Exploring English Language Teachers’ Critical Identities: a literature
review**
*Oscar Fernando Abella Peña
Abstract
This paper presents a
literature review on critical Identities (CI), that implemented as methodology
a profiling exercise, which according to Castañeda-Londoño (2019), is an
exercise that allows the tracking of tendencies in research studies. An
exploration was carried out in relation to what has been studied regarding the
English language teachers’ critical identities (CI henceforth). Based on this, a
conceptualization of CI will be briefly introduced, in order to frame this
review within a critical perspective in education. Then, I will discuss how the
review unveiled three trends: the first one is that some studies that relate to
CI revolve around critical reflections and explore narratives as part of their
methodology; the second one has to do with the fact that some studies explore
the relations between criticality and English language teaching, as contents in
courses or programs for in-service and pre-service teachers; the third one regards
some studies that reveal how English language teachers (ELT) express our CI to
confront power relations in our teaching practice. After that, I will comment
the gaps that were identified in studies related to English language teachers’
identities, which consists on the opportunity to understand our CI as something
that is built through our histories and stories, and that has an influence over
our actions as well as teaching practices inside and outside the classroom.
Finally, the conclusions of this profiling exercise will be exposed.
Keywords: Identity, criticality, ELT, profiling, power relations.
Explorando
las Identidades Críticas de los Profesores de Inglés: una revisión de la
literatura.
Resumen
Este documento presenta una revisión de la literatura en la que se implementó como metodología un ejercicio de
perfilado, el cual, de acuerdo con Castañeda-Londoño (2019), es un ejercicio que
permite el seguimiento de tendencias en estudios de investigación. Aquí, se
llevó a cabo una exploración relacionada con lo que se ha estudiado en relación
con las identidades críticas (IC de aquí en adelante) de los maestros de inglés.
Sobre esta base, se presentará de manera breve una
conceptualización de lo que se entiende por IC para enmarcar esta revisión
dentro de una perspectiva crítica en la educación. Luego, se discutirá cómo
esta revisión revela tres tendencias: la primera es que algunos estudios que se
relacionan con las IC giran en torno a reflexiones críticas y exploran las
narrativas como parte de su metodología; la segunda tiene que ver con el hecho
de que algunos estudios exploran las relaciones entre criticalidad y la
enseñanza del idioma inglés como contenidos en cursos y programas para
profesores en formación y en ejercicio; la tercera tendencia revela cómo a
partir de algunos estudios los profesores de inglés expresamos nuestras IC para
confrontar relaciones de poder en nuestra práctica docente. Comentaré las
brechas que identifiqué en los estudios relacionados con las identidades de los
profesores de inglés, que consisten en la oportunidad de entender nuestras IC
como algo que se construye a través de nuestras historias de vida y nuestras
vivencias, y que tiene una influencia sobre nuestras acciones en nuestra
práctica docente dentro y fuera del salón de clases. Finalmente, se presentarán
las conclusiones de este ejercicio de perfilado.
Palabras clave: Identidad,
criticidad, ELT, perfilamiento relaciones de poder.
Exploration des identités
critiques chez les enseignants d’anglais : une révision documentaire.
Résumé
Cet article présente une révision documentaire, ayant
comme méthodologie un exercice de profilage qui, d’après Castañeda-Londoño
(2019), c’est un exercice permettant le suivi des tendances dans des études de
recherche. On a mené une exploration concernant ce qui a été étudié au sujet
des identités critiques (IC) chez les
enseignants d’anglais. Sur cette base, on présentera brièvement une
conceptualisation de ce qu’il faut entendre par IC, afin d’encadrer cette
révision documentaire dans une perspective critique dans le domaine de
l’éducation. Par la suite, on discutera la manière dont cette révision est
révélatrice de trois tendances : la première montre que quelques études en
rapport avec les IC tournent autour de réflexions critiques et explorent les
récits comme outil méthodologique ; la seconde met en évidence quelques
études explorant les rapports entre criticité et enseignement de la langue
anglaise en tant que contenus des cours et des programmes pour des enseignants
et futurs enseignants ; la troisième tendance révèle la façon dont, à
partir de quelques études les enseignants d’anglais exprimons nos IC afin de
confronter des relations de pouvoir dans le cadre de nos pratiques
d’enseignement. J’aborderai les lacunes identifiées dans les études au sujet
des identités des enseignants d’anglais, comme un moyen de comprendre la
construction de nos identités à travers nos histoires de vie et nos
expériences, ainsi que son influence sur
nos actions d’enseignement dans la salle de classe comme en dehors.
Finalement, on présentera les conclussions de cet exercice de profilage.
