTE). Still, and
especially because of this tangible recognition, those most invested in LTI work
and its dissemination might also consider this as an opportune moment to
reflect on not only the insights but also the blind spots that such work offers
field professionals; that is, to see LTI work as always potentially and paradoxi-
cally “dangerous” knowledge,1 requiring ongoing vigilance in practice and
alignment with specific program demands as well as personal histories and
community priorities. For many of us in language teacher education, our
investment (cf. Norton, 2000) in LTI work reflects a desire to foster and enhance
the agency of new practitioners (e.g. Duff, 2012; Ilieva, 2010; Morgan, 2009;
forthcoming). Toward this goal, important research has examined the sociohis-
torical and professional discourses that shape the subject-formation of practi-
tioners and serve as sites of mediation and transformation in LTE. Several agentive
examples can be cited, including Crookes’ (2010) promotion of a “personal
philosophy of teaching” in LTE, Clarke and Morgan’s (2011) discussion of the
enabling/constraining effects of specific theories of language on LTI formation,
Mahboob’s (forthcoming) analysis of “identity management” through ELT texts
in Pakistan, as well as Monte Mór’s (2013) examination of the lingering barriers
for agency in Brazilian ELT after decades of military intervention and
dictatorship.
In common, a focus on agency in LTI foregrounds the “inner world” of the
teacher/subject—her or his values, emotions, and experiences and their discursive
articulation—as central and ongoing concerns for pedagogy and syllabus design.
To illuminate such a focus, new teachers are often required to document their
emergent professionalization through journal writing and various narrative and
auto-ethnographic forms of self-expression. Yet, as “dangerous” knowledge
(cf. Foucault), we should also acknowledge a latent compulsion behind such tech-
niques in that they potentially advance a “confessional obligation” (Morgan and
Clarke, 2011, p. 830), incurring the resentment of teachers, peers, or compatriots

28984.indb 235 24/09/2014 09:42

 236 Brian Morgan
when these personalized texts are deemed “inauthentic” or fail to conform to
prevailing ideologies and narratives.
Aligned with a desire to foster agency, close attention to the inner world of the
teacher has other “dangerous” possibilities, ones that are of central concern in my
chapter. Most important, the micro-practices of LTI work have the potential for
promoting “bottom-up” change, but also of exaggerating the capacity for the
same, hence creating the conditions by which teacher agency (or a lack thereof)
might be co-opted as a convenient scapegoat for academic under-achievement,
whose sources are more fairly attributable to larger socio-economic processes and
policies for which individual teachers are relatively powerless to redress. One
such example, I would argue, is the current certification procedures for adult ESL
instructors in Ontario and the types of bureaucratic practices, through which a
professional LTI is monitored and authorized in this jurisdiction. Such bureau-
cratic practices are indicative of market-place utility (Corson, 2002), which I will
discuss in greater detail below and employ as an analytical lens to examine certi-
fication practices used in Ontario. Finally, I shall draw from a recent survey of
adult ESL teachers in Ontario (Valeo, 2013) and discuss the current state of
professional identity formation that it reveals.
To reiterate, the purpose of this chapter is not to disparage identity-based
practices (i.e. reflection papers, journal writing) that are mainstays in my own
LTE courses (Morgan, 2009), but to see them as always potentially dangerous,
offering both insights and blind spots in the professional development of language
teachers. Part of the danger I allude to reflects the fundamentally performative (cf.
Butler, 1990) nature of LTI work and our collective desire for greater control over
our conditions of work (e.g. Clarke, 2013; Motha and Lin, 2013). The languaging
of such aspirations may indeed bring about many of the possibilities named in
discourse, but it can also induce a kind of conceptual solipsism by which the trans-
formative potential of our work is greatly over-estimated. As the following discus-
sion suggests, the economistic and bureaucratic re-ordering of society, reflected in
terms such as neoliberalism and market-place utility, might indeed prove largely
impenetrable to the agency we hope to foster in LTI work.

Market-place utility: the economic and bureaucratic

restructuring of society
“Teaching and learning for market-place utility” was the title of David Corson’s
last journal article, published in 2002, a year after his death on June 1, 2001.
Corson, a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the
University of Toronto, was an internationally respected scholar, researcher and
editor in education, with broad intellectual interests that encompassed language
policy in the service of social justice and minority education. Corson was also a
formidable public intellectual, on numerous occasions contributing full-length
articles to local newspapers, in particular, challenging the emerging propensity of
governments to curry public favor through tax reductions gained through the
aggressive reduction of government activity (i.e. the funding and administration

