The concept of human agency has received increasing attention in the field of education in the past decade. Education researchers, those in the area of English language education included, have much to grapple with in exploring and conceptualizing agency of teachers—or teacher agency. This is because teacher agency has been emphasized in education policy, stressing the importance of teachers acting as “agents of change.” Yet, ironically, education policy both enables and constrains teacher agency due to the conflicts between the rhetoric of policy text and the reality of teaching context faced by the teachers. This paradoxical situation, coupled with the lack of understanding of teacher agency, renders a persistent gap between policy and practice. The current study thus aims to contribute to greater understanding of teacher agency in relation to an education policy—namely, the English language assessment policy of Thailand’s higher education. Insights are gleaned from questionnaire surveys (n = 63) and in-depth interviews (n = 26) with English language teachers of various nationalities, currently teaching undergraduate-level English, from public and private higher education institutions across Thailand. Findings reveal that manifestation of teacher agency is contingent not only on personal but also on ecological factors, one of which being the English language assessment policy in focus of this study. Such manifestation can be categorized into five types according to the extent to which teacher agency is influenced by the policy. Even so, it appears that manifestation of teacher agency depends not so much on the direct demands of policy mandates as on the teachers’ personal dispositions being mediated by the institutional culture and structure. The implication from research findings is twofold. One, it is important to understand what constitutes teacher agency—how and how much it is enabled, constrained, exercised, achieved, and in the end translated into the quality of English language education. Better understanding of teacher agency could aid policy makers in future policy planning and drafting so as to formulate a policy that is practical and implementable. Two, it is important for institutional management to foster the creation and sustenance of an ecology that would enhance the achievement of teacher agency in the classroom as well as in the institution on the whole. When teachers are provided with viable plans and feasible means, then and only then can they fully act as “agents of change” who will bring about positive impact of the English language assessment policy on the overall English language education in Thailand.
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