Mots
clé : Identité, criticité, ELT, profilage,
rapports de pouvoir.
Introduction
This paper is the result of a research
profiling exercise that has been done to understand a personal and worldwide growing
interest in discussing English Language Teachers’ Identities. I say that this
is a personal interest because the work I have done with students with
particular socio economic and cultural conditions, has allowed me to tackle
inequalities and some injustices in my lessons to help them to notice the
pervasive of the status quo. The way I perceive my profession as teacher is the
result of the embodiment of a critical identity that is manifested throughout
my teaching practices in different moments and spaces, and I have observed
similar postures in my colleagues, which has led me to wonder about how they
have built and understood those CI. A profiling exercise, according to
Castañeda-Londoño (2019), is an exercise that allows the tracking of tendencies
in research studies, in this case related to English language teachers’ CI, by
reviewing abstracts from different databases. Consequently, different
educational domains were scanned to find out the use of criticality and
identity with topical relationships. Firstly, although identity and criticality
are separated concepts that have been a concern in the education field, there
are few works which analyze the contexts and ways in which EL teachers try to
embody and exercise critical identities, and their relations with our teaching
practices. Then, based on this profiling exercise, it will be presented the
domains in education that have appropriated critical frames and the purposes
behind the pedagogical implementations. It will be presented the articles that
have been explored in this exercise, discussing the concept of CI and how it is
evidenced and problematized in the articles. The three identified trends, in
relation to the English language teachers’ CI will be presented, and it will be
mentioned tendencies in terms of when and where this topic has been researched.
Finally, I will present the found gap, which offers an opportunity to explore
and research about CI.
The exploration
For this profiling exercise different
databases were explored such as Scopus, Web of Science, ERIC, ScienceDirect,
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Google scholar, and JSTOR, and it is
worthy to mention that studies that directly refer to CI as a single concept are
scarce. That is to say, the cluster Critical + Identity seems to be a little
explored issue, which means that it is easy to find studies related to English
language teachers’ identities, and as a different issue, I could find plenty of
research related to criticality and the teaching of the English language, but
both elements combined are not easy to find. I started by exploring papers that
dealt with English language teachers´ identities and I found that there the
focus was on identities different from a critical one. Then, I revised research
that had problematized any type of critical element such as Critical thinking,
in the teaching of the English language, but elements of identity were not
taken into account. An amount of 75 articles were examined, the ones that
resulted from the search critical + identity were just 5, 2 in the ELT and 3 in
education in general. The intention was to give a complete panorama of what has
been problematized in relation to CI and a total of 65 articles were initially considered
because they seemed to give account of explorations of this topic.
After a deeper analysis of each paper, it was difficult
to find connections between the concept of CI and the purposes of the authors. In
the end, half of the articles were excluded, and even the ones that were
included here presented difficulties to fit into what I conceptualize as CI. It
was necessary to find common elements that could be identified in both grounds,
criticality and identity, such as agency, teacher, subject, critical being,
critical thinking, critical pedagogy, critical awareness, critical applied
linguistics, and agency. Then, a deeper analysis of the articles was
carried out to make any sort of connections that could give account of a
relevance for the concept of CI. This does not mean that it was assumed that CI
were the focus of those studies, but that it was possible to establish
connections based on what the authors reported in their documents and the
created clusters. Finally, it was observed that there are studies that relateded
to the issue since 2002, and that Canada, Indonesia, China, Colombia, Iran,
Saudi Arabia, Norway, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and United States are present in
this search, finding that there is a tendency in some Asian countries to
research about CI.
Conceptualizing Critical Identities
My understanding of CI corresponds
to the conceptualization that I have built based on the reviewed literature in
relation to two separated issues: Identity and Criticality. On one hand, we
have identity, which are the results “from processes of (public) political
negotiation through discourse (and/or other semiotic systems) within the
communities of practice in which individuals participate” (Archakis &
Tsakona, 2012, p.33). Zembylas (2003) provided more elements, that I find
relevant to conceptualize identities in relation to criticality, from three
lenses: a) Ericksonian and neo-Ericksonian approach, which explain that
individuals decide if they want to adapt and fit to life situations; b) a
socio-cultural approach, in which it is considered that individuals are better
perceived when they are observed from their outside in relation to social and
cultural processes from which they are constructed; and c) a post structural
view, which contemplates the importance of the socio-political context in how
identities evolve largely out of the history of how we construct our emotions,
thoughts, judgments and beliefs. This author points that identity takes shape
when narratives of subjectivity meet the narratives of culture. According to
Beachamp and Thomas (2009), “What may result from a teacher’s realization of
his or her identity, in performance within teaching contexts, is a sense of
agency, of empowerment to move ideas forward, to reach goals or even to
transform the context” (p.183). This conceptualization of identity is relevant
for this profiling because it connects elements that may be located in the embodiment
of CI, such as agency and the desire for transformation in different
educational scenarios.
