CONSTRUCTION OF PRACTICE AND IDENTITY OF SECOND CAREER TEACHERS

Abstract

Research on the construction of practice and identity in English language teaching has mostly focused on first career language teachers. However, partly due to a growing demand for English in non-English speaking countries, second career teachers are among the fast growing groups within the teacher population. Among these second career teachers, there is an emerging cohort of teachers who obtained their non-teaching university degree in an English-speaking country but eventually changed their career into teaching English as a Second Language (ESL). This cohort has a great potential to become qualified ESL teachers thanks to their good command of English and their first-hand cross-cultural experience. However, unsurprisingly, in the early stage of their ESL teaching career, they obviously lack teaching methodology and experience. Drawing on the concept of community of practice and teacher identity, this study explores how these non-traditional teachers created space for developing practice and identity. Data were collected from narrative interviews conducted with three participants who were teaching English in different English centers in Vietnam. Each participant, with the above-mentioned special background, in the early or middle stage of their career, struggles to pursue professional development and to construct their identity in an English teaching organization. The researcher hopes that the findings of the study may help to shed some light on practice and identity construction of teachers with special backgrounds in Vietnam and in other similar contexts.