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stating that teacher’s voices are suppressed under a dominant discourse, more
understanding to teachers’ struggles in accepting and also rejecting the acculturation of a socially-expected role is needed. On the other hand, Gee (2000) views teachers’
professional identity as a socially-recognized one in which a teacher is accepted with certain power to interact with others in workplaces. In the process of seeking to be recognized, Gee found that teachers’ interpretation and reinterpretation of professional identity among social interaction play a critical role.
To echo with Gee, a fixed view of professional identity has been replaced by many field-related researchers into a psychologically and socially constructed one within an ongoing, developmental, and recursive process. Among the process, the meaning is derived from social interaction with other people. Hence, people constantly change their interpretations of their experiences while living through various contexts (Cooper &
Olson, 1996). In association with social perspectives that centers on social interaction within situated contexts, factors that influence the transformation of professional identity are elucidated in the second part that follows. In the next part, four studies conducted in EFL contexts are presented.
Professional Identity in EFL Contexts
To explore language teachers’ professional identity, the importance of contextual factors and social interaction contributing to the process of identity transformation needs to be focused. As Varghese (2005) claims, ‘in order to understand language teaching and learning we need to understand teachers; and in order to understand teachers we need a clear sense of the professional, cultural, political, and individual identities which teachers claim or which are assigned to them’ (p. 22). Also, to understand a clear sense of identity transformation, its feature of multiplicity needs to be explored. Wenger (1998) identifies such feature as a nexus of multi membership by which people negotiate their situated identity from
various various identity positions. Among the process of negotiation, the influence of
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social interaction with other people constantly challenges the teacher’s current identity and allows a new dialectical process to begin. To explore professional identity transformation from the angle of social and contextual interaction, the following section focuses on four EFL contexts.
The transformation of teachers’ professional identity is found to have strong interaction with contextual factors within one single EFL context. To begin with, teachers’ understanding of identity from teacher training program is challenged by their critical reflection to teaching purposes. Abednia (2012) explored seven in-service Iranian teachers’ transformation of professional identity. By conducting interviews with them, keeping the researcher’s reflective journals, and recording class discussions, he discovered that these teachers’ professional identity experienced a major shift from ideological “conformity” and “romanticization” to “critical autonomy” (p. 709). Also, their view of English teaching changes from “instrumental” into “educational.”
One participant reported in an interview: “We are not bound to accept everything,”
adding that blindly accepting every institutional regulation can “disempower” her
authority (p. 710). Besides the contextual influence within one EFL context, this sense of teaching subjectivity also enables other participants to transform their professional identity while having social interaction with their students and parents. In an attempt to raise her students’ awareness, one participant adopted an educational identity,
encouraging her students to take actions to their
lives and realize their potential. By exploring the participants’ critical reflection to the regulations and transformation of their view on teaching purposes, the researcher calls for further research on various dimensions of teachers’ identity and teaching performance that may contribute to TESOL (Teaching English for Speakers of Other Language) teacher education.
Also, the gap of imagined identity and practiced identity affects the transformation of EFL teachers’ professional identity. Xu (2013) explored the
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identity change of four Chinese EFL teachers in the beginning years of teaching in K-12 school. By conducting interviews, collecting participant journals, and observing in classrooms, he discovered that identities change from “cue-based,” “exemplar-based” in the pre-service period into “rule-based,” “schema-based” while teaching. After entering the in-service period, feeling unappreciated and “robbed” from chances to enter teaching competition, one participant’s professional identity was transformed from an imagined
“language expert” into a schema-based teacher negatively realizing that in a Chinese institution, “many things,” such as professional connections and personal backgrounds, are more important than teaching ability.
Another two participants reported that their time is constantly occupied with workloads and that their efforts received similar lack of acknowledgement from their directors. As reported by one of these two participants, her director’s only concern was whether she followed the school rules. As a “routine performer” (p. 83), her previously imagined spiritual guide identity is transformed into a “rule-based” teacher identity. The fourth participant adopted a new identity as a “responsible educator.” Though troubled by similar stressful workloads, she took up a role model figure who sees herself as an
educator responsible for her students. Her change of identity from a “cue-based”, imagined learning facilitator into a “schema-based,” responsible educator is influenced by her change of an imagined pre-service into a practiced in-service identity. The ideal of being a learning facilitator is one that requires “wisdom and courage” (p. 84) to carry out.
