What’s in a name?

Constructing and enacting language teacher identities: Distinctive pathways and divergent practices

“…There was a distinction between the other teachers and English language teachers. This showed relational identities such that clothing among other things as an index of relational identities (Holland et al, 1998) was a part of constructing LTIs (Costley, 2015). In relation to Clarke's (2009) model describing teacher identity in a loop, the findings showed elements regarding the English language teachers’ substance and authority sources of teacher identity, self‐practices and the ultimate objective (pp.…”

“…It is argued that teachers should acknowledge their different roles if they pursue changes regarding them. Costley (2015) describes how a classroom English language assistant negotiates her positional and relational identities and actively uses a physical space at school to assert her claims on her identity not as a classroom teaching assistant but as an Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant (intending to bridge the gap for the minority and bilingual students) teacher. The teacher decides to use a free space in the library and decorates it with the students' work.…”

“…The last context of identity is making worlds, the creation of a new figured world in a cyclic organization. To summarize in Costley's (2015) statements:…”

“…In addition, there is a paucity of research on English language teacher identities through the framework of Figured Worlds (e.g. Costley, 2015; Farrell, 2011; Varghese & Snyder, 2018). Varghese (2018) argues that Figured Worlds is one compromising iteration of teacher identity research and it could enhance our understanding of language teacher education and teacher identity as ‘contextually and relationally constructed’ (p. 72) regarding the linkage between the individual and the collective in identity construction.…”