28984.indb 236 24/09/2014 09:42

 Teaching for market-place utility 237
of social welfare) and system-wide “efficiencies” wrought from surviving and
crippled public programs, many of which supported the most vulnerable members
of society. The term neoliberalism, one currently and broadly used for such
developments (e.g. Block et al., 2012; Clarke and Morgan, 2011), was not preva-
lent in Corson’s descriptive arsenal, perhaps a reflection of his public voice and
the confusion that arises in North American contexts, where current liberalism is
equated – and often pejoratively – with expanded social and economic responsi-
bilities for governments, in essence, the opposite of the liberalism that emerged in
eighteenth century England.
Corson’s (2002) article is a brilliant and biting critique of the Progressive
Conservative government of Ontario at the time (1995–2003), its leader, Premier
Mike Harris, and the self-styled “common-sense” revolution for which they
became (in)famous. In ways that paralleled the electoral successes of Ronald
Reagan, Harris’s “common-sense” conveyed the gloss of everyday populism, but
with the right kinds of rigor that drew support from society’s most powerful and
affluent constituencies. In Corson’s words:

The Ontario Government’s guiding metaphor seems to be that all human

beings inhabit a market place where the quality of something is decided
according to the price it can fetch, rather than according to any intrinsic and
real qualities it might have. This distortion of reality is having a harmful
impact on human social relations wherever unbridled capitalism reaches,
especially on the bonds that exist between people . . . Another effect of all
this is to project a respect for bland sameness onto the social world, rather
than a respect for the actual diversity that the social world contains.
(p. 6)

In his article, Corson details specific policy developments of concern: e.g. the
Ontario government’s preoccupation with skills for a high-tech/knowledge
economy, its reduced funding for fine arts and social sciences, and the introduc-
tion of standardized curricula and mandatory provincial tests – with the results
and rankings of schools released to the public, again, based on the populist
assumptions that such rankings can be taken at face-value with the concomitant
parental “choices” enhancing value-for-dollar expenditures in education. As
Corson recognized, one of the most damaging and long-term consequences of this
type of ranking and exposure was the effects it was having on the identity forma-
tion of teachers in the province. The government’s propensity to blame teachers
for any failures or shortcomings in the changes imposed by the bureaucracy was
generating a loss of confidence in public education and the professionalism of its
teachers and administrators.
Corson’s article is exemplary not only for the way in which he reveals the
havoc resulting from misguided educational policies, but also in the specific
recommendations he offers for teacher agency. In particular, he identifies the need
for critical language awareness as a tactic of resistance for schooling and for
public life. And he uses it most effectively in his article, particularly the way he

28984.indb 237 24/09/2014 09:42

 238 Brian Morgan
deconstructs and historicizes the notion of “common sense” widely circulated to
justify the changes imposed. Corson’s suggestion is a lifeboat of sorts in that we
come to feel powerless in questioning or challenging decisions when they are
framed in natural or commonsensical ways. Similar points regarding the discur-
sive naturalization of neoliberal values have been made by others such as Ruqaia
Hasan (2003, p. 446) and her description of the “glib-speak” of institutions such
as the World Bank, IMF, and WTO. As she argues, neoliberal values do not spread
solely on their intrinsic “merit” but also through language practices that seek to
construct realities favorable for their spread.
We might draw inspiration from such colleagues whose work suggests that in
our roles as language educators and specialists, we have particular areas of exper-
tise with which to historicize and critique the language practices that advance
market-place utility. For example, one of the key arguments we hear from the
business community is that economic globalization exists separate from human
creation or agency, and that it requires us to be more competitive, more efficient
– especially governments who need to cut taxes, de-regulate, and release the
entrepreneurial spirit lying innate in all of us. This common-sense argument has
been around for quite some time, indeed, since the late eighteenth century and
the birth of the liberal creed that underpinned early capitalism. In its origins, it is
the argument claimed for Economic Man/Homo Economicus – our natural state of
being, as Adam Smith described it, our human “propensity to barter, truck and
exchange one thing for another” (Polanyi, 1944, p. 43). Then and now, it is the
rationale for self-regulating markets, laissez-faire, and the so-called “invisible
hand” of supply and demand, providing the greatest good for the greatest number
of people – the essence of market-place utility.
Yet, this was always more rhetoric than reality. Let me quote from a remarkable
book [originally written in 1944] called The Great Transformation, written by the
economic historian and anthropologist, Karl Polanyi, and from a chapter titled
“Birth of the liberal creed.” As Polanyi notes:

There was nothing natural about laissez-faire; free markets could never have
come into being merely by allowing things to take their course. Just as cotton
manufacturers – the leading free trade industry – were created by the help of
protective tariffs, export bounties, and indirect wage subsidies, laissez-faire
itself was enforced by the state . . . [leading to] an enormous increase in the
administrative functions of the state, which was now being endowed with a
central bureaucracy able to fulfil the tasks set by adherents of liberalism.
(p. 139, emphasis mine)

Polanyi describes this historical co-development as the paradox or double move-

ment of laissez-faire. In examining this quote, it is not hard to recognize many of
the “paradoxical” features characteristic of the neoliberal agenda today. That is, in
spite of the rhetoric proffered by business leaders, “free enterprise” principles are
partially and selectively applied: self-regulation – or no regulation – for some (i.e.
multinational corporations; clients of off-shore tax havens); and for others (dare I

