Language Educators’ Understanding of Authenticity in Teaching and Its Impacts on Their Practices

Abstract

This grounded theory study explored the conceptualization of authenticity in language education. The participants were 30 Iranian English language educators, who were studied as adult learners. The findings revealed that authenticity was conceptualized by language educators as a social and reflective practice under the influence of the instructions of Islam and the collectivist culture of Iran as a country in the Middle East. Three main themes were identified as follows: three-way pedagogical relationship, reflectivity, and context-appropriate adjustments. Three-way pedagogical relationship addressed educators’ learning experiences, subjects driven from the context, and the importance of learners. Also, reflectivity included reflection on content, process, and premise. Furthermore, context-appropriate adjustments referred to the disagreement with conformity to educational systems encouraging nativeness. Indeed, the participants conceptualized authenticity as finding one’s own voice in the midst of the dominant native voices, while reflecting on one’s own pedagogical practices and respecting one’s own religion and context.

Keywords

English language educators adult learners authenticity in teaching a grounded theory approach

Introduction

In his book A Will to Learn, Barnett (2007) defined authenticity as a form of becoming through which individuals find their own voice from among all other surrounding voices through the critical dialogue. Furthermore, Thompson (2015) asserted that “without authenticity, there may be a sense of incompleteness, a sense that individual may not realize his or her full potential. With authenticity comes self-understanding, a sense of identity, and wellbeing” (p. 605). Authenticity has been a topic of interest for scholars who focused on adult education and learning (Ashton, 2010; Brookfield, 2006; Cranton, 2001; Cranton & Carusetta, 2004; Kreber, Klampfleitner, McCune, Bayne, & Knottenbelt, 2007; Palmer, 1997; Rappel, 2015). Elaborating on the meaning of authenticity in adult education and learning, Brookfield (2006) proclaimed that “without authenticity the teacher is seen as potentially a loose cannon, liable to make major changes of direction without prior warning” (p. 57).

Considering the importance of authenticity in adult education, the present study also addressed authenticity of language educators as adult learners, who were employed as faculty members. According to Cranton and Carusetta (2004), faculty development is an adult education enterprise. They also indicated that “faculty members who are reflecting on and cultivating their teaching skills are adult learners engaged in developmental and potentially transformative activities” (p. 5). Additionally, the participants of the present study were English language educators from a country in the Middle East, that is, Iran, who worked at Iranian universities and taught English to Iranian learners whose first language was Persian. According to McKay (2013), authenticity in English language teaching centers on authenticity of materials. Illuminating the meaning of authentic materials in English language teaching, McKay (2013) explained that such materials “are written for native speakers with a particular communicative intent” (p. 1). In her study on authenticity in the English language teaching curriculum, McKay (2013) challenged the insistence on authentic materials in the English language teaching and suggested that such a notion of authenticity cannot provide the opportunity of an authentic voice, because it addresses the native speaker as the idealized speaker and does not allow the nonnative speakers to express their own meanings in the new language. In a similar vein, Roberts and Cooke (2009) suggested that authentic materials cannot provide the possibility for being one’s own self. Focusing on authenticity in the teaching of English to speakers of other languages, Roberts and Cooke (2009) also pointed out that there is a strong need for considering the concept of authenticity from a different perspective whereby there is a possibility for self-expression and authentic voice.

Therefore, this study sought to identify nonnative English educators’ conceptualizations of authenticity in teaching English with regard to their practices. Also, in the current study, authenticity was considered as finding one’s own voice from among the surrounding voices through dialogue with the major texts and voices. As Barnett (2007) argued, “at the heart of this particular sense of authenticity is the idea of discovering the world in one’s ‘own way’, unencumbered by other voices and messages” (p. 43). Indeed, the participants of the present study as nonnative English educators who taught English to speakers of other languages were studied to probe how they could find their own voice in choosing materials, classroom activities, and subject matters from among the dominant voice of native scholars and speakers.

