Teachers’ Narratives as a Lens to Reveal their Professional Identity

Abstract

This study adopts a narrative approach to revealing how English as a foreign language teachers construct their teacher identities. Kelchterman’s five dimensions of teacher identity; i.e., self-image, self-esteem, task perception, job motivation and future perspectives, were used as the theoretical lens to explore eight participants’ identity construction via the narratives they told in an online written interview form. Participants were eight EFL instructors who worked at higher education institutions around Turkey. Data was collected via an online survey tool and analysed via thematic analysis and open coding. Data revealed that the five dimensions of teacher identity do not develop in isolation from each other but a dynamic interaction among these identity dimensions exists.