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Understanding TEFL teacher identity: Agency, authority, and vulnerability
Author(s) -
Teng Mark Feng
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
tesol journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.468
H-Index - 14
eISSN - 1949-3533
pISSN - 1056-7941
DOI - 10.1002/tesj.511
Subject(s) - citation , agency (philosophy) , identity (music) , vulnerability (computing) , sociology , library science , media studies , computer science , philosophy , computer security , social science , aesthetics
Teacher identity is inherently negotiable, flexible, adaptive, and conflicted (Teng, 2019). Authoring identities as a teacher of English as a foreign language (TEFL) and a researcher is complex. It is influenced by internal (e.g., emotions and efficacy) and external (e.g., language policy, classroom structures, and research requirement) factors. Despite the need to broaden the knowledge base on teacher identity, research around how TEFL teacher identities are forged had not received sufficient attention; much remains to be discovered about factors that evoke changes in identities and TEFL teachers’ commitments to teaching and research. Drawing upon notions of agency, authority, and vulnerability, and on my personal experiences, this article aims to provide new knowledge on TEFL teacher identity. TEFL teachers are the key agents who directly impact TEFL students’ learning and growth. Agency can be defined as individuals’ capacity to make their own free choices and act independently amidst cultural and societal constraints (Priestley, Biesta, & Robinson, 2013). Closely related to agency is authority and vulnerability. Authority refers to one’s ability to make choices without hesitation, even if the teacher is in a constrained setting (Alsup, 2018); vulnerability refers to anxiety or fear that one’s decisions might be incorrect, dangerous, or self-defeating, or a multidimensional emotional experience that individuals may encounter in an array of contexts (Lasky, 2005). The three notions are assumed to reciprocally affect TEFL teachers’ identity development and TESOL practice.