To achieve a deeper insight of the concept of authenticity in the teaching of English to speakers of other languages, the participants’ conceptualizations of authenticity were also interpreted based on three philosophical perspectives on authenticity in teaching, which included the existential, the critical, and the communitarian.

Overview and Background

Interpreting Heidegger’s concept of authenticity, Kellner (1973) defined authenticity as one of the possibilities chosen by individuals to extricate themselves from the phenomenon of other-directedness. Providing a phenomenological interpretation of education, Brook (2009) considered authenticity as “the key to the possibility of a lived experience of being a teacher” (p. 47). Despite a growing interest in authenticity in teaching in higher education (Barnett, 2004, 2007, 2009, 2011; Bonnett & Cuypers, 2003; Brook, 2009; Chickering, 2006; Chickering, Dalton, & Stamm, 2006; Kreber, 2013; Malm, 2008; Sarid, 2015; Splitter, 2009; Thompson, 2015; Tisdell, 2003) and authenticity in teaching in adult education (Ashton, 2010; Brookfield, 2006; Cranton, 2001; Kreber et al., 2007; Palmer, 1997), few studies empirically investigated authenticity in teaching from educators’ perspectives (Cranton & Carusetta, 2004; Kreber, McCune, Klampfleitner, 2010; Rappel, 2015; Vannini, 2007). Reviewing these empirical studies can be worthy of attention with regard to the purpose of the present study.

Cranton and Carusetta (2004) conducted a grounded theory study to probe how university educators perceived authenticity in teaching and how they saw authenticity manifested in their practices. The participants of their study were 22 faculty members from different disciplines and from three university campuses in the Maritime provinces of Canada. The findings of their study revealed that authenticity in teaching consisted of five important themes, including an understanding of oneself both as a teacher and as a person, an understanding of others as human beings, awareness of the relationships with learners, awareness of the educational context, and the engagement in critical reflection.

Additionally, Kreber et al. (2010) conducted semistructured interviews with eight British and one Italian academic educators from different disciplines. Explaining the reason for choosing participants from different disciplines, they also indicated that their participants were not representative of their disciplines and were only considered as regular teachers who taught traditional subjects at a traditional university. Based on the findings of their study, they concluded that authenticity in teaching involved features such as sincerity, consistency between values and actions, reflections on one’s purposes, care for students, care for the subject matters, and self-knowledge.

Moreover, Kreber et al. (2010) compared the features of authenticity extracted from semistructured interviews with six dimensions of authenticity identified in the philosophical and educational literature on the concept of authenticity: being sincere, being true to one’s character, being defined by oneself rather than other people’s expectations, shaping one’s own identity based on what is in the significant interest of learners, care for the subject matters, students and the interest for the use of the subjects that are important and interesting, and critical reflections on core beliefs. Indeed, the findings of their study revealed that sincerity, care for students and the subject matter, and engagement of students in this subject matter were the most noticeable features their participants shared with the interpretations of authenticity found in the relevant literature.

Likewise, Vannini (2007) conducted an ethnographic study to investigate university educators’ experiences of authenticity and explore how their experiences could change across their careers. In his study, Vannini studied 46 faculty members from different disciplines, who worked at an American university. The findings of his study showed the importance of care and the sense of responsibility for becoming an authentic teacher. He also concluded that:

Professors who feel authentic will be prone to carry out good work, that is, to teach with care and passion, to pursue difficult research questions, to recreate an institutional environment that fosters the pursuit of knowledge in an effective and responsible way, and to provide society with direct benefits. (p. 34)

In their study on authenticity, Cranton and Carusetta (2004), Kreber et al. (2010), and Vannini (2007) addressed educators from different disciplines due to the importance of teaching and learning beyond disciplinary boundaries. Elaborating on the significance of teaching within and beyond disciplines, McCune (2009) also highlighted the importance of the deep understanding of each discipline as it can create the new possibilities for effective learning experience in the given discipline. In addition, Donald (2009) contended that a rich understanding of teaching and learning within and beyond disciplines requires more detailed inquiry within each discipline to understand how the experts in each specific discipline function and uncover the unknowns. This point was addressed by the study conducted by Rappel in 2015. Rappel specifically studied six adult language educators in Canada, who taught English to foreign students or immigrants to probe the organizational contexts influencing educators’ practices in the classroom. The participants referred to the problems such as the lack of stability in English language education, the incongruent perceptions of professional practices, and job insecurity, whereas they talked about their own intrinsic motivation for serving others, empowering their own selves, and improving the conditions of their society.