28984.indb 238 24/09/2014 09:42

 Teaching for market-place utility 239
say those of us in education) – an over-regulated reality: more rules, more account-
ability, and increasing standardization of practices.
Still, Polanyi was not simply concerned with bureaucratic growth. He was
concerned, as well, with its techniques and forms of rationality, preceding in key
ways Foucault’s (2008) later work on governmentality and the birth of biopolitics
as outlined in the Lectures at the Collège de France.2 Polanyi identified the impor-
tance in the development of Taylorism, or scientific management (e.g. Braverman,
1974), and the time-motion studies utilized to re-organize labor processes toward
greater efficiencies. Science and bureaucracy were not just making capitalism
more efficient and profitable. For the first time in history, Polanyi argued, society
– in total – was being remade in economistic terms:

Instead of economy being embedded in social relations, social relations are

embedded in the economic system.
(p. 57)

The development of the market system would be accompanied by a change in

the organization of society itself. All along the line, human society had
become an accessory to the economic system.
(p. 75)

We might debate the extent to which Polanyi’s historical analysis rings true today,
and Corson’s article suggests that there is much truth to it. Still, when we research
and talk about notions such as “human capital theory” (e.g. Gibb, 2008) or
“language as commodity” (Heller, 2010), we affirm the extent to which our
identity/subjectivity can be reconstituted on economistic terms, whereby partic-
ular language practices and a whole range of social relations and activities can
become quantified and monetized, and treated as factors of production, which in
turn become overriding priorities for education in the service of market-place
utility. Corson certainly saw this as a dominant trend and particularly dangerous
for the loss of diversity involved and life chances of ethno-linguistic minorities.
To reiterate, he strenuously argued that neo-liberal discourses were not common
sense, and they should not remain unchallenged by those of us who are language
educators and professionals.

Negotiating the “Hidden Curriculum” of adult ESL

certification in Ontario
This chapter now shifts towards a discussion of LTE and a consideration of
Corson and Polanyi’s work in respect to the ways in which market-place utility
and neoliberal values condition the identity options negotiated by new language
teachers. I base my comments and observations, in large part, on my own practical
experiences as a program coordinator of a TESOL certificate program in Toronto
and also as a course instructor in the same program. I will focus on two aspects
of programming: one, the professional certification process for ESL teachers of

28984.indb 239 24/09/2014 09:42

 240 Brian Morgan
adults in Ontario; two, the knowledge base of Language Teacher Education as
related to the Canadian Language Benchmarks (Pawlikowska-Smith, 2000) and
official curricula derived from them.
First, it is useful to highlight the historical background regarding the provision
of language instruction and the training of ESL teachers in Ontario (e.g. Burnaby,
2002; Fleming, 2007). In the Canadian constitution, education is designated as an
area of provincial jurisdiction whereas immigration is a federal matter, though the
provinces, in recent years have become more active in immigration matters. In
1967, the federal government became concerned about its labor needs for a rapidly
expanding economy. Its response was to prioritize a skilled workers category for
immigration and to increase its settlement funding. To avoid a constitutional
conflict in respect to education, the federal government decided to provide funding
for adult ESL with the provinces providing the actual hiring and instruction. This
program, the Manpower Program, was specifically targeted toward the language
needs of adults recently unemployed or soon to enter the labor market. Eligible
students were provided with 24 weeks of full time instruction and a training allow-
ance. In Ontario, community colleges provided a majority of this instruction as
they already had an established infrastructure, and experienced adult educators
involved with providing adult basic education and business courses.
In short, the provinces were not prepared to provide the language expertise
needed. To address this gap, the provincial government of Ontario created a
Citizenship Branch to help with second language and settlement matters and to
work with NGOs and boards of education, which were also providing adult ESL
classes. In 1970, the Citizenship Branch helped set up a teachers’ organization
called TESL Ontario, who are now currently responsible for certifying non-credit,
adult ESL teachers in Ontario and the teacher training programs authorized to do
certification training. I will provide more detail below regarding TESL Ontario’s
role in the accreditation of adult ESL teachers, but I’d like to return to the federal
government’s ESL policies and move to the 1980s, and a time of a rejuvenated
and aggressive neo-liberalism under Reagan, Thatcher, and in Canada, Brian
Mulroney. Most significantly, during this time, the federal government decided to
get out of the costly Manpower program by establishing a program called
Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada or LINC. LINC would become a
means of avoiding the wage scales and relative security of unionized teachers in
community colleges. A broad range of agencies (colleges, school boards, and
Non-Governmental Organizations) would now bid annually on competitive
contracts to provide the service of language instruction for the government.
Around the same time, the federal government, through Citizenship and
Immigration Canada, determined the need for a set of nation-wide language stand-
ards or benchmarks, the rationale being that both newcomers and employers
would have a reliable set of performance indicators that could be transferable for
labor and education mobility throughout the country. These nation-wide language
indicators, called the Canadian Language Benchmarks, consist of 12 scaled or
graded benchmark levels, each level containing closely-specified descriptions
of communicative competencies and task based performance outcomes. The