By revealing the transformation of professional identity of four novice EFL teachers in China, Xu (2013) proposes the cognitive enhancement program in teacher education to raise pre-service teachers’ awareness from a more practical view. Also, it has been suggested that teachers’ professional identity transformation should be more associated with socio-cultural factors.
Socio-cultural factors can restrict the development of EFL teachers’ professional identity. Chang (2004) explores the impact of political and social-cultural differences in
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the English learning experiences of five EFL teachers’ and their students’ in Taiwan. With data collected from interviews, reflection journals, classroom observations, and
autobiographies, the study revealed that the participants’ self-perceived identities, such as a non-native EFL teacher, Chinese, Taiwanese, being from the middle-class of the society, contribute to their views of teaching contexts. Owing to the social-cultural differences, the participants reported an increasing gap between curriculum demands and students’
needs. The lack of multicultural text materials limited the teaching performance of the participants, who accordingly applied grammar-translation teaching approaches.
Also, the social-cultural atmosphere at the time, when Mandarin was viewed as a dominant language to Taiwanese society, hindered EFL teachers from developing
themselves into a more socially and culturally involved professional identity. In addition, this study reveals that the participants’ experiences and beliefs about English learning affect their English teaching practices. By arguing that identity does not “exist before the social world (Chang, 2004, p. 3)”, a social-culturally embedded professional identity and more culturally-involved text materials are proposed.
The aforementioned studies have presented that the shifts or fixations in EFL teachers’ professional identity can emerge from social-cultural atmosphere, institutional regulations, and critical reflection on teaching purposes.
Besides these contextual factors in EFL contexts, the transformation of teachers’
professional identity can also occur to EFL teachers with cross-contextual backgrounds.
Le (2012) conducts a qualitative study exploring professional identity
and teaching practices of a group of Vietnamese teachers after their MA TESOL (Teaching English for Speakers of Other Language) education in Australia. Having two identities as learners in Australia and teachers in Vietnam, this group of Vietnamese EFL teachers experienced re-interpretation of Western ideology, negotiation between educational backgrounds and their teaching practice, localization of pedagogy for facilitating compatible communicative language teaching environment, and
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reconceptulization of professional identity.
Before going to Australia, their concept for English teaching career in an EFL context, according to one of the participants is “very simple like teaching math or physics or any subjects.” However, his view of professional identity is negotiated by Western English teaching ideology emphasizing the communicative function that “links people to people” (p. 166). By adopting his cross-contextual knowledge of English learning and teaching, this participant shows a strong appeal to facilitate authentic communication, rather than being the previously self-perceived role of a subject teacher in Vietnamese EFL context.
The influence of having social interaction with students on language teachers’
professional identity is displayed as another participant reported that her cross-cultural background contributes to the transformation of attitude while interacting with students.
Before studying in Australia, she tends to be impatient with shy students. While studying in Australia, she receives instructions from teachers who “always listened to me patiently”
(p. 169). She also reported in her reflective journal that she learns much from the attitude to deal with students.
Observing this shift of attitude from product-oriented to process-oriented pedagogy, together with the shift of teaching roles from a subject teacher to a communication facilitator, Le (2012) states that these participants experience a socially-constructed transformation process of their professional identity. Also, the process is recursive, in which the participants critically reflected on the Western
theory gained from the learning experience in Australia, and “used it as a basis to look more deeply at their professional self ” (p. 174).
Among the process of professional identity shift, the factors of situated contexts and social interaction with other individuals play an important role, as one participant
expresses her confidence in establishing her English competence while learning in Australia. While in Australia, she noticed that TESOL professionals are from the world
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and carry their accents. This finding boosted her confidence in establishing her
professional identity. By actively rejecting in pursuing the pre-conceived native-speaker norm, she encourages her students in Vietnam to accept their accent and to focus more on pronunciation to attain better interpersonal understanding. By exploring and revealing the influence of cross-contextual factors on the participants’ identity, Le (2012) presents a dialectical, culturally compatible professional identity that is both driven by Western ideology and local contexts. Also, I found interaction with other individuals plays a part in identity shifts. Thus, this study draws positioning theory to focus on how a Taiwanese English teacher position herself and is positioned by others among her EFL contexts.