Between Discourses: Constructing a Language Teacher Identity as a Nonnative English Speaker

In today's globally-interconnected world, the issue of identity is increasingly the subject of investigation in studies of schools and society. Accordingly language teacher identity and identity formation have become a major research focus, which has complicated notions of language teachers primarily as classroom technicians. In line with this research trend, the present study investigates Asian English teachers' teaching and learning experiences in a U.S. language teacher education program in order to understand language teachers' identities as perceived or defined by themselves. To this end, four views on identity formation (i.e., Gee's (2001, 2004, 2005, 2007) identity-building in discourse, Norton's (1995, 1997, 2000) social identity theory, Wenger's (1998) social theory of learning, and Britzman's (1992, 2003) poststructural perspective on teacher identity) are discussed as theoretical lenses. These various perspectives provide insight into the multidimensional aspects of language teacher identity. This study provides an emergent definition of identity formation grounded in those perspectives that leads towards a theory of teacher identity in language education.