28984.indb 240 24/09/2014 09:42

 Teaching for market-place utility 241
document itself is a remarkable accomplishment, reflecting the efforts of language
educators and professionals in consultation with a broad range of stakeholders
from various levels of government and immigrant-serving communities. Under
the direction of the Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks (CCLB, estab-
lished in 1998 by the federal government), the CLBs continue to be revised, (most
recently 2012) along with the continued generation and publication of numerous
supporting documents for assessment and instruction (see e.g. the website for the
CCLB: http://www.language.ca/).
Though I do not wish to detract from the good intentions of those involved, I
would suggest that we also think about the descriptive achievement of the CLBs
through Corson’s notion of “market-place utility,” in which language is organized
and displayed in ways that reflect, if not exemplify, Polanyi’s observation of
“human society . . . becom[ing] an accessory to the economic system” (p. 74). The
notion of “accessory,” here, foregrounds an alignment of interests – linguistic
with extra-linguistic – by which particular ways of organizing language articulate
closely with political and economic exigencies (indeed, a key rationale in the
original creation of the CLBs: i.e. the professed “need” for national language
proficiency standards for new immigrants and employers). We might then consider
the 12-level, closely specified CLBs as bearing the imprint of an earlier template:
i.e. the reorganization and control over industrial labor processes under Taylorism
and scientific management. In this sense, we should also reflect on the CLB model
of language as a form of alienation, in the Marxist sense. Something inherently
human (language) is conceptually separated from specific uses and users, treated
as standardized code, objectified (cf. abstract objectivism, Vološinov, 1973) and
fragmented into discrete, hierarchical units and levels, through which system-
wide monitoring and top-down controls are more easily accomplished, facilitating
cost-recovery through the reduction of perceived “inefficiencies” (i.e. centralized
assessment; restrictions on program and course-level duplications across jurisdic-
tions). But the question of whose interests and needs such language models serve
is perhaps less clearly answerable – if posed at all.
Through a more practical lens, it’s important to reiterate that the CLBs are
central to the knowledge base and certification processes for ESL in Ontario and
the rest of Canada. Hence, they are key elements of LTI formation in these juris-
dictions. For many teachers, they represent intrinsic truths about language rather
than particular – and potentially contested – choices made by language specialists.
The CLBs shape curricula, assessment, and language teacher education in direct
and indirect ways, many of which are clearly ideological (e.g. Haque and Cray,
2007; Fleming and Morgan, 2011). For one, national standards disregard the
vibrant trans/multilingualism of major urban centers (e.g. Blommaert and
Rampton, 2011; Otsuji and Pennycook, 2011). The CLBs, instead, reinforce the
belief/desire of the nation-state as a homogeneous speech community as well as
language competency as the sole barrier for newcomer integration, disregarding
the forms of systemic employment discrimination and racism that persist (e.g.
Guo, 2009). As well, the existing LINC funding formula, in which an arbitrary
number of students must attend or the course is cancelled on short-term notice,

28984.indb 241 24/09/2014 09:42

 242 Brian Morgan
tends to support lower-level instruction, whereas more advanced students with
more specialized needs are more likely to leave classes when/if employment
opportunities arise.
One identity effect noted by critics is a kind of passive citizenship and infanti-
lization of students in lower level LINC classrooms (e.g. Fleming, 2007; Fleming
and Morgan, 2011; Joshee and Derwing, 2005). In such settings, teachers trained
through methods that emphasize monolingual instruction and maximum exposure
in the L2 are likely to view their students as lacking the language skills needed to
engage seriously with participatory content related to social justice and racism. In
upper level LINC courses, such discussions in a L2 could be more easily inte-
grated. However, new curricula and policy have instead shifted primarily toward
employment related language training, including sector-specific programming for
some trades and professions. Again, this is evidence of market-place utility
whereby advanced language instruction is directed to serve the provision of
human capital for a knowledge economy, an argument persuasively made by Tara
Gibb (2008).
Of course, teachers need to be trained in particular ways to realize these new
efficiencies. Along with the creation of benchmarks, and the privatization of
programming, governments have moved to define professional standards for the
language teaching profession. In Ontario, the provincial government funded
TESL Ontario to produce a set of standards for teachers working in LINC and
other non-credit adult ESL programs. These professional standards have evolved
into detailed, compulsory criteria in respect to certification requirements for adult
ESL in Ontario. To these criteria I briefly turn.

