Language Teacher Identity and Reflective Practice
Zia Tajeddin [+–]
Allameh Tabataba’i University
Zia Tajeddin is Professor of Applied Linguistics at Allameh Tabataba’i University, Iran. He is Chair of Iranian Interlanguage Pragmatics SIG and Editor of Applied Pragmatics (John Benjamins) and Journal of Second Language Teacher Education. His research interests center on interlanguage pragmatic instruction and assessment, conversation analysis, (im)politeness, teacher/learner cognition and identity, and EIL/ELF. He has presented papers in many (inter)national conferences and published papers in journals such as The Language Learning Journal, Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, RELC Journal, Australian Journal of Teacher Education, The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, TESL-EJ, Language and Intercultural Communication, and TESL Canada Journal.
This book aims to explore teacher identity and its different dimensions in connection with teacher reflective practice. Teaching is a very demanding job, requiring the teacher to have agency and be reflective for professional development. Thus, teacher identity is intertwined with teacher reflective practice and agency. It spans a wide range of dimensions, including teacher personal, professional, native/nonnative, private, ideal, public, and imposed identities. Teacher with constraints on their pursuit of ideal identity and a load of imposed identity and identity tensions may lose motivation for effective teaching practice and eventually for professional development. Due to the significance of identity in teacher professional life, this volume aims to explore aspects of teacher identity and identity tensions in connection with teacher reflective practice.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Introduction [+–]
Chapter one introduces the concept of teacher identity in connection with teacher reflection, outlines the aims of the book, and gives a brief summary of the chapters.
Chapter 2
Chapter two takes a broad macro-view and is a foundational one as it deals with the essentialist and constructivist approaches to identity and different conceptualizations of identity. While the essentialist approach regards identity as fixed and stable, the constructivist approach sees identity as situated, negotiable, dynamic, and flexible. The latter approach has received wide recognition in teacher education in the past two decades and is closely intertwined with the sociocultural perspective to teacher education.
Chapter 3
In chapter three, dimensions of teacher identity are described. One dimension includes teacher identity across personal, professional, and micro-macro contextual and social spaces. From another perspective, identity is a quadruple entity comprising private, ideal, public, and imposed identities. The chapter continues with the description of native and nonnative teacher identity with regard to the debate on the meaning of nativeness and nonnativeness.
Chapter 4
In chapter four, identity development is treated as a trajectory beginning in pre-service teacher education and continuing when teachers start their professional career. The chapter also explores how identity develops as teachers move through their teaching career from more novice to more experienced teachers.
Chapter 5
In chapter five, teacher identity tensions and the coping strategies they adopt to deal with these tensions are described. Teachers have multiple identities and multiple I-positionings. For effective professional development, teachers should strike a balance between different types of identities; otherwise, they may lose their motivation for teaching and experience identity marginalization. The chapter highlights the role that reflective practice can play in making teachers aware of these identity tensions and of the need for coping strategies.
Chapter 6
Chapter six addresses the cutting-edge issue of teacher identity in the context of globalization and world Englishes. This context entails the reconstruction and negotiation of teachers’ identity as multilingual, multicultural teachers with globalized identity, who are considered as world Englishes teachers. The chapter discusses teacher identity in a global society where the local and global are interconnected and teachers speaking a variety of world Englishes need more agency in dealing with their multiple identities.
Chapter 7
Chapter seven places identity in the context of technology and COP. No doubt, identity as conceived from a constructivist vantage-point can be negotiated, constructed, reconstructed, and changed collaboratively and discursively in interaction with other agents involved in teacher identity development, such as peer teachers, learners, supervisors, and managers. This can occur collaboratively and discursively face to face or online via social networking and online COPs. This chapter imbeds teacher identity negotiation and reconstruction into the context of technology-mediated interaction and unpacks teacher discourse in this negotiated process.
Chapter 8
Chapter eight addresses the benefits of teachers’ reflection on and awareness of their identity for boosting teachers’ teaching quality and effectiveness. Teacher identity is a salient part of their professional lives and hence identity awareness can have implications for teacher efficacy and effective teaching practice. This chapter discusses how identity awareness and teaching practice are interrelated.
Chapter 9
Chapter nine investigates the interface between teacher identity and reflection. It addresses the need for reflection on identity as a promising but overlooked area in teacher reflection. Teachers’ reflection on their identity helps them understand their own personal and profession selves. In turn, this reflexive understanding of their identity can help teachers be more critically and effectively reflective on their professional development and teaching practice.
Chapter 10
Chapter ten highlights the main insights coming from the chapters, emphasizes the need for a more dynamic connection between teacher reflection and identity development, offers pedagogical implications for teachers’ professional development and teacher education, and proposes directions for future research.
ISBN-13 (Hardback)
9780000000000
Price (Hardback)
£75.00 / $100.00
ISBN-13 (Paperback)
9780000000000
Price (Paperback)
£24.95 / $32.00
ISBN (eBook)
9780000000000
Price (eBook)
Individual
£29.95 / $32.00
Institutional
£75.00 / $100.00
£29.95 / $32.00
Institutional
£75.00 / $100.00
Publication
01/10/2026
Pages
224
Size
234 x 156mm
Readership
teachers, teacher educators and education researchers
