A Systematic Review of English Language Teacher Agency

Abstract

This systematic review of literature aims to systematically investigate language teacher agency as the capacity of teachers to act purposefully to direct their professional growth, find solutions to educational challenges they face, and improve their classroom practices for the sake of effectiveness in the classroom. Four inclusion criteria were established before conducting the research. Only empirical studies published between 2000 and 2022, which were done in a context in which the instructional language is English, the articles investigating ESL/EFL student teachers’, pre-service or in-service teachers’ agency, and the ones investigating agency of teachers from non-English speaking countries were included. Piri database search engine was used for identifying published empirical articles for this systematic review. 410 studies to be eligible were identified, 67 articles were read, and 12 empirical studies met the inclusion criteria. The results showed that most of the studies have been done in a qualitative approach, and four out of 12 articles have adopted a CDST perspective, which is overwhelmed by non-CDST ones. This result demonstrates that the paradigm shift adopting a CDST perspective in applied linguistics research methods is in its infancy.

Keywords

• language teacher agency, complex dynamic systems theory, systematic review