Ensuring the supply of skilled and under-employed teachers

Obtaining language instructor accreditation from TESL Ontario has crucial
professional implications in that it is required for employment in government-
funded, adult ESL programs (see: http://www.teslontario.net/accreditation/
languageinstructor). Accreditation requires a number of components such as a
Bachelor’s Degree, proof of English-language proficiency for Non-Native
English-Speaking Teachers, and a certificate from a TESL Training Program
accredited by TESL Ontario. These training programs themselves must meet
particular specifications in order to receive their certification. I would invite
readers to peruse this website and discover the complex ways in which it defines
a professional LTI. While visiting the site, readers should also take note of the
bureaucratic detail outlined for those who wish to teach or train teachers for
government-funded, adult ESL in Ontario. For example, in the initial institutional
application, each entry in the Required TESL Courses Chart (RTCC)3, 44 in total,
asks for the entry of a course code, course name, instructional hours, and whether
the content is delivered on-site or online. The application package itself lists 24
directives for prospective applicants (including 12 bulleted criteria for the 24th).
It requires the completion of three charts (including CVs of instructors), submis-
sion of a calendar of each required and optional course in the program, as well as

28984.indb 242 24/09/2014 09:42

 Teaching for market-place utility 243
course outlines for each (including credits and instructional hours), program texts
(including author, publisher, and publication date), and the differentiation between
“course texts and resource texts.” If accepted, TESL training programs are
required to submit annual reports and an annual re-certification fee as well as
notify TESL Ontario of any changes to curricula or personnel.
In the RTCC, one of the more arbitrary and contradictory aspects of the practica
requirements is that they can only take place in Ontario,4 even though teaching
adult EFL and English to international students are specified requirements in the
Foundations (30 hour) component of the Methodology section of the RTCC. For
teacher training programs – often universities – that might be able to provide an
international experience in the formation of LTI, this TESL Ontario restriction
hampers program coordinators who must prioritize practica settings recognized
by the organization. By reversing this restriction and recognizing a few hours in
an international setting, TESL Ontario in fact would be allowing for a more
authentic and enriching experience of Teaching English as a Foreign/International
Language. Perhaps more importantly, such a change would help expose students
to more lucrative and available work opportunities abroad, a key consideration
given the current level of under-employment reflected locally, a point to which I
now turn.
It is important to point out that not only official accreditation by TESL Ontario
but also annual membership in the organization is compulsory in order to apply
for and obtain a teaching position in a government-funded (federal, provincial,
board of education) adult-ESL program. A first time accreditation fee is $100. A
standard membership fee along with an annual accredited membership renewal
costs teachers $168. Remarkably, particularly once you reflect on the regulatory
detail and complexity of accreditation for teachers and teacher trainers, these
compulsory and substantive fees do not guarantee a teaching position for appli-
cants/members. Nor do they mark a finishing point in the organization’s regula-
tion of teachers, as they are required to fulfill a minimum of five hours of
recognized professional development (PD) per year to have their accreditation
renewed.
The following list of PD items came from the TESL Ontario website in 2009. It
provides a list of recognized PD activities and assigns hourly values to each. I
have selected eight items from a list of 15, which does not purport to be
exhaustive, as the website notes that other PD activities will be considered on an
individual basis.

Activities recognized as professional development for

certification renewal
• Attending a TESL Ontario or TESL affiliate workshop or other adult–ESL
related workshop: Actual length of workshop to a maximum of five hours per
day
• Presenting at a TESL Ontario or TESL affiliate workshop or conference:
Maximum of five hours per presentation for each workshop topic

28984.indb 243 24/09/2014 09:42

 244 Brian Morgan

• Mentoring Instructor for a TESL Ontario–recognized TESL training program:

Maximum of 25 hours per renewal period
• Member of a TESL affiliate executive or TESL Ontario executive board:
Maximum of ten hours per certification period
• Publication of an Adult ESL-related article: With submission of article, a
maximum of five hours per year
• Publication of an Adult ESL-related book: Maximum of 25 hours per renewal
period. Please provide bibliographic details of the book, including the ISBN
number.
• Viewing of TESL Ontario workshops online through TESL Ontario website-
ACORN: half hour will be recognized per one hour of viewing
• Training in the use of the Canadian Language Benchmarks and assessment
tools: Actual length of workshop

Given that accreditation renewal requires a minimum five hours of PD, the list
above is certainly not onerous, and indeed promotes important aspects of ongoing
professional identity work. But what is particularly intriguing for me is the cali-
bration and commodification of each item – again, a bureaucratic accomplishment
that echoes scientific management and the spirit of market-place utility. It would
indeed have been interesting to participate in the decision-making process by
which these quantified exchange values were determined and assigned to each PD
activity.

