Research of Language Teacher Identity: Status Quo and Future Directions

Introduction

At the beginning of the 21st century, researchers in the field of second language teacher education (SLTE) proposed that language teacher education research should move from a transmission, product-oriented perspective to a constructivist, process-oriented stance of teacher learning (e.g. Crandall, 2000; Freeman, 2002). The former perspective conventionally views language teachers as passive recipients of knowledge; the latter stance, comparatively, holds that L2 teachers are sources of knowledge, who actively participate in teacher learning and construct the knowledge of teaching. Now after 20 years, SLTE has increasingly recognized the sociocultural nature of L2 teacher learning and emphasized the development of language teacher identity as an essential process in L2 teachers’ growth (e.g. Freeman, 2020; Johnson and Golombek, 2020). During these two decades, a large number of studies have been conducted to focus on the topic of language teacher identity, and the accumulated research creates further implications to understand how L2 teachers learn to become teachers. To summarize the contemporaneous theories and research of language teacher identity and propose directions for future studies, this article reviews how language teacher identity is conceptualized and examined in the existing literature, and discusses further directions of language teacher identity research.

The Construct of Language Teacher Identity

Language teacher identity encompasses an L2 teacher’s understanding of the meaning of being a language teacher and his/her professional role of working as a language teacher (Miller, 2009). On one hand, the identity construct speaks to the nature of language teacher identity that language teacher identity is about L2 teachers’ understanding of who they are: ‘As teachers or students, as gendered and cultured individuals, as expatriates or nationals, as native speakers or nonnative speakers, as content-area or TESL/English language specialists, as individuals with political convictions, and as members of families, organizations, and society at large’ (Duff and Uchida, 1997: 451). This understanding is linked to L2 teachers’ positions in the social, cultural, historical, and political contexts of language teaching, thus language teacher identity is multiple, dynamic, and involves power relationships in social discourses (Peirce, 1995).

Meanwhile, language teacher identity also highlights how L2 teachers enact their roles in teaching practices (Miller, 2009). An important theoretical foundation of this notion is the community of practice theory, which holds that people develop meanings of themselves, their understanding about the world, and their places in the world by participating in communities of practice (Wenger, 1998), and identity development is an indispensable process when people negotiate and construct meanings in social practices (Lave and Wenger, 1991). Therefore, language teacher identity is formed and demonstrated in L2 teachers’ participation in language teaching activities in professional communities of practice.

In all, Miller (2009) summarizes the components of language teacher identity that include:

Antecedent Theories of Language Teacher Identity: Self and Identity

The root of language teacher identity can be traced to self and identity theories in social psychology. The construct of self refers to ‘a warm sense or a warm feeling that something is “about me” or “about us”’ (Oyserman et al., 2012: 71). It speaks to an essential capacity of human mind for reflexive thinking: ‘The ability to take oneself as the object of ones’ attention and thought’ (Leary and Tangney, 2012: 6).

Compared to self, identity is more specifically about a person’s self-concepts (Stets and Burke, 2003). Although self and identity are sometimes used interchangeably, they stress on different aspects of self-concepts. Self describes the sense when ‘I’ think about ‘me’, so self-concepts are parts of self as they are formed by the content of the ‘mental concepts or ideas of who one is, was, and will become’ (Oyserman et al., 2012: 72), Comparatively, identity is a distinct component of self-concepts, which is about ‘the internalized meanings and expectations associated with the positions one holds in social networks and the roles one plays’ (Oyserman et al., 2012: 74). Therefore, self-concepts can be seen as nested in self, and identity in self-concepts.

To date, the research of identity mainly focusses on what constitutes the content of identity and through which processes identity is formed. The content of identity includes the individual, relational, and collective identities (Sedikides and Brewer, 2001). The social-cognitive perspective in Berzonsky (2011), as an example to conceptualize the processes of identity formation, proposes three identity-processing orientations (i.e. informational processing, normative processing, and diffuse-avoidance processing), all highlighting the significant role of contextualized social practice in influencing identity formation. Finally, a more integrative perspective of identity is proposed, which emphasizes the existence of multiple identities within one person, and these identities interplay to influence how this person behaves in social practices (Vignoles et al., 2011).