The present study also focused on the English language education, but it can be considered as different from Rappel’s (2015) study. Although Rappel used teacher authenticity as a theoretical framework to examine how language educators’ practices could be influenced by their organizational context, the present study focused on nonnative English educators’ conceptualizations of authenticity, because as long as the meaning of authenticity is unclear and equivocal, it is not possible “to articulate a persuasive rationale for why we should be concerned with the phenomenon in the first place” (Kreber et al., 2007, p. 25). In addition, Rappel studied native English educators, whereas the present study addressed nonnative English educators to explore how such nonnative educators can find their own authentic voice from among the surrounding voices and mainstream thoughts, which are mainly dominated by native English speakers.

In the present study, the participants’ conceptions were also interpreted based on three philosophical perspectives on authenticity, including the existential, the critical, and the communitarian, which were introduced by Kreber (2013). As Kreber explained, these three philosophical perspectives on authenticity “emerged from the reading of relevant literature in the fields of education and philosophy” (p. 15). Indeed, Sternberg (1990) argued that the interpretation of conceptions that reside in the minds of a given group of people based on the existing theories and perspectives can illuminate cultural aspects of those conceptions and shed some lights on the bases of the existing theories and perspectives. According to Kreber and Klampfleitner (2013), such an interpretation of authenticity that addresses both philosophical analysis and educators’ understandings “serves to enhance clarity about the multifaceted meaning of authenticity” (p. 465).

Moreover, Kreber (2013) argued that the existential perspective on authenticity revolves around individuals’ awareness of their unique possibilities and their sense of responsibility through which they can become authors of their own lives. She referred to two features of the avoidance of complacency and willingness to challenge one’s own self as the main features of authenticity from the existential perspective.

Illuminating the critical perspective, she indicated that an authentic person can realize this point that the ways she thinks and acts are influenced by core beliefs and premises, which are formed by her experiences and conditions. Kreber pointed out that the critical perspective on authenticity centers on the avoidance of the uncritical compliance with practices that we do not agree with.

Addressing authenticity from the communitarian perspective, Kreber (2013) contended that authenticity cannot be isolated from the social context, because each person is a member of a wider social context. Indeed, Kreber indicated that authenticity necessitates being responsible toward other people. Focusing on authenticity in teaching, she also explained that authenticity from communitarian perspective involves serving students’ needs and engaging them in the matters that are of their important interest.

Therefore, the present study sought to address the following research questions:

Research Question 1: How do English language educators conceptualize authenticity in the context of teaching?

Research Question 2: How do English language educators’ conceptualization of authenticity affect their pedagogical practices?

Research Question 3: How can English language educators’ conceptualization of authenticity be interpreted based on three philosophical perspective on authenticity, including the existential, the critical, and the communitarian?

Methodology

Participants and Context of the Study

The participants of the present study were selected using theoretical sampling. Merriam (2009) described theoretical sampling as one of the main components of grounded theory whereby the “analysis occurs simultaneously with identifying the sample and collecting the data” (p. 80). In fact, 30 nonnative English educators whose age ranged from 29 to 44 years were chosen as participants. All were Iranian, Caucasian, and Muslim. These educators, among whom 16 were female and 14 male, worked at Iranian state universities and taught English to Iranian English learners whose first language was Persian. The participants’ experience ranged from 2 to 12 years. In addition, all participants were educators of face-to-face classes.

