A Data-Driven Conceptualization of Language Teacher Identity in the Context of Public High Schools in Iran.

Abstract

In spite of a paradigm shift towards poststructuralism, the legacy of the cognitive paradigm continues to permeate mainstream teacher education programs for teachers of English as a foreign language with its focus on as blueprints for language teacher practice (Crandall, 2000; Adamson, 2004). This problem derives from the humanist, modernist perspective--a fully autonomous, self-aware subject, who is able to freely choose which aspects of his or her are of pedagogical value (see Butler, 1992; Norton, 2000; Pennycook, 2001). Since teacher autonomy is presupposed in methods discussions, contextual constraints and the nature of teaching knowledge are taken as irrelevant. Debates have typically centred around arguments of what to teach (Freeman & Johnson, 2005; Tarone & Allwright, 2005; Yates & Muchisky, 2003). Such positions mistakenly assume that problems of practice are cognitive in origin. Once teachers have a solid knowledge-base, they can apply it freely without any contextual constraints. Rather than being cognitive, problems of practice are social because teachers do not just teach: they teach within and for a social system. Within such systems teachers have limited opportunities to act based on the knowledge they accumulated in pre-service teacher education programs. They can not even assert their own beliefs because of: 1. what others expect from them (Reynolds, 1996); 2. assimilatory strategies of central agencies, such as exclusion, marginalization, and assimilation (Matusov, 1999); 3. the desire for social wholeness and common (Young, 1990); and 4. a variety of roles teachers feel that they have to play (Volkmann & Anderson, 1998). Since these external constraints are rarely mentioned in the cognitive orientation and methods prescriptions and proscriptions, teachers enter the profession with their universal, context-free views of language teaching. As Coldron and Smith (1999) pointed out, these contextual constraints create a tension between agency (the personal dimension of teaching) and structure (the socially given dimension). Over time teachers come to the bitter conclusion that it is these socially given constraints rather than their professional knowledge, that shape their practice. The discrepancies between teachers' professional knowledge and the realities of teaching often contribute to what is known as praxisschock (Mark, 1998) (also referred to as praxis shock). Early-career praxis shock makes teachers reject the knowledge and skills that they learned at university in preference for the knowledge and skills valued by the teaching culture at their school. Thus they suffer from what can best be termed crisis. To accommodate these social givens, which account for culturally acceptable though theoretically unjustified modes of teaching, teachers experience change externally, i.e., in response to the requirements of the specific career role, and internally, i.e., in the subjective self-conceptualization associated with the role (McGowen & Hart, 1990). This self-conceptualization can be viewed as one's professional identity. Becoming a professional incorporates both external requirements and internal self-conceptualizations. An individual's self-conceptualization associated with a career role can be viewed as one's professional identity. Thus instead of identifying himself or herself with his or her knowledge-base and teaching skills, the teacher identifies himself /herself with the roles s/he plays. As such s/he develops a new situated identity (Clement & Noels, 1992). The main focus of research until relatively recently has been on learners rather than teachers. This has resulted in a dearth of substantive literature that might otherwise represent teacher identity. The knowledge base for language teacher education has tended to confine studies of to language learners and learning (e. …

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