A Sociocultural Perspective in Contemporaneous Language Teacher Identity Research

Informed by self and identity theories and research, language teacher identity also captures notions of personal beliefs and reflections. However, the research of language teacher identity today has moved away from a pure psychological orientation and toward a more contextualized sociocultural perspective (Miller, 2009). This is because SLTE has been increasingly recognizing the significant explanatory strength of a sociocultural stance in examining language teachers’ growth, and the development of language teacher identity has been viewed as a central process in L2 teachers’ teacher learning practices (Johnson and Golombek, 2020).

According to Johnson (2009), the field of SLTE has shifted from a positivist orientation toward a sociocultural perspective of teacher education. Sociocultural theory conceptualizes human learning as a complex and dynamic social activity, which takes place in physical and social worlds and is influenced by human relationships (Vygotsky, 1978). In language teacher education, a sociocultural perspective holds that L2 teachers develop knowledge through their engagement in social activities and social relationships; learning is more than merely transmitting the accumulated knowledge and skills, but involves ‘the progressive movement from external, socially mediated activity to internal meditational control’ (Johnson, 2009: 2). Viewed as learners of teaching, L2 teachers are thought to engage in continuous teacher learning, and at the heart of teacher learning is the development of language teacher identity (Freeman, 2016).

In recent years, a number of studies have been conducted to investigate the development of language teacher identity in teacher learning, drawing upon the sociocultural perspective of L2 teacher education. For example, He and Lin (2013) focussed on a pre-service L2 teacher’s experience in teaching practicum and found that this teacher fell into a liminal position where she had little voice in choosing and determining what and how she could teach the L2, but had to incorporate or impose what was designated to her. The analyses showed that such experience of lacking agency in teaching practice caused multiple negative issues in the participant’s language teacher identity development, such as in areas of beliefs of her own teaching expertise, relationships with students, colleagues, and mentors, and views toward L2 teaching.

In another study, Kanno and Stuart (2011) followed two novice L2 teachers and demonstrated that the development of language teacher identity involved a process where novice L2 teachers firstly played the role of teachers and then gradually formed their own language teacher identity. For instance, these teachers did not immediately construct an authoritative teacher position in relationships with students, but progressively realized that the absence of authority left them in a vulnerable situation and impeded the flow and quality of L2 instruction. Therefore, they began to take on an authoritative role of L2 teacher in teaching practices, but it was not until after continuous evaluation and practice that this role was internalized to become a part of these teachers’ language teacher identity.

Additionally, in more recent years, there is a growing body of literature that focusses on language teacher identity in L2 teachers’ professional development. For example, Xu (2017) explored an L2 teacher’s language teacher identity crisis when participating in an English teaching contest. The findings revealed that this teacher’s teaching beliefs were confronted with pressure of the teaching competition and tensions between institutional expectations versus her personal goals in teacher learning. These pressure and tensions led to the teacher’s self-evaluation of herself as failure, and eventually caused her withdrawal from the teaching contest. Based on these findings, the author argued the important role of identity struggles in language teacher identity development, that in this case teacher learning occurred superficially as legitimate peripheral participation in the professional communities of practice, whereas ‘a deeper learning did not take place until her identity crisis’ (Xu, 2017: 366).

Toward a Socialization Perspective of Language Teacher Identity Formation

The sociocultural perspective of language teacher education has provided much insight into conceptualizations of language teachers as learners of teaching and the development of language teacher identity as a central process in teacher learning. It emphasizes a situated nature of teacher learning, that learning to teach is embedded in socioculturally constructed communities of practice (Johnson, 2009; Johnson and Golombek, 2003). Specifically, teacher learning, as a particular type of human learning activity, is situated in social, cultural, historical, and institutional contexts (Vygotsky, 1978). During the teacher learning process, teachers engage in specific social activities where their ‘knowledge and beliefs are constructed through and by the normative ways of thinking, talking, and acting that have been historically and culturally embedded in the communities of practice’ (Johnson, 2009: 17).