Furthermore, all educators taught the English language to undergraduate learners of English major. The potential participants, who were selected based on their educational degree and teaching experience were invited via e-mail to participate in this study. They were also provided with information about the study. Indeed, I have invited 32 experienced educators with more than 5 years of experience in teaching English to participate in this research. According to Gatbonton (2008), experienced educators are educators with at least 4 to 5 years of teaching experience. Of those invited, 20 educators agreed to take part in the study. Also, participants were selected from educators with master’s degree or the doctoral degree in teaching English as a foreign language, because only educators with master’s degrees or the doctoral degrees are allowed to teach at universities in Iran.

In theoretical sampling, participants are selected based on the features of the emerging categories. Therefore, the analysis of the data that I gathered from 20 experienced educators made me conduct interviews with other educators, who were selected from inexperienced educators or those who had less than 4 years of teaching experience. This time, I invited 18 inexperienced educators to participate in the study. Of those invited, 10 educators agreed to take part in the study. Inexperienced educators were chosen as disconfirming cases to check whether the emerging categories held up for different cases too. Patton (1990) referred to this selection of disconfirming cases as a process for “selecting cases for the purpose of elaborating and deepening initial analysis, seeking exceptions, testing variation” (p. 182).

In addition, the present study was conducted in Iran that is a country in the Middle East with a collectivist culture, whereas the previous empirical studies on the conceptualization of authenticity by Cranton and Carusetta (2004), Kreber et al. (2010), Rappel (2015), and Vannini (2007) were conducted in North America and Western Europe with individualistic cultures. Explaining the meaning of collectivism, Triandis (2001) stated that people of a collectivist culture are mainly interdependent, behave based on in-group norms, are guided by their relationships, and consider the goals of their groups and community as more important than their own goals. According to Scharf and Mayseless (2010), “because a core aspect of the research for an authentic self is related to autonomous and individualistic strings, the process of developing an authentic self may take a somewhat different course in collectivist societies” (p. 86).

As it was stated, participants were nonnative English educators who taught English to Iranian English learners. According to Cook (2005), “in many parts of the world it is simply taken for granted that native speakers are best” (p. 56). She also referred to such a tendency in the English language teaching. Therefore, the current study can be an opportunity to hear the voice of nonnative English educators, who are supposed to be like native English speakers.

Interviews and Memos

Data were collected through in-depth interviews and memos. Each interview lasted for about 2 hours. According to Soklaridis (2009), the in-depth interview is conversational. Each participant was interviewed twice. In the first round of interviews, the participants were asked to answer questions about authenticity in teaching. The second round of interviews was also conducted for the purpose of member-checking. Moreover, memos were written immediately when reading and coding interviews.

Procedure

After selecting the participants, the first round of interviews was conducted. Collecting and analyzing data, I also wrote memos whereby I recorded my own reflections and understandings from the data. Based on the instructions for writing memos offered by Charmaz (2006), I used memo-writing to explore the initial codes, define the extracted codes in terms of their properties, compare categories with each other and against the emerging data and incidents, and elaborate on the existing categories.

Moreover, all interviews were tape recorded and fully transcribed. As participants of this study were English educators, all interviews were conducted in English. Additionally, the interviews commenced with a tentative explanation of the purpose of the study and the participants were asked to express their own understandings and definitions of authenticity in teaching. Some of the guiding questions in the interviews are presented below.

What does it mean to you to be an authentic English language educator?

Would you describe how do you bring your true being in your teaching?

Would you tell me about the materials and activities that an authentic English language educator may use in the classroom?

Would you describe the meaning of being an authentic English language educator concerning your relationship with your learners?

Would you give me examples of being an authentic educator from your work experience?

