Special-Topic Issue ofTESOL Quarterly,Autumn 2016Language teacher identity in multilingual education

How Do Language Learning, Teaching, and Transnational Experiences (Re)shape an EFLer’s Identities? A Critical Ethnographic Narrative

“…He noticed that language teacher education practices used to be and are still largely skills- or knowledge-based (De Costa & Norton, 2017). To facilitate a shift to the identity-based direction, CAN as a method to study teacher candidates or preservice teachers is necessary, as scholars nowadays argue that teacher identity is the principal outcome of teacher education practices (Varghese et al, 2016; Yazan, 2018b). The reason for that principal outcome is it directs teacher candidates or teachers to where they aspire and envision to be (Barkhuizen, 2016).…”

Teachers’ Transnational Identities as Activity: Constructing Mobility Systems at the Intersections of Gender and Language Difference

“…The urgency of addressing the “importance of external conditions” (p. 558) besides using “critical reflection” to analyze teachers’ identity construction is framed as a promise for further research in Varghese et al. ( 2015). This study contributes a grain of sand to such an undertaking by investigating the complex factors mediating four teachers’ identities, specifically at the intersections of gender and language.…”

“…While studies following a translingual orientation have manifested the potential for decolonial pedagogical practices (Cushman, 2016), especially teachers’ self‐decolonization by drawing on their translinguistic identities as pedagogies (Motha, Jain, & Tecle, 2012), a translingual paradigm also has the potential to address “the intersection of several structuring nodes in the colonial matrix of power that include authority, knowledge, gender and sexuality, economy, and racism” (Cushman, 2016, p. 238). Some studies have put forth women’s narratives and lived experiences as teachers of English (Motha, 2014; Motha, Jain, & Tecle, 2012; Park, 2017), the gendered and racialized professional hierarchies in TESOL and the need for praxis in TESOL research (Lin et al., 2004), and transnational scholars’ gendered practices in the U.S. academia (Sánchez‐Martín & Seloni, 2019); however, few studies have investigated transformative identity reconstruction at the intersections of language and gender, an enterprise that “remains strangely sidelined in TESOL and particularly in LTI” (Varghese et al., 2015, p. 562). The seemingly gender‐neutral quality of ELT (English Language Teaching) is reinforced by the lack of visibility of the many gendered ways in which our work is shaped and intersectional teacher identities are constructed reinforces “male hegemony” as well as racism (Kubota, 2020), a result of colonial powers (Motha, 2014).…”

Research tasks on identity in language learning and teaching

“…The call to decenter and decolonize teaching is relevant in a neoliberal era that emphasizes accountability and adherence to common standards. Barkhuizen (2017) as well as two journal special issues on teacher identity, one in the TESOL Quarterly (Varghese et al 2016) and another in Modern Language Journal (De Costa & Norton 2016) will contribute much to contemporary debates on identity research, and the ways in which teacher identities have evolved in the wake of globalization and neoliberal impulses.…”

“…Using social media, transnational learners can now connect the past, present, and future in unprecedented ways, and access to conversations is negotiable both on- and off-line. Further, language teachers can explore transnational identities that were not socially imaginable two decades ago (De Costa & Norton 2017; Varghese et al 2016).…”