These conceptualizations have generated an increasingly recognized role of socialization in language teacher identity development. Burns and Richards (2009) posit that it is through socialization in communities of practice that L2 teachers develop knowledge, gain membership, negotiate discourse, and construct professional identities. Richards (2008: 160) argues that ‘the nature of teacher learning . . . is viewed as a form of socialization into the professional thinking and practices of a community of practice’, and language teacher-learners negotiate and develop language teacher identity through the socialization process in social practices of a specific community (Singh and Richards, 2006). Farrell (2003, 2011) demonstrates that teacher learning in classroom teaching involves a process of socialization where L2 teachers gain approval and membership from mentors and colleagues in the professional community, during the process of which language teacher identity is formed. Additionally, Freeman (2016) furthers the conceptualization by placing language teacher identity formation at the intersection of professional socialization and language socialization. On one hand, professional socialization takes place in L2 teachers’ participation in professional communities of practice. Language socialization, on the other hand, occurs in L2 teachers’ experience of learning and using the target language.

In the existing literature, a handful of studies have been conducted to explore how language teacher identity is developed in the professional socialization process of teacher learning. For instance, Vélez-Rendón (2006) showed that cooperating teachers played an important role in socializing pre-service teachers into the professional conduct of L2 teaching, as they were usually the experts and sources of knowledge who guided pre-service teachers’ teaching. In another study, Hayes (2008) uncovered the professional socialization experience of a group of teachers and revealed the various forms of socialization in teacher learning, such as self-socialization as novice teachers inducted into professional teaching, and socialization with more experienced colleagues when old-timers of the teaching community socialized newcomers into the established norms of L2 teaching. Besides, Shin (2012) provided additional evidence to show the influence of professional socialization on L2 teachers’ use of languages in classroom teaching. The findings demonstrated that novice language teachers’ decision-making in selecting languages in L2 teaching was greatly influenced by a set of factors, such as ‘school structures that offer teachers little control over materials, methods, pace, and evaluation [of L2 teaching]; school cultures that discourage new methods; and traditional ingrained beliefs about English instruction’ (Shin, 2012: 558).

These professional socialization studies have contributed rich information on how L2 teachers develop understandings about themselves and language teaching through interactions with more experienced members of the teaching community. However, as Freeman (2016) argues, the starting point of professional socialization can be seen as pre-service L2 teachers’ learning experience in language teacher education, where the experience of ‘apprenticeship of observation’ (Lortie, 1975) gradually develops into ingrained though sometimes unarticulated beliefs of language teacher identity and practice. To date, much is still unknown in pre-service L2 teachers’ professional socialization experience when they participate in legitimate peripheral teacher learning, and how language teacher identity is constructed at this early stage of professional socialization.

Moreover, compared to professional socialization studies, research investigating the language socialization aspect of language teacher identity remains scarce. Language socialization refers to ‘the process by which novices or newcomers in a community or culture gain communicative competence, membership, and legitimacy in the group’ (Duff, 2007: 310). It is important to consider the role of language socialization in language teacher identity development, since L2 teacher learning is also substantively carried out when L2 teachers participate in linguistically indexed and culturally informed learning activities. In this socialization process, language teachers negotiate expectations, execute agency, and construct knowledge, beliefs, and identities to gain legitimate membership in local communities of practice of L2 teaching.

To summarize, future studies of language teacher identity may consider the following research directions:

Conclusion

The review of the existing research shows that a more situated nature of teacher learning is emphasized in SLTE today, and language teacher identity is developed through L2 teachers’ learning and teaching practices in sociocultural activities. The development of language teacher identity has been increasingly viewed to involve a socialization process in teacher learning, which includes professional socialization and language socialization. To extend the field’s knowledge of how language teacher identity is negotiated and constructed, more research is needed to examine how pre-service L2 teachers develop language teacher identity in professional socialization, and how language socialization influences L2 teachers’ language teacher identity formation.