Although the English language was utilized for writing interview questions, some of the participants answered questions using the Persian language. These data extracts were translated into English by the researcher. In fact, I as the researcher also acted as the translator. According to Temple and Young (2004), this researcher/translator role offers the researcher “significant opportunities for close attention to cross-cultural meanings and interpretations” (p. 168). Then, I asked a colleague (PhD candidate in teaching English as a foreign language) to undertake the back-translation. The final English version was achieved by agreement between my colleague and me. Three coding techniques, including open coding, axial coding, and selective coding, which were proposed by Strauss and Corbin in 1998 as stages of coding procedure in a grounded theory study, were utilized to analyze the data. The first coding technique was open coding whereby the collected data were read line by line and were assigned concepts. The extracted concepts were then put into the more abstract categories.

Additionally, the analysis of the data occurred through the constant comparison whereby the identified categories were constantly compared against the data that were collected through interviews and memos. The identified categories in open coding were then analyzed during the axial coding. Through axial coding, the relations among the main categories and their corresponding subcategories were probed to uncover the relationships and contradictions among categories and subcategories. I also checked and rechecked the data sources which were more relevant to their identified categories. Through selective coding, I reduced the number of the identified categories by putting the similar ones into the larger and more abstract super-category.

In addition, member-checking interviews were conducted to improve the accuracy of the data. After the analysis of the data related to each participant, I conducted another interview with that educator in order to confirm and verify my interpretation of the first interview.

Research Findings

The analysis of the data collected from English language educators led to the extraction of three main themes of three-way pedagogical relationship, reflectivity, and context-appropriate adjustments, which are further explained below.

Three-Way Pedagogical Relationship

The first theme was named three-way pedagogical relationship and included self, learners and the subject matters to be covered in the classroom. The majority of the participants talked about their own selves, their learners, and subject matters as important issues that affected their pedagogical decisions. These pedagogical decisions included the choice of the subjects to be covered in the classroom, the topics of the classroom discussions, and the role the educators gave to their learners in their classes. They also focused on taking their learners’ interests and personal experiences into account by giving more participatory roles to them. Moreover, the majority of the participants explained that they preferred to focus on subjects that were important for themselves and their students with regard to the context, where they lived. Some of the educators also referred to this fact that they are Muslims and their definitions and purposes are influenced by instructions of Islam. The following example is an extract from an interview with Somayeh, a female educator with about 7 years of experience in teaching. Somayeh referred to being an Iranian educator and an Iranian person. She indicated that:

For me as an Iranian person and an Iranian university professor who is under the influence of the religion of Islam, authenticity cannot be acquired by ignoring others and just thinking about myself. This view influences my classes too. In my classes, my students are very important as students and humans. I try to know them, their values, and background to choose topics for class discussions or for their assignments. I choose those contents and subjects that can make them think about the problems and issues that they experience in their country. I want them to have decisive roles in my classes. In this way, I think I can become authentic, because I can help my students flourish by being cared and respected.

The participants also talked about their own values, expectations, and previous learning experiences through which they could bring their own selves into their classrooms. The important factor in bringing one’s own self in the classroom was the awareness and recognitions of one’s own values, expectations, and experiences as was reported in the following example that is an extract from an interview with Ali, a male educator with 11 years of experience in teaching:

Answering your question is very hard. I think authenticity in class finds its meaning in our relations with our students. Students are very important and we want to teach them and help them blossom like flowers. But we should know who we ourselves are to start our process of becoming authentic. I should be honest to myself and have a clear plan. It is true that I am a human with my past. I was also an English learner with my experience. I have my beliefs and plans for my classes based on what is significant for me. I have my own values and plans. Therefore, I should know them clearly.

