An English Teacher’s Professional Identity Development: The Effect of Educational Policies

A fundamental aspect of teacher socialization and development is the construction and maintenance of vivid and strong professional identity. As a multi-layered and dynamic phenomenon, teacher identity is affected by diverse range of social and institutional factors. With an aim to add to growing literature on teacher identity, the current study examined the effects of language teaching policies on an English teacher’s identity development. Following narrative strategy which is the dominant paradigm in identity research, the stories of an English teacher obtained through semi-structured interview were examined. The teacher’s narratives and accounts of his teaching experiences were analyzed through constant comparative approach which produced five main themes: lack of teacher autonomy, the effect of macro political concerns on language teaching, movement towards Communicative Language Teaching, lack of resources, and inappropriate student placement strategies. The results indicated that every single language teaching policy shaped and reshaped the teacher’s understanding of himself.