Professional development practices: panopticism,

governmentality
In the most recent document (2013), a change of significance requires teachers to
retain proof of their various PD activities (e.g. confirmation letters, certificates,
registration slips, etc.). Moreover, members are “advised” that they are potentially
subject to a PD audit. Indeed, some might find the impersonal bureaucratic tone
surprising for an organization claiming to represent teachers’ interests:

Please be advised that 10% of renewals due in every given month are selected
randomly and receive a PD Audit Notice about a month before the renewal
due date. The selected members will be required to submit (mail, fax, email,
or deliver) their proof of PD by their accreditation expiry date to be eligible
for accreditation renewal.
(http://www.teslontario.net/accreditation/activities-recognized-as-pd)

The rationale behind a random PD audit of members may reflect a number of

factors: limited resources with which to monitor and administer this part of the
accreditation process, or perhaps a desire not to overload members with additional
tasks (i.e. submission of proof of PD). Another perspective is to reconsider this
randomness as a form of panopticism, as Foucault first discussed in Discipline
and Punish and later in the Lectures at the Collège de France (2008). The

28984.indb 244 24/09/2014 09:42

 Teaching for market-place utility 245
Panopticon, conceived by liberal philosopher, Jeremy Bentham in the late
eighteenth century, was a spatial design proposed for prisons, factories and
schools by which those within could be perpetually supervised, and through the
knowledge of this permanent condition, these inmates, workers, and students
would be “free” to modify their own behaviors in compliance with the productive
and regulatory needs of government, and Foucault’s (1983b) particular under-
standing of this latter concept:

Basically power is less a confrontation between two adversaries . . . than a

question of government. This word must be allowed the very broad meaning,
which it had in the sixteenth century. “Government” did not refer only to
political structures or to the management of states; rather it designated the
way in which the conduct of individuals or of groups might be directed: the
government of children, of souls, of communities, of families, of the sick
[and of teachers! – BM]. It [involves] modes of action, more or less consid-
ered and calculated, which were destined to act upon the possibilities of
action of other people. To govern, in this sense, is to structure the possible
field of actions of others.
(emphasis mine, p. 221)

My point in making such comparisons is not to dismiss the substance of what is

being required and regulated by TESL Ontario. Most of us in the English Language
Teaching profession can recognize that the course content required and ongoing
professional development, in many ways, enhance LTI formation. But I want to
reiterate an alternative: that this certification process is also a form of government,
in Foucault’s sense, in the structuring of our possible field of actions in ways
complementary to – if not essential for the realization of market-place utility (cf.
Corson). Foucault’s work compels us to apply an uncommon sense to the everyday
norms/rules by which we live and work – and to question these conditions so that
we might imagine and subsequently act upon empowering alternatives. The
current state of ESL in Ontario, and its marginalizing and demoralizing effects on
teachers’ identities/subjectivities warrants such attention.

Conclusions
In sum, new ESL teachers in Ontario are forced to climb a mountain of bureauc-
racy with diminished opportunities at the pinnacle. This is a concern I share with
researchers such as Burnaby, Fleming, Haque and Cray. As they note, most of the
jobs for which these teachers are certified consist of hourly paid, part-time work,
a lack of benefits, and persistent job insecurity. These highly qualified teachers
often work in LINC classrooms without adequate space and resources. And they
often teach multi-streamed classes with continuous intake – a further challenge
not often acknowledged by the creators of the CLBs and LINC.
Polanyi’s insights on the bureaucratic paradox of laissez-faire can be re-stated:
In service to a globalized, “knowledge economy,” both the federal and provincial

28984.indb 245 24/09/2014 09:42

 246 Brian Morgan
levels of government have developed a system whereby privatization and self-
regulation are encouraged for some and hyper-regulation is required of others.
This paradox is reinforced by the fact that membership fees and certificate criteria
are compulsory to work in government-funded programs. The resulting mode of
production thus guarantees a surplus of skilled labor, in turn allowing govern-
ments and administrators to claim that they are providing the same quality of
service and accelerating learning while at the same cutting funding for adult ESL
in Canada and Ontario.
Governments like to claim that they are only responding in commonsense ways
to “realities beyond their control,” but as Polanyi observed in the Great
Transformation, this was a myth in the beginnings of capitalism and it continues
to be so. Burnaby’s (2002) assessment of the government’s “not-so-invisible”
hand on LTI formation in Ontario is worth noting here:

Both levels of government were instrumental in the early professionalization

of ESL teachers, but eventually deprofessionalized teachers and allowed their
working conditions to deteriorate. Since the flow of money in the 1980s
slowed down and the federal government began to fund on a competitive
basis, both mainstream and immigrant group-specific NGOs and school board
adult ESL programs have increasingly struggled under the competitive and
accountability exigencies of current adult ESL funding.
(p. 76)