Reflectivity

The second theme was reflectivity, which revolved around two important questions asked by the majority of the participants of the study: “What is happening in our class?” “Why does it happen in our class and in our teaching?” Asking these two questions, the educators addressed what they taught and how they taught in the classroom. In addition, they considered reflectivity as an opportunity through which they could acquire a more insightful understanding of who they were as an educator in their classes and context. Moreover, they mainly talked about the examination of the materials, including books, papers, games, videos, and websites, and the methods of teaching that they applied in the classroom. Based on the feedbacks that participants received from their learners through their scores, performance, comments, and dialogues, they could find the possibility to examine and reexamine their own teaching and its effects on their learners’ being and becoming. The following examples clearly show the importance of the theme of reflectivity. The first one is an extract from an interview with Mohammad, a male educator with about 3 years of experience in teaching:

Authenticity or my wish to become an authentic teacher requires me to reflect on myself and my actions to achieve a better understanding of who I am in this situation as a professor. I should think deeply about what I have done in classes and how my actions, relations, and choices influenced or even changed my student. I should constantly reflect on myself. Through such a self-reflection, I can judge whether I was able to be myself in my classes.

Similarly, Maryam, a female educator with more than 6 years of experience in teaching pinpointed that:

I want to be authentic. Then, I try to be myself not a doll who just is parroting. But, I should think about my teaching. It is our class. Then, I should reflect on my actions and interaction. Actually, I judge my teaching from my students’ points of view. I ask them to write their opinions about the class and give any possible suggestions. Another way to judge my teaching is to see the results of exams and activities on their learning and behaviour. This makes me reflect on my values and beliefs. I think it is true meaning of authenticity, because I rebuild myself.

As it can be understood from the examples, participants referred to the reflection of the realities of their classroom, which was manifested in their examination of the effect of their decisions, actions, and interactions on their learners. Reflections occurred through the constant dialogue with learners and made it possible for educators to analyze their own expectations and values in teaching. Through reflections, educators not only addressed problems and challenges but also searched for the solutions of those problems. Actually, they analyzed themselves considering what and how they taught in the classrooms and reflected on content and process as can be understood from the following comment from Zahra, a female educator with 10 years of experience in teaching:

Receiving feedback from the students, I analyze myself and my classes again and again. I highlight the main problems and weaknesses. Then, I try to find an appropriate answer and solution to improve my teaching and enhance myself as a teacher. An authentic teacher never stops. She revives herself and comes into a new way of being by reflecting on herself. It is an ongoing procedure and makes me become better by analyzing myself and solving my problems. An authentic teacher is ready and willing to analyze herself and think about her actions and practices.

Content reflection and process refection paved the way for premise reflection whereby the educators asked themselves why we think and act in this way. The following example was also an extract from an interview with Hamed, a male educator with about 8 years of experience in teaching:

When I analyze myself, I ask myself important questions. Why did I taught in this way? Why was I in such a mood? What was my perception of teaching and being a teacher and why? I can say that being authentic motivates me to think about myself and my position in the class. I stand in front of a mirror and examine my world. What happened to me? Why am I such a teacher? My past is shaping my present. If I can’t think deeply about my own values, background and my teaching in the class, I cannot claim that I am authentic. A finished person who forgets himself cannot be authentic.

Context-Appropriate Adjustments

Becoming aware of the existing problems in their classroom as the result of the content reflection, the participants not only searched for the solutions of the problems but also questioned the standards of the English language education, which seemed to be prescribed by the native authors. Disagreeing with appropriateness discussed in many books and papers that the participants read during the period of being English language learners, they challenged themselves as nonnative educators in compliance with the normativity of nativeness. Educators’ noncompliance with normativity of nativeness was manifested in their choice of materials, interactions with their learners, and the classroom activities. Some of the educators explained that they were supposed to read books and papers that were written by native authors when they were MA students or even when they were PhD candidates of the English language teaching at Iranian universities. They asserted that those books and papers made them familiar with methods and theories of teaching and they were taught to use those methods in their classes.

In their definition of an authentic educator, the majority of the participant argued that a nonnative English educator who wants to be authentic should be able to find her place among all those methods and theories that were written by native speakers. It seems that, for the participants of this study, authenticity meant standing against the process of being melt into English language or into methods of teaching that are proposed by native English scholars. The following example was also extracted from the interview with Hana, a female educator with 7 years of experience:

It seems that we should live in the book written by western teachers. Everything is different here and should be different. If I am a true teacher, I should have my own ideas too in addition to what I have learned from Freeman or Jack C. Richards. Something new and different is happening in my classes. I think an authentic person knows who she is among many other people. She is not fake. An authentic teacher is an authentic person who knows who she is among all those books she has read as a student.

