Early Career vs. Long Career Iranian EFL Teacher’s Identity Perception (original) (raw)
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In the past few decades, professional identity has emerged as a separate research area in the field of teaching and learning language. Research has shown that many contextual factors are involved in teachers' perception about their personal identities and the formation of this personality trait. It has been found that professional identity is one of the factors that impacts the curriculum, teachers' beliefs and behavior, and students' learning. Accordingly, the present study attempted to investigate the professional identity of the language teachers in Iranshahr city, Iran. The relationship between gender and work experience of teachers and their professional identity was also explored to determine any significant relationship. 79 language teachers of private language institutes in Iranshahr city participated in this study. To collect the data, a questionnaire developed by Beijaard, Verloop and Vermunt (2000) was used. The questionnaire was piloted and its reliability and internal consistency was verified. Beijaard et al. (2000) identified three aspects of professional identity: teachers as subject matter experts, teachers as didactical experts, and teachers as pedagogical experts. The results showed that teachers identify themselves mostly as didactical experts, then as pedagogical experts, and least as subject matter experts. There was no significant relationship between the gender and experience of the participants and the three sub-scales of professional identity, except for a significant relationship between subject matter expert and experience of the teachers.
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