Modern Language Teacher Identity Formation Through Engagement with Exploratory Practice: The Future Will Tell

Being native and being foreign

Australian Review of Applied Linguistics ◽

10.1075/aral.19059.min ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Harumi Minagawa ◽

Dallas Nesbitt

Keyword(s):

Identity Formation ◽

Teacher Identity ◽

Target Language ◽

Linguistic Identity ◽

Online Questionnaire ◽

Tertiary Institutions ◽

Individual Interviews ◽

Tertiary Teaching ◽

Teacher Identity Formation ◽

Language Teacher Identity

Abstract Pennington and Richards (2016) argue that if the medium of instruction (MOI) is not the native language of the instructor, lack of proficiency in the MOI could bring about a lack of confidence. This study inquired how native Japanese as a Foreign Language (JFL) teachers at tertiary institutions in New Zealand and Australia perceive their English proficiency, how it influences their linguistic identity, and how the fact that they are native speakers of the target language influences their linguistic identity. Based on responses from an online questionnaire with more than 50 respondents as well as 12 follow-up individual interviews, this study argues that their linguistic identity is not narrowly conceived around their non-nativeness in English and nativeness in Japanese, but constructed from more multi-faceted aspects of language teacher identity formation, especially by factors pertinent to the very nature of the tertiary teaching environment in these countries.

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Language Teacher Identity Formation

Revista Linguagem em Foco ◽

10.46230/2674-8266-13-5191 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 381-402

Author(s):

Victoria Oliveira da Silva ◽

Larissa Dantas Rodrigues Borges

Keyword(s):

Foreign Language ◽

Professional Identity ◽

Identity Formation ◽

Student Teachers ◽

Undergraduate Students ◽

Teacher Identity ◽

Emotional States ◽

Teacher Identity Formation ◽

Language Teacher Identity

Becoming a teacher is a process that underlies different aspects and purposes of social interaction and the construction of a professional identity. Student-teachers perception of themselves and their emotional states might differ from what is expected from them or even from their own goals. Therefore, this research attempted to investigate the development of teacher identity formation in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) students through their own perception of their professional identity. It was conducted as a case study and the participants were undergraduate students in the last term. An open-ended questionnaire was used to collect data. Practical activities related to teaching and contact with teaching contexts and with students had a positive evaluation on the part of student-teachers regarding the formation of their identity as teachers. This research demonstrates the importance of the practice in the context of teacher training for the establishment and maturation of teacher identity.

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Research of Language Teacher Identity: Status Quo and Future Directions

RELC Journal ◽

10.1177/0033688220961567 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 003368822096156

Author(s):

Yuan Sang

Keyword(s):

Teacher Education ◽

Identity Development ◽

Identity Formation ◽

Teacher Identity ◽

Status Quo ◽

Identity Status ◽

Socialization Process ◽

Language Teacher Education ◽

Language Teacher ◽

Language Teacher Identity

After 20 years of study since researchers of second language teacher education have increasingly emphasized the importance of investigating L2 teachers’ mental lives, the research of language teacher identity has been flowering and providing intriguing insights to deepen the field’s understanding of how L2 teachers develop and learn to become teachers. While a sociocultural perspective of language teacher education speaks to the situated nature of teacher learning and language teacher identity development, this perspective has generated a growing body of literature that highlights the role of socialization in language teacher identity formation. Reviewing the important ideas and findings in the existing research, this article begins with a summary of theoretical conceptualizations of language teacher identity, and then examines the status quo of contemporaneous language teacher identity research. Next, it discusses the socialization process in language teacher identity development, and ends with further research directions for future studies.

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Teaching to, with, and Against the Test: Language Teaching and Teacher Identity Under Institutional Neoliberalization

Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics ◽

10.1515/cjal-2019-0019 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 42 (3) ◽

pp. 307-326

Author(s):

Enmou Huang

Keyword(s):

Identity Formation ◽

Teacher Identity ◽

Language Teaching ◽

Language Education ◽

Ethnographic Study ◽

Language Teacher ◽

Public Middle School ◽

Teacher Identity Formation ◽

Language Classrooms ◽

Focal Language

Abstract Neoliberalism has emerged as a keyword that captures some core features of global economic and educational reforms in recent years. This paper reports a linguistic ethnographic study of how a Chinese language teacher was engaged with neoliberal discourses on language education in and out of the classroom in a suburban public middle school in China, with an attempt to illuminate the complexity of language education in a neoliberal context. The analysis shows three general identity positions—as an opponent, a conformist, and a pragmatist—across the identification trajectory of the focal language teacher through the fieldwork period, in relation to neoliberal exam-oriented education and her various ways of engaging with exam discourses in her language classrooms. This inquiry argues for the perspective of unpredictability and complexity as an alternative that goes beyond the current “deterministic neoliberalism” in understanding the dynamics of neoliberalization in language education, language teaching, and teacher identity formation.

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