What then about the future of ESL and language teacher education in Ontario, and
other jurisdictions with similar experiences. In terms of LTI negotiation, my sense
is that new student-teachers recognize many contradictions: they see that while
governments emphasize the essential need for skilled immigrant labor, those
entrusted with their language training are treated as non-essential labor.
Accordingly, a TESL Ontario certificate for many is a temporary stop, something
to use for travel or a part-time source of income while pursuing better life
opportunities.
Recent data from the TESL Ontario members survey (Valeo, 2013) seem to
corroborate such analyses. In its survey of 1,327 respondents (30 percent of the
membership), data show only 37 percent with full-time ESL teaching work, 31
percent with part-time employment, and 21 percent not employed at the time of
the survey. These levels of under-employment are particularly disappointing
when measured by the fact that 40 percent of the respondents “have completed
education beyond the minimum required for professional accreditation” (p. 56).
Valeo (2013) also notes important demographic data: a large majority of women
in the field, and an aging membership with “36% approaching retirement in the
next 10 years” (p. 56).
It’s difficult to read too much into these statistics, but I would like to interpret
them in the broader context and purposes of this chapter. As Foucault (2008)
observed, for a free labor market to flourish, “there must be a large enough number
of sufficiently competent, qualified, and politically disarmed workers to prevent

28984.indb 246 24/09/2014 09:42

 Teaching for market-place utility 247
them exerting pressure on the labor market. We have then the conditions for the
creation for a formidable body of legislation and an incredible range of govern-
mental interventions . . . needed in order to govern” (p. 65). In Ontario, the current
status of under-employment in adult ESL, as well as the elaborate, costly and
compulsory system of accreditation, fulfill the governmental priorities Foucault
identifies and Corson decries. ESL teachers in Ontario seem to be aware of these
precarious job conditions, which might explain the maturing membership indi-
cated by the TESL Ontario membership survey (Valeo, 2013). They also recog-
nize that they are being asked to do more and to take on greater responsibilities. In
our TESOL training programs we tell them that there is no “one-size-fits-all”
approach; we also tell them that they have agency and that they need to make
informed choices that affect the identities of their L2 students. And this is where
Foucault’s conception of government is significant – because “in tough economic
times,” when our ESL students’ opportunities are most restricted, the only respon-
sible “choice” for the teacher may seem to be conformity to market-place utility.
Returning to the notion of insights and blind spots that began this chapter, we
might consider the degree to which LTI work adequately addresses the “politi-
cally disarmed workers” (cf. Foucault) that increasingly graduate from our TESOL
certificate programs and whose voices of dissatisfaction and marginalization are
inscribed within the statistics collected in Valeo’s (2013) study. While a focus on
the “inner world” of the teacher is an important dimension of LTI formation, it
may be insufficient preparation for the kinds of collective agency needed, in which
both pedagogy and broader-based advocacy are essential components of LTE.

Notes
1 The sense and implication of danger here is attributable to Foucault (1983a): “My point
is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the
same as bad. If everything is dangerous, then we always have something to do”
(pp. 231–232).
2 There is a relevant contrast to be made regarding the function of bureaucracy in Polanyi
and Foucault’s work. Whereas in Polanyi’s analysis, the “double movement” of bureau-
cratic growth is viewed as a mitigating response against the excesses of laissez-faire, in
Foucault’s work, bureaucracy appears as an intrinsic element of governmental reason, as
can be gleaned from the latter’s discussion of the management of freedom in neoliber-
alism: “The new governmental reason needs freedom, . . . this liberalism is not so much
the imperative of freedom as the management and organization of the conditions in
which one can be free, . . . Liberalism must produce freedom, but this very act entails the
establishment of limitations, controls, forms of coercion, and obligations relying on
threats, etcetera” (Foucault, 2008, pp. 63–64).
3 The RTCC specifies the components of three areas of accreditation: Theory (70 hr.),
Methodology (120 hr.), and the Practicum (50 hr.) For access to the complete chart, go
to: http://www.teslontario.net/accreditation/institutional In the section on “Initial
Accreditation”, click on “here” (MS Word File).
4 For example, the RTCC states: “Practicum hours should be completed in at least two of
these settings in Ontario [emphasis added on website]: LINC, Adult ESL, EAP (English
for Academic purposes), ELT (Enhanced Language Training), ESP (English for Specific
Purposes), OSLT (Occupation Specific Language Training)”.