Challenging oneself as a nonnative educator made the participants challenge their educational systems. Understanding the uniqueness of their own contexts and the needs of their learners, the participants searched for teaching methods, pedagogical relationships, and practices which could be appropriate to their contexts. These practices and relationships might be different from the policy of the educational systems. The following example was extracted from the interview with Hatam, a male educator with 4 years of experience:

I try to understand my context. In fact, my students and class are different. I analyze their needs, then choose my syllabus and materials. Their needs are more important than imposed rules of university or those prescribed by Western teachers.

Discussion of Research Findings

The analysis of data collected from the participants drew my attention to the three themes, including three-way pedagogical relationship, reflectivity, and context-appropriate adjustments. Three-way pedagogical relationship involved self, learners, and the subject matters. Addressing authenticity in teaching, Kreber (2013) also believed that serving the needs of students and subject matters were two important issues. In addition, Cranton and Carusetta (2004) asserted the importance of awareness of students’ needs.

But, in the present study, the educators referred to the importance of subjects and topics that were derived from their own context. They indicated that they preferred to choose such topics for their classroom discussion and materials. Addressing the self, they talked about the significance of educators’ previous learning experience, background, and values. Explaining the value and importance of learners, the educators indicated that their perception of authenticity was mainly based on the instructions and values of their religion, that is, Islam that focused on the inner self but not at the expense of the values and freedom of other people. They explained that the value and importance of learners could be realized in the classroom by giving more participatory roles to them. Moreover, they talked about the importance of subjects driven from the issues and problems of their own contexts. Such a conception of authenticity was in line with the communitarian perspective of authenticity with regard to the priority that was given to contextual issues and instructions of Islam. As was argued by Kreber (2013), the communitarian perspective of authenticity revolves around the acknowledgement of values and ideals of our social community that govern our decisions and behaviors. Focusing on social aspect and communitarian perspective of authenticity, Taylor (1991) also indicated that there are ideals and values beyond our own choices and desires whose recognition is important for becoming authentic. In the present study, the values and instructions of Islam as well as subjects driven from the social issues and problems can be considered as ideals and values beyond one’s own desires.

The second theme was reflectivity. Cranton and Carusetta (2004) also referred to reflection as an important theme constructing authenticity. Whereas Cranton and Carusetta (2004) defined the theme of reflection as questioning self, others, and contexts, I used the term reflectivity to address the reflection that occurred at three levels of content, process, and premise. Through reflectivity, participants of this study as nonnative language educators reflected on what they taught, how they taught, and why they taught in a specific way.

Furthermore, Cranton (2006) indicated that reflection on self, others, and contexts provided the opportunity for authenticity for educators, because they could create a unique persona for themselves in their avoidance of being like other educators. But, findings of the current study revealed that participants considered reflectivity as a feature of authenticity that enabled them to reflect on presuppositions in their attempts to analyze content, process, and premise. Reflectivity also made it possible for the educators to reflect on what they taught and how they taught that could lead them to premise reflection through which they ask themselves why they think and act in a particular way. Moreover, the findings of the study shed some lights on pedagogical practices such as the examination of the teaching materials and the feedbacks that educators can receive from their learners as opportunities for reflectivity.

The third theme was context-appropriate adjustments, which included disagreement with conformity to nativeness and the expectations of the educational system. It seems that the educators disagreed with being overwhelmed by the methods of teaching that were proposed by native English scholars, although they were encouraged by their educational systems as such methods and theories are mainly taught in Iranian Higher education to English learners. Teachers’ disagreement reflected their attempts for “challenging what is taken for granted or encouraging critical reflection on assumption” (Kreber, 2013, p. 57).

