Identity as a source of agency for transformative english language teachers

Abstract

Objective: This study aims to analyze two teacher-researchers’ stories about their socially enacted identities as a source of agency for transformation to revindicate what language teachers have to say and do about themselves and to position them as valid interlocutors of the educational system. Method: We used the narrative inquiry approach to analyze the participants’ small stories. The study attempted to answer the following research question: What reflexive and transformative perspectives do language teachers use to tell their story as English language teaching professionals? The data corresponded to two participants’ meaningful life stories that involved their personal, professional, and academic profiles. Those stories were collected through narrative interviews. Results: The analysis was encapsulated in the category titled Transformative Teachers’ Storied Agency Being Affected by Neoliberal Dynamics. It is defined through two emerging subcategories—Asymmetric Social Relations: Educational Equality through Teacher-Researchers’ Storied Agency Despite the Neoliberalism Hierarchy and Teacher-Researchers’ Decisions and Actions for Tackling the Univalence and Ambivalence of the English Language Teaching Curriculum. Discussion and Conclusion: We account for the participants’ transformative teacher-researcher identity as a site of agency in the frame of macro policies with a neoliberal influencing force. Our definition of the categories reflects one of the lessons we learned after our small story analysis: the concept of storied agency.

Keywords

• Teacher-researchers’
• Agency
• Language teacher identity
• Neoliberal education dynamics
• Transformative teachers