28984.indb 247 24/09/2014 09:42

 248 Brian Morgan
References
Block, D., Gray, J., and Holborow, M. (2012). Neoliberalism and Applied Linguistics. New
York: Routledge.
Blommaert, J. and Rampton, B. (2011). Language and Superdiversity. Diversities, 13(2),
1–23. UNESCO. ISSN 20796595 www.unesco.org/shs/diversities/vol13/issue2/art1
Braverman, H. (1974). Labour andMmonopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the
Twentieth Century. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Burnaby, B. (2002). Reflections on language policies in Canada: Three examples. In J. W.
Tollefson (Ed.), Language Policies in Education (pp. 65–86). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York:
Routledge.
Clarke, M. (2013). The sublime objects of education policy: quality, equity and ideology.
Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, DOI:10.1080/01596306.2013.
871230
Clarke, M. and Morgan, B. (2011). Education and social justice in neoliberal times: Histor-
ical and pedagogical perspectives from two postcolonial contexts. In M. Hawkins (Ed.),
Social Justice Language Teacher Education (pp. 63–85). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Corson, D. (2002). Teaching and learning for market-place utility. International Journal of
Leadership in Education, 1, 1–13.
Crookes, G. (2010). Language teachers’ philosophies of teaching: Bases for development
and possible lines of investigation. Language and Linguistics Compass, 4(10),
1126–1136.
Duff, P. A. (2012). Identity, agency, and second language acquisition. In S. M. Gass and A.
Mackey (Eds), The Routledge Handbook of SLA (pp. 410–426). New York: Routledge.
Fleming, D. (2007). Adult immigrant ESL programs in Canada: Emerging trends in the
contexts of history, economics and identity. In J. Cummins and C. Davison (Eds), The
International Handbook of English Language Teaching (pp. 185–198). New York:
Springer.
Fleming, D. and Morgan, B. (2011). Discordant anthems: ESL and critical citizenship
education. Citizenship Education Research, 1, 28–40.
Foucault, M. (1983a). On the genealogy of ethics: An overview of a work in progress. In
H. Dreyfus and P. Rabinow (Eds), Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Herme-
neutics (2nd edn) (pp. 229–252). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Foucault, M. (1983b). The subject and power. In H. Dreyfus and P. Rabinow (Eds), Michel
Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (2nd edn) (pp. 208–226). Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press.
Foucault, M. (2008). The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France (trans.
G. Burchell). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gibb, T. (2008). Bridging Canadian adult ESL second language education and essential
skills policies: Approach with caution. Adult Education Quarterly, 58, 318–334.
Guo, Y. (2009). Racializing immigrant professionals in an employment preparation ESL
program. Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry, 1(1), 40–54.
Haque, E. and Cray, E. (2007). Constraining teachers: Adult ESL settlement language
training policy and implementation. TESOL Quarterly, 41, 634–642.
Hasan, R. (2003). Globalization, literacy and ideology. World Englishes, 22, 433–488.
Heller, M. (2010). The commodification of language. Annual Review of Anthropology, 39,
101–114.

28984.indb 248 24/09/2014 09:42

 Teaching for market-place utility 249
Ilieva, R. (2010). Non-native English speaking teachers’ negotiations of program discourses
in their construction of professional identities within a TESOL program. Canadian
Modern Language Review, 66(3), 343–369.
Joshee, R. and Derwing, T. M. (2005). The unmaking of citizenship education for adult
immigrants in Canada. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 6, 61–80.
Mahboob, A. (forthcoming). Identity management, language variation, and English
language 1 textbooks. In D. Djenar, A. Mahboob, and K. Cruickshank (Eds), Language
and Identity Across Modes of Communication. Boston, MA: Walter de Gruyter.
Monte Mór, W. (2013). The development of agency in a new literacies proposal for teacher
education in Brazil. In E. S. Junqueira and M. E. K. Buzato (Eds), New Literacies, New
Agencies? A Brazilian Perspective on Mindsets, Digital Practices and Tools for Social
Action in and Out of School. New York: Peter Lang.
Morgan, B. (forthcoming). Identity, agency and language teacher education: “Horizons of
possibility” in/for the developing world. Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 10(1).
Morgan, B. (2009). Fostering transformative practitioners for critical EAP: Possibilities
and challenges. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 8, 86–99.
Morgan, B. and Clarke, M. (2011). Identity in second language teaching and learning. In
E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning
(Vol. 2) (pp. 817–836). New York: Routledge.
Motha, S. and Lin, A. (2013). “Non-coercive Rearrangements”: Theorizing desire in
TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, DOI: 10.1002/tesq.126
Norton, B. (2000). Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational
Change. Singapore: Pearson Education.
Otsuji, E., and Pennycook, A. (2011). Metrolingualism: Fixity, fluidity and language in
flux. International Journal of Multilingualism, 7(3), 240–254.
Pawlikowska-Smith, G. (2000). Canadian Language Benchmarks 2000. Ottawa: Centre
for Canadian Language Benchmarks.
Polanyi, K. (1944/1957). The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins
of our Time. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Valeo, A. (2013). TESL Ontario membership survey: A brief report. Contact Magazine,
Spring Issue, pp. 54–57.
Vološinov, V. N. (1973). Marxism and the Philosophy of Language (L. Matejka and
I. R. Titunik, trans.). Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.

28984.indb 249 24/09/2014 09:42

 Subject Index

[Text to come]

28984.indb 250 24/09/2014 09:42

 Author Index

[Text to come]

28984.indb 251 24/09/2014 09:42

28984.indb 252 24/09/2014 09:42