Therefore, it can be said that the educators’ conception of authenticity was also in line with critical perspective on authenticity, because they insisted on thinking about core beliefs and values that shaped their teaching even if they were considered as taken for granted beliefs. In fact, the educators explained that it was important for them to challenge the normativity of nativeness that they uncritically accepted during the period of being English language learners. Iranian English language educators and learners are overwhelmed by books and papers written by native scholars and researchers due to the policy of the Iranian educational system that considers the native speaker as the idealized English speaker. It seems that participants looked for alternative ways of being educators in the classroom and being educators in the educational system. According to Huang and Varghese (2015), “NNES teachers may adopt alternate routes in developing their professional images, rather than pursuing and enacting teacher roles that correspond to implicit and explicit characteristics of the NESs”(p. 73). Moreover, they asserted that such alternate understanding of the English language teaching enhances the legitimacy of being a nonnative English teacher.

Comparing the findings of the current study with the finding of the empirical studies on the authenticity in teaching from the educators’ perspectives can also reveal differences that may be due to the cultural context of this study. For example, features such as sincerity and consistency between actions and values, which indicate the existential aspect of authenticity based on the educational and philosophical literature and the study conducted by Kreber et al. (2010), was not addressed by the participants of the present study. Also, the extracted features of authenticity in the present study centered on critical and communitarian aspects of authenticity.

Furthermore, the educators alluded to the instructions of Islam as factors that guided their behaviors in their classroom, whereas the participants of the study conducted by Rappel (2015) in Canada referred to the intrinsic motivation for serving other people. Also, the participants of Rappel’s study, who were native English educators, focused on the improvement of their own selves and the conditions of their society as features of being an authentic English educators. But, the educators of the current study focused on finding their own voice in the midst of the mainstream thoughts on the English teaching that were mainly proposed by native English speakers. This also made them reflect on the core beliefs of the English teaching, which considered nativeness as the ideal condition of teaching English. This difference may also be due to nonnativeness of participants of the present study.

Conclusion

The present study was a grounded theory study on English language educators. The study aimed at conceptualizing the meaning of authenticity in the context of Iranian, nonnative English speakers teaching English to Iranian learners. In their conceptions of authenticity, the educators addressed three-way pedagogical relationships under the influence of the instructions of their religion and the demands of the contexts where they lived. Such a conception of authenticity was in agreement with communitarian perspective of authenticity and involved a social aspect. It seems that the educators were mainly motivated by their duties as Muslim educators rather than by their own desires.

Furthermore, the findings of the study indicated that the educators’ conceptualization of authenticity was reflected in their attempts for reflectivity and disagreement with conformity to nativeness and the expectations of the educational systems. Thus, the educators’ conception of authenticity was in line with a critical perspective of authenticity. In other words, the educators preferred to be guided by their own expectations of English teaching practices rather than by the native English scholars’ expectations. They also reflected on their teaching practices and beliefs to understand why they thought and acted in a particular way. This could help them achieve a new meaning of their experiences in teaching. Indeed, for the participants of this study, authenticity was a social and reflective practice for legitimizing their own nonnativeness.

Although the present study specifically addressed the English language education, the aim of the study was not studying authenticity of materials in the English teaching as is common in the existing literature on authenticity in the English teaching. In fact, authenticity was studied based on teacher authenticity as the theoretical framework to provide the opportunity for authentic voice. Furthermore, it should be added that authenticity in English language education as an aspect of teachers’ identity can be the topic of further studies, because the unknown future calls for a pedagogy of human being and becoming centering on authenticity (Barnett, 2004). Also, the researchers can conduct studies to explore learners’ and administers’ conceptions and understanding of authenticity. In addition, there is a strong need to studies that focus on enactment of authenticity in adult education to more clearly indicate the characteristics of this field of the study.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

Akram Ramezanzadeh has a PhD in TEFL from Hakim Sabzevari University, Iran. Her research interests include authenticity in teaching, socially just teaching, and qualitative research.

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