Becoming a language teacher educator: An outsider perspective (original) (raw)
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This paper describes a narrative study that emerged from various conversations with an English language teacher at a public university in Bogotá, Colombia. This research is based on intersectional narratives to locate the intersections between English language pedagogy and the identities of English language teachers. Second, the study examined discourses that can construct English language pedagogy and teachers' identities by avoiding simplistic generalizations and essentialisms. Findings suggest that although there are still colonial roots that repress other ways of being and doing, English language pedagogy goes beyond the instrumental sense of teaching. As such, English language pedagogy is about transformation as it is never static because it is an extension of identity.
Language Pedagogy and Teacher Identity A Decolonial Lens PROFILE JOURNAL
This paper describes a narrative study that emerged from various conversations with an English language teacher at a public university in Bogotá, Colombia. This research is based on intersectional narratives to locate the intersections between English language pedagogy and the identities of English language teachers. Second, the study examined discourses that can construct English language pedagogy and teachers' identities by avoiding simplistic generalizations and essentialisms. Findings suggest that although there are still colonial roots that repress other ways of being and doing, English language pedagogy goes beyond the instrumental sense of teaching. As such, English language pedagogy is about transformation as it is never static because it is an extension of identity.
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This paper accounts for the inspection of two language teachers’ identities and language pedagogy through six conversations in a sixth-month period at two universities in Bogotá, Colombia. By adopting a no-methodology perspective, this study resorts to the notion of narrative to document language pedagogy experiences and inspect how the traditional, yet static notions of teacher identities and language pedagogy, are configured and re-configured through the pedagogical practice. Therefore, findings revealed that English language teachers contest marginal and hegemonic identity constructions through enacting their pedagogy conception. As a result, alternative ways of being and doing are exposed as a mechanism to exist and re-signify what language pedagogy has meant in the English language teaching field.
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Despite its imprecision, the native-nonnative dichotomy has become the dominant paradigm for examining language teacher identity development. The nonnative English speaking teacher (NNEST) movement in particular has considered the impact of deficit framings of nonnativeness on "NNEST" preservice teachers. Although these efforts have contributed significantly towards increasing awareness of NNEST-hood, they also risk reifying the notion that nativeness and nonnativeness are objectively distinct categories. This article adopts a poststructuralist lens to reconceptualize native and nonnative speakers as complex, negotiated social subjectivities that emerge through a discursive process that the author terms (non)native speakering. It then applies this dynamic framework to analyze "narrative portraits" of four different archetypical language teachers, two of whom seem to fit neatly into (non)native speakerist frames of language and culture and two of whom deviate from them. It then reflects on how these preservice teachers negotiate, re-create, and resist the produced (non)native speaker subjectivities, and considers the complexity, fluidity, and heterogeneity within each archetype. In the conclusion, the author consider implications of (non)native speakering as a theoretical and analytical frame, as well as possible applications of the data for teacher education.
Introduction: Identity, Transdisciplinarity, and the Good Language Teacher
What constitutes a “good teacher” and “good teaching” has come under much scrutiny in an age of globalization, transnationalism, and increased demands for accountability. It is against this evolving landscape and the pathbreaking work of the Douglas Fir Group (DFG, 2016) that this special issue engages the following two broad questions: (a) In what ways is language teaching “identity work”? and (b) To what extent does a transdisciplinary approach to language learning and teaching offer insight into language teacher identity? We begin this Introduction with a discussion on identity research in second language acquisition and applied linguistics, and then address innovations in language teacher identity research, exploring how this work has been advanced methodologically through narratives, discourse analysis, and an ethical consideration of research practices. We then consider how the transdisciplinary framework of the DFG, and its focus on macro, meso, and micro dimensions of language learning at the ideological, institutional, and classroom levels, respectively, might contribute to our understanding of language teacher identity. In the final section, we argue that the host of complementary theories adopted by the six contributors supports the view that a transdisciplinary approach to language teacher identity is both productive and desirable. Further, the contributors advance the language teacher identity research agenda by taking into consideration (a) how teacher identity intersects with the multilingual (Higgins and Ponte) and translingual (Zheng) realities of contemporary classrooms, (b) the investment of teach- ers in developing the semiotic repertoires of learners (Stranger–Johannessen and Norton) and a socially inclusive learning environment (Barkhuizen), and (c) the emotions (Wolff and De Costa) and ethical practices (Miller, Morgan, and Medina) of teachers. Central to all articles in this special issue is the need to recognize the rich linguistic and personal histories that language teachers bring into the classroom in order to promote effective language learning.
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Critical language teaching education has become an inescapable endeavor for language teacher education programs. To contribute to this effort, this paper outlines the implementation of an English course from a critical, intercultural perspective, during the first semester of a language teacher education program in Colombia. It also reports the ways preservice teachers responded to this implementation as evidenced in data stemming from their oral and written outcomes and from course evaluations. Results indicate that this approach to language teaching allowed preservice teachers to affirm their multiple identities as they developed and strengthened their language skills in English. Data also indicate that looking at the world from a more critical perspective entailed contradictions and challenges for preservice teachers and the teacher educator.
Language Teacher Identity in a Non-Native Context: The Case of Teachers of English Language in Ghana
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Discussions on teacher identity have underscored the need to explore the nuances of identity from subject-specific domains including language teaching. Despite this call, language teacher identity, especially in ESL contexts, has received little attention over the years. To close this knowledge gap, the study investigated how English language teachers in Ghana construct their identities as English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ESL teachers who were selected through purposive sampling. The data was analyzed qualitatively by coding, identifying, categorizing, and interpreting the emerging themes. It was found that ESL teachers’ identity is defined by three elements: personal attributes, professional attributes, and contextual factors. On a personal level, the identity of ESL teachers is characterized by passion, diligence, self-efficacy, and a sense of inadequacy. Professionally, subjectmatter knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and technological knowledge were found. Lastly, key contextual identity-defining factors are curriculum and educational policies, classroom conditions, and intrinsic motivation from learners’ success stories. The study recommends further investigation into intersecting factors such as gender on non-native ESL teachers' identity formation.
English Language Preservice Teachers' Identity Construction Within Academic and Other Communities
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This article reports on a doctoral research that sought to unveil the identities present in the communities to which four English as a foreign language preservice teachers belong. The study was carried out with a decolonial perspective that included an interepistemic dialogue among narrative inquiry, narrative pedagogy, and the indigenous research paradigm. The main instrument of data collection was autobiographies. The participants and the researcher analysed data jointly. The findings indicate that the preservice teachers’ identity construction is mutable and not essentialised. Mutable as it changes over time and not essentialised since it involves social, cultural, and personal dimensions.