On the other hand, we are
going to consider criticality as those thoughts, proposals, positions, actions,
and notions that teachers include in our practice inside and outside the
classroom, and that look for criticizing the status quo (Hinchey, 2006). Menard–Warwick
et al., (2019), which work is included in this profiling exercise, stated that
being critical means being worried about power relations in ELT. This means
that I searched for studies that explored what, when, how, where or why English
language teachers resist, question, confront or criticize elements of their
practice. Kubota (2017), provided a conceptualization that directly addresses
to English language teachers’ CI, as an element that is shaped and reshaped by
ideological differences with those who interact with us, and by elements
related to the teaching practice such as discourse, literature, our formation,
and political situations, among others. Then, I conceptualize Critical Identities
as changing structures that English Language teachers build throughout our
lives by reflecting upon our profession, and by being aware of the power
relations between teaching and the social, political, cultural and economic
elements of our context. These structures are influenced by the interactions
with other members of the educative field and are constantly willing for
transformation.
The trends
Considering the reviewed
studies, I could observe three trends in the CI research: there are documents
that relate to CI, by revolving around critical reflections, some analyze
criticality in the teaching practice as content in courses or programs for
in-service and pre-service teachers, and others show that there is a connection
with how language teachers embody a CI to confront power relations in their
teaching practice. The trends have been named: The role of Critical reflection
in teaching practices as a framework for CI, Critical thinking: The teacher as
critical thinker in Education and ELT education, and CI embodied by EFL
teachers, correspondingly.
The role of critical reflections within
narratives in teaching practices as a framework for CI
Reflections, mainly expressed
in narratives, are a starting point to explore teachers’ identities. These have
been an important instrument in the field of education because they provide us
an opportunity as teachers to improve our practices by self-examining,
self-evaluating, and learning from our experiences, so we may base our actions
on a thoughtful exercise (Shandomo, 2010). The implementation of critical
reflections in English language teachers’ narratives could make the difference between
those three strands of thought that Kumaravadivelu (2002) pointed: “(a)
teachers as passive technicians, (b) teachers as reflective practitioners, and
(c) teachers as transformative intellectuals” (p.8), being the last one the
result of a reflective process. Then, the research of English language
teachers’ CI is attached to the exploration of the reflections over our
practices because by narrating and reflecting over our stories and histories,
we may understand how criticality influences our identities and actions.
According to Beachamp and Thomas (2009), “What may result from a teacher’s
realization of his or her identity, in performance within teaching contexts, is
a sense of agency, of empowerment to move ideas forward, to reach goals or even
to transform the context” (p.183). Some of the reviewed studies reported the
implementation of reflections within the narratives of the participants, some
directly look for problematizing CI and implemented the reflections as
methodology, while others were taken into account in this profiling exercise
because along the content of the reflections, it was possible to observe hints
of a CI. I have also considered documents that reveal elements such as agency
in the reflections made by the participants.
Parvin (2017) problematized
how thoughts, beliefs, and knowledge, through critical reflections, influence
the construction and reconstruction of the identity at different stages of our
professional lives as teachers. The author implemented narratives to reflect
upon the construction of her own life as student first, and then as teacher,
and indicated that narrative self-study allowed her to explore her identity
from her discursively shaped thoughts, her beliefs, and knowledge. Her stories
and histories were the data that she analyzed along the study. Parvin chained
her reflective writings to describe how she went from being a student who did
not question the status quo of the system, to a teacher who contested a system
that turned English classroom into an authoritarian environment. In the same
way, Banegas and Gerlach (2021) implemented critical reflections to explore
critical language teacher education by following a comprehensive sexuality
education approach and a gender perspective in their English language teaching
methodology modules, which allowed them to observe elements of their identity
and agency. Thanks to their reflections, they were able to indicate that
critical pedagogy facilitated the construction of their identity based on a
specific social environment, which demanded them to be compromised with
socially just initiatives.
Basabe (2019) carried out a
study in which problematized the praxis of critical pedagogy to teach
literature in English language from an analytical autoethnography of his
practice. He started a reflection motivated by his uncertain of whether he was
critical in his practice or not. He found that the reflections over his
practice positioned him as a teacher that wants to keep a critical position in
his teaching context. Here I find that, by the way the author places himself as
teacher, there is an influence of criticality on his identity. Similarly, Amy
(2007) problematized teachers' professional identity through a narrative
inquiry. Here the author presents a Chinese EFL teacher’s reflections about its
professional life and analyzes the identity construction based on a social
theory of identity formation, in which there are three means to fit in:
engagement, imagination, and alignment. The author uses this theory to point
that alignment may affect the building of the identity because it leads to
coercion and oppression (power relations), bringing about dissociation and
alienation, which according to what has been discussed before, has an incidence
over the embodiment of a CI. As it will be seen along this profiling, there are
connections between power relations and CI.
Franzak (2002) problematized teacher
identity by implementing something the author called Critical Friends Groups
strategy, which consisted on study groups driven by their members, in which,
throughout their experiences within the school life, teachers reflect upon
their professional development. In this study, the author indicates that as
teachers, we develop our identity throughout an ongoing, changing and dynamic
process that takes place in time and when we interact with other teachers. For
this study, the author implements the reflections made by a teacher named
Rebecca, to observe how this teacher has built her identity. I evidenced here some
hints of Rebecca´s CI when she mentions that she “believes that teachers are
too isolated in their practice and that, as a result, they have not had a voice
in decisions that impact their teaching” (p.272). And she continues saying that
she perceives “this isolation as a response to multiple forces, including
top-down decisions implemented by administrative and government entities”
(p.272). Then, it is observed that these Critical Friends Groups facilitated
the evidence of how Rebecca embodies a CI. Likewise, Quintero and Guerrero
(2018), problematize, based on a reflective narrative that focused on
preservice teachers’ stories, three models of teacher, that are aligned with
Kumaravadivelu’s (2002) proposal: passive technician, reflective practitioner
and reflexive practitioner, and critical practitioner or transformative
intellectual, to analyze pre-service English language teachers’ identities
construction. The authors observed a constant negotiation of “self” that
exposed an epistemological, professional and personal history, that included
the notion of the participants’ agency.
Kubota (2016), problematized
issues of identity in relation to language teachers who support critical
approaches to pedagogy, starting from a personal experience that led the author
to reflect critically about her own identity as language teacher. Thanks to her
critical reflections, Kubota is able to observe that CI is evidenced as an
ideological struggle that appears when we have differences with the people we
interact with in our life as language teachers, and these differences may be
resisted or negotiated, which has repercussions over the way we shape and
reshape our identity. In a research study carried out by Menard-Warwick, Ruiz
Bybee, Degollado, Jin, Kehoe and Masters in 2019, entitled Same Language,
Different Histories: Developing a “Critical” English Teacher Identity, the
authors problematize how English language teachers build our identity in the
contemporary global society by understanding our positions in history, our relationships
with our students, and the way we perceive English as symbolic capital. The
authors conducted three separate ethnographic case studies in which three
teachers at different countries and contexts, reflected upon their histories
and stories, and it was observed that the three participants in the research
study have in common a position against imperialist powers.
Samaneh, Kendall, and Zia
(2019) conducted a study in which they observed the reflections in the
narratives of two EFL teachers in relation to identity, and found that the
self-images as language teachers come from the interactions that exist with
education policies, in this particular case, in Iran. The authors point that
our identities are subjected to change, and that educative policies cause
struggles between what we believe and what we expect, which should be taken
into account when it comes to talk about teachers’ professional development in
contexts that are highly confronted by politics. According to what I have
discussed, in this study the teachers’ CI is evidenced when the participants
refer to their postures about ELT community, rules, textbooks, but especially
when they talk about the controversy of teaching culture with the
particularities of the EFL context in Iran, and how their practice is
influenced by their personal ideologies and philosophies of teaching. Suzanne
and Craig (2020) explored two experiences of two different studies that
inquired about teacher identity formation in Ireland and both studies
implemented post structural approaches as methodology. Although this study was
interested in observing the role of the approaches, both studies implemented
critical reflections to observe teacher identity in relation to critical
positions. The first study analyzed the regular experiences of 11 Irish male
primary school teachers, while the other observed how a neoliberal tone
influences teachers’ identities and education in Ireland. Although this paper
does not refer directly to CI, it is observed that reflections are poststructuralist
tools to research about identities where elements such as agency and critical
positions emerge.
Lawrence and Nagashima (2019)
implemented narratives to reflect about their own histories and stories in
relation to their identities and how they were shaped under particular
conditions of their gender, sexuality, race, and native-speaker status. They
implemented a poststructuralist intersectionality framework to discuss about
their identities as teachers, and used as method a duo ethnographic approach.
CI may be observed along the participants’ dialogues when they refer to the way
they included those conflictive elements of their identities in their teaching
practice. By reading the conversations and reflections that the two
participants held during the study, it is evidenced how there is a CI that
looks for resisting the way these teachers were perceived throughout their
practice.
The critical reflections allow
us to explore and understand elements of our identities that are not
consciously taken into account in our daily practices. By narrating our
histories and stories and reflecting upon them, and the elements that surround
them, we may find how criticality is part of who we are and what we do. In the
next part, I will discuss the findings in relation to that criticality within
our practices and our identities as English language teachers.
Critical thinking: The teacher
as critical thinker in Education and ELT education
Criticality has been
considered in the education field, in terms of the practice, as an approach to
teach. it is presented to pre-service and in-service teachers as content that
should be systematically learned, assimilated, integrated and implemented in
our classrooms. The Glossary of Education Reform (2013) points in its
definition for Critical Thinking, that the 21st century skills movement invited
all schools to include in their curriculums, activities and content that favor
the development of critical thinking as an ability to have effective students
in the university, and functional workers in today’s workplaces. The 21st
century skills have penetrated the schools in Colombia, and secretaries of
education, principals, coordinators, and teachers in general, have perceived
the development of these skills as a must in our programs and practices. One
example is the orienting document developed and presented by the Secretaria de
Educación de Bogotá (2020) for the 2020’s Foro Educativo Distrital, in which
teachers were invited to discuss and present pedagogical experiences that had
taken into account these 21st century skill as framework.
In the English language
teaching field (ELT), the first contact that we consciously have with critical
positions, is related to a methodological approach that may facilitate the
development of both, critical thinking and communicative skills, in our
students. Some of the studies that I found observed the criticality as
something that English language teachers should learn throughout a training
process. For example, Petek and Bedir (2018) problematized how a 14-week action
plan implementation, about the integration of critical thinking into language
teaching, impacted 8 pre-service English teachers’ awareness and teaching
practices. The authors argued that thinking critically is a fundamental
learning and innovation tool for post-secondary education and the workforce.
They also argued that thinking critically is not natural in us and that when we
do not train our thinking it is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed and
downright prejudiced. That is why they consider that critical thinking requires
purposeful training and instruction. The authors found after the intervention
that pre-service English teachers did not have enough knowledge and skills to
implement critical thinking in their classes because the education system in
Turkey, where the study took place, does not motivate the development of this
ability. They also observed that pre-service English teachers can insert
critical thinking in their classes when they are trained to do it.
Fatemeh, Mohammad Reza,
Gholamreza, and Mohammad Davoudi. (2020) problematized how EFL teachers and
learners perceived the fundamental principles and constructs of critical
thinking, the main characteristics of a critical thinker, and strategies for
reinforcing critical thinking ability. The authors argued that developing
critical thinking should be the main aim for schools and that it is important
to create pedagogical proposals considering how EFL teachers and learners
understand critical thinking. This study did not observe a course or a program
to teach critical thinking, but it implemented semi-structured interviews with
eight EFL teachers and ten learners, from three different contexts of public,
private, and seminary schools in Iran to propose strategies necessary to
reinforce critical thinking ability in students. To achieve these purposes, the
researchers of this study used a constructivist grounded theory methodology and
proposed a model of critical thinking regarding teachers’ and learners’
perceptions. The authors found that there are important pedagogical
implications for the teachers when they favor the development of learners’
critical thinking skills because the students may think more deeply, solve
problems better, communicate and collaborate more effectively. The study also concluded
that critical thinking offers an opportunity for curriculum developers and
syllabus designers because they can include activities that favor this ability.
Hatch and Meller (2009) stated
that teachers and schools sometimes favor the existence of an unfair
socioeconomic system, and that it is necessary that teachers promote the
confrontation of the status quo and then, motivate others to work for social
change. They also pointed that for developing a critical perspective in
students, it was necessary to consider their background knowledge and then
connect it with the world. That is why they explored the incidence of
introducing critical pedagogical approaches in a program for pre-service
teachers. They addressed activities related to critical literacy that enriched
the future teachers’ understanding of critical pedagogies. Here the authors
were interested in implementing criticality as a methodological approach that
should be learned and implemented by the pre-service teachers to favor their
future students.
In another study, Abednia
(2012) problematized how a critical EFL teacher education course contributed to
Iranian teachers’ professional identity reconstruction. The author implemented
Pre-course and post-course interviews with seven teachers, and considered
reflective journals, class discussions. After the implementation of the course,
the author found three shifts in the participants’ professional identities, who
went from conformity with dominant ideologies, to critical autonomy, from an
instrumentalist perception of the teaching, to a critical/transformative one,
and from a linguistic perception of language education to a more educational
view. In a very similar way, Sardabi et al., (2018) