Issues in teaching English as

an international language

Topic 5:
 Lead-in: General identity

3. Watch the videos,

1. Story telling 2. What forms identity? take notes and reflect
on what you have seen
• How do you • Mindmap
remember a person?
List the questions
• Talk about a situation
when someone you
know changed
him/herself
dramatically. What
made that change?
 Lead-in: Teacher identity
1. What do you want to know about a teacher? List the questions.

2. Groupwork :Talk about some teacher who inspired or impressed you in the past and
share the image of that ideal teacher.
Lead-in what is an ideal teacher?
How do you agree with this
answer?
• “An ideal teacher is someone who has a
combination of qualities, such as being
very knowledgeable on his subject, able to
effectively manage his classroom,
genuinely enjoys teaching and dealing
with students, has high expectations for
his students, good communication skills
and an engaging teaching style”.
 Lesson Objectives
• Explain key concept of teacher identity
• Identify different factors that influence the
process of identity formation
• Know different activities which can
help to form an identity
• Practice self-constructing professional
identity
Contents
 Key questions

1. What is an identity and its characteristics?

2. What is teacher identity?
3. What factors do you think have affected
teacher identity?
4. What are the ways teacher build up their
identities?
Question 1: What is identity and
its feature?
• Identity: the combination of selves
• Both individual and social
• Is about similarities and differences
• Is contextual: may shift or combine, static and
dynamic
• Builds up from discourse and practice and is
manifested in language and social
interaction/practice
Question 2: What is teacher
identity?
 Question 2: Teacher identity

Previously Recent
• The possession of • The discursive
a defined set of production of
qualities for the selves
job • dynamic
• fixed
 Question 2: Teacher identity
• Teacher identity is multi-faceted and
dynamic in nature, constantly shifting
across time and space (Beauchamp &
Thomas, 2009; Beijaard et al., 2004;
Miller, 2009; Varghese et al., 2005).
 Do you agree with the two
points? State your opinion and
give examples.
Multi-faceted
Multifaceted
Interactive and shifting
Interactive and shifting
• teacher identity means being recognized
as a certain kind of English teacher with
regard to one’s self-image at present and
future, and in connection to classroom
behaviors and practices, as well as
positionality in relation to others including
students, colleagues, and the larger
teaching profession, as well as institutional
cultures. (Riyanti, 2017)
Teacher identity
 language teacher identities
• Barkhuizen’s (2017) : Language teacher identities (LTIs) are
cognitive, social, emotional, ideological, and historical – they are
both inside the teacher and outside in the social material, and
technological world. LTIs are being and doing, feeling and
imagining, and storying. They are struggle and harmony: they are
contested and resisted, by self and others, and they are also
accepted, acknowledged and valued, by self and others. They are
core and peripheral, personal and professional, they are dynamic,
multiple, hybrid, and they are foregrounded and backgrounded. And
LTIs change, short term and over time – discursively in social
interaction with teacher educators, learners, teachers, administrator,
and the wider community, and in material interaction with spaces,
places, and objects in classrooms, institutions, and online (p. 4)
 What is teacher identity? Vietnamese
scholars’ definitions
• ‘Identity gives one a sense of belonging and
connectedness (Phan Ngoc, 1998; Tran Ngoc Them,
1999,2000)
• Identity is fastened/formed to claim membership status.
• Teacher identity: two integrated entities – the
professional and/or the personal (Phan Le Ha, 2005)
• Teacher identity includes how a teacher wants to be
seen by others
• Teacher identity reveals in their activities and decisions
Question 3: What factors affect
teacher identity?
 Question 3: teacher identity factors

Personal Professional Social

• Professional stories
• Personal stories • Social and cultural norms • Social beliefs
• Personal factors: (sociocultural theories) • Social values
ideologies/beliefs, - teaching is a noble job • Contexts
sense of community, - teachers as a moral role
one’s own model
conscience, one’s • Former education and
teachers. reflective practice,
own family Pre-service training
(including practicum) and in-
service communities of
learning, colleagues’
performance,,
 Discussion (group work)
1. If personalities affect professional identity,
what personality traits are thought to be
needed to be a (good) teacher?
2. Please discuss and create pictures with
the names of some core and some
subordinate personal traits for teachers.
Be creative in using words, such as
creating 3R, 5M.
3. Show us your pictures.
 Question 4: Attempts to more
clearly define teachers’
professional identity
• Professionalization movement
• Professionalism
• Best practices in teaching
• Efforts to satisfy the social and
professional requirements for teachers
Studies on teacher
identity
• Read, summarize and share the study of
Phan and Nguyen in pairs
Phan (2008): Negotiating teacher identities:
the professional and/or the personal
The professional and/or the personal identity interact in 2
ways round.
Personality -> professional values:
•‘My teacher values are greatly formed by my own
personality, my own self’ (Linh)
•Personality plays an important part in her teacher identity
formation. Her profession reflected herself. (Vy)
🡪To be teachers, they need certain built-in qualities (e.g.
‘responsible’, ‘enthusiastic’) which are required by their
profession.
 Identity unfastening: destructive

Professional values -> personality

•‘Bad teachers’ can’t be seen as role model or good
examples for other teachers & students.
•Teachers may judge their colleagues based on their
assumed norms of being teachers, even in non-
academic situations.
- teachers should not learn English swear-
words. (Linh & Vy)
 Identity unfastening: constructive
• Teacher professional identity shapes their personality in a
constructive way.
– Whenever I am, I feel that people look at me the way they look at
a teacher…I tend to be mature in conversations with others and
behave more properly. (Linh)
– Thanks to my profession…I tend to be calmer…(Vy)
 Identities of Western-trained
Vietnamese teachers of English
Perceptions of ‘moral guide’ role
 Perceptions of ‘moral guide’ role
• Teachers construct their self concept of ‘moral guide’ role
differently.
• They took on available identity the society and the others
constructed for them, and contributed to constructing the
‘moral guide’ role along the line with the concept of morality.
• Their perceptions of the ‘moral guide’ role suggest a shared
identity among Vietnamese teachers.
Identity as a teacher of English
Conclusion in Phan’s study about
VN teacher identity formation:
 Discussion 1
• Share how you or some teacher you know have changed
since you/he/she decided to follow the teaching
profession.
• Share how the personal factors of you/someone you know
have shaped your professional identity.
 Discussion 2
• In the class when an issue of immorality
appears (such as accepting LGBT,
telling lies, inhumane animal
trafficking), should ESL teachers teach
morality to students?
• How will you teach that to your
students? Demo what you will say.
Nguyen’s study
 The study of Nguyen (2017)
• “Teacher identity is a fluid, dynamic, and
ongoing developmental process
influencing and being influenced by a
multitude of personal and contextual factors”
PST’s identity construction

engagement in
cognitive learning

social
emotional interaction
experience in between
the teaching themselves and
practicum the school
community,
 The study of Nguyen (2017)
• Activity theory (Engestrom, 1987)
• Identity-in-activity (Cross, 2006; Dang, 2013;
Golombek & Klager, 2015)
• Negotiations of contradictions
- within the Subject
- between the Subject and the Rules
- between the Subject and the Community
Activity Theory
 Findings: Contradictions
1. Contradictions within subject:
1. Multiple identities: a learner, a pre-service teacher,
a teacher
2. Contradictions between the subject
(Maria) and the community (the mentor)
1. In terms of teaching styles
2. In terms of beliefs
3. Contradictions between the subject and
the rules (at the workplace)
Discussion and
practice
 Discussion: read this case
• Mr. Kim is a lecturer at university. According to
his students, Mr. Kim’s lessons are interesting
thanks to his knowledgeable background and a
good sense of humour. At the end of the
semester, he was awarded Teacher Excellence
for his highest performance appraisal from
student feedback. Besides work, Mr. Kim
enjoys facebooking. He often posts funny, dirty
jokes. Sometimes, he uses swear words when
he comments. Some of his colleagues think
that what he shows on facebook should be
avoided as it may badly affect his students.
 Discussion
• Is this a case of constructive or destructive identity
formation?
• Do you agree with those colleagues? Why and why not?
Practices which
form teacher
identities
What do you think can be done?
Personal – professional - social
• Engaging in contradictions
• Reflecting
• Observing
• Studying, building up knowledge base
• Researching: teaching with understanding
• Communicating with learners and
colleagues
• Getting to understand learners
Practice
 Practice
• Recall a recent class you have observed
or taught. Based on the activity theory, pls
analyze the contradictions you found
– Within the subject
– Between the subject and the rules
– Betwwen the subject and the communities
Suggest solutions for the contradictions
 Food for thoughts?
• What should a teacher of English be like
in EIL contexts? (EIL teacher identity)
– Teaching/assessing/material selecting/
• What are important factors which affect
that EIL teacher identity?
• What activities should a teacher be
involved in to construct a EIL teacher
identity?
EIL TEACHER
IDENTITY
 Traditional roles
• Reflect sound education principles
– Instructor
– Motivator
– Need analysis
– Material developers
– Assessor
– Controller
– Prompter
– Particpants
• Reflect traditional teaching paradigm
– Native language models
– Native culture representatives
– CLT spreader
 EIL teacher identity
• Intercultural competence promoter
• Provider of input from multiple varieties of
English
• Multilingualism promoter
• Mindful material developer
 Identity and EIL perspectives
• Let’s work in 2 teams of 10 people
• In each team, 1 is the reader. 1 is the secretary. 8 of you
are:
– A Hanoi-based English university lecturer who always attends
research conferences on TESOL
– An English prospective teacher at a provincial university
– A good secondary school student of English with local accent
– The English department Head of a school in Hanoi
– An English teacher at a remote school in Ha Giang
– A pregnant 35-year-old English teacher in the country side of
Vietnam
– A 55 year old English teacher in the country side of Vietnam
– An English teacher at an IELTS and TOEFL based English
teaching center in Hanoi
• What do you do in the following situations?
Listen and choose Yes or No to be your
response.
• If you say Yes, step one step ahead.
• Let’s see your position at the end of the
question series.
A survey about a EIL teachers’
challenges