RELC Journal

This article reviews notions of identity and teacher identity, how these relate to the specific characteristics of language teaching, and how teacher identity can evolve or be developed through experience and teacher education. The notion of teacher identity highlights the individual characteristics of the teacher and how these are integrated with the possibilities and potentials provided in the institutional identity of teacher and the content and methods of a specific field, as these are realized in specific contexts of teaching. The elements of a teacher identity in language teaching are derived from a review of literature on identity and described in terms of the foundational and advanced competences required for language teaching, as illustrated by excerpts from teacher narratives. The discussion concludes with recommendations for teacher education and professional development with a focus on identity.

This article presents a theoretical overview of the concept of teacher identity, particularly focusing on poststructuralist conceptions of what identity means, and shows how these ideas can be associated with ideas about narrative and narrative inquiry. It is argued that it is important for teachers, through reflective practice or teacher research, to become aware of and understand their professional identities because doing so has implications for their practice. Two ways of analysing teacher stories are illustrated: the first, a content or thematic analysis of a written teacher journal entry, and the second, a short story analysis of an extract of an interview. These methods are presented as examples of the type of narrative analysis teachers can do to become more aware of who they are in their professional lives.

Secondary schools in Australia have long benefited from state policies aiming to increase the academic success of English language learners (ELLs). Complementary pre-service and in-service teacher education programmes have been implemented to raise the expertise of subject teachers who teach ELL students. However, subject teachers may not be receptive to learning from such programmes.

This article explores the attitudes, knowledge and skills of Australian secondary teachers from schools with high numbers of ELL students. Six cases were drawn from a multiple case study investigating how teachers described their understandings about teaching ELLs, and how these understandings developed. Qualitative data were gathered using interviews and a questionnaire that prompted participants to reflect on their theories and practices relating to ELLs. These data were coded thematically, and then analysed according to Davison’s (2001) conception that professional learning occurs only when dissonance disrupts a teacher’s existing beliefs.

Findings suggest that teachers’ repertoires developed primarily through classroom experience and teachers did not readily accept professional learning outside their existing epistemology. This raises questions about how in-service and initial teacher education might generate the necessary dissonance for professional learning.

Language teacher education programmes can be viewed as ‘change’ programmes, particularly in their endeavours to re-shape cognition. However, often such programmes are found to be relatively ineffective in this regard. As a means of facilitating the desired change, trans-national language teacher education programmes, in which students study abroad for a portion of time, may be more effective than programmes conducted in the home environment because of the potential for encountering the new and different. This article considers the impact of two years spent in New Zealand on the language teaching practices of a cohort of Malaysian pre-service teachers during their teaching practicum. It also considers the methodological challenges in identifying sources of influence on language teaching practices.

In this article, we describe and reflect on a collaborative, school-based professional development project (an ‘intervention’) intended to encourage innovation in classroom teaching. Specifically, the intervention included a collaboration between university-based researchers/mentors and primary school teachers in Singapore who were interested in discovering new strategies for reading comprehension instruction. The results show that by working together, over time, teachers were able to innovate by adopting new strategies for leading reading comprehension discussions and adapting the new strategies to fit the local teaching context. Crucially, the innovation found that ‘learning’ the new strategies was insufficient; teachers needed professional support from the teacher trainers and their collaborating colleagues as well as time—over three years—to develop their expertise and their confidence in the implementation of the new strategies.

This study investigates how the model of Authentic Leadership applies to language teaching and its implications for future directions in teacher education programmes. Data was collected from 56 native-speaking English teachers through an online survey consisting of specific open-ended and short answer type questions. The results of the study suggest that currently the concept of classroom leadership is not at the forefront of teachers’ conscious thought, but is, to some extent, embedded in various teaching practices and characteristics. This could be attributed to the absence of explicit discussion of teacher leadership in teacher education programmes despite principles of leadership being strongly connected to the act of teaching itself. It is argued that a clear model of leadership would better help teachers face the unique challenges of EFL teaching and the model of Authentic Leadership provides an excellent framework for this context as the principles of self-awareness, relational transparency, balanced processing, and internalized moral/ethical perspective have direct links to core concepts in ELT. This article contends that by applying the principles of Authentic Leadership in classroom practice, both novice and experienced teachers will be better able to manage the challenges of language teaching, enhance and enrich their skillsets, and achieve greater professional success.

Despite the importance of reflection on critical incidents (CIs), there are only a few studies in ELT literature addressing English language teachers’ CIs (Farrell, 2008). Accordingly, this study was conducted to explore and discuss how six in-service EFL teachers reflected on and reported their CIs. In so doing, the participant teachers reflected retrospectively and introspectively on their CIs for 12 sessions. They put their CIs in a blog each session in order to share them with their colleagues. After the treatment, the three stages of grounded theory were employed in order to analyse the CIs. The results, revealing six categories and 12 subcategories, shed light on the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of teachers’ reflections on their CIs. Results may have implications for teacher education and can add to the existing literature on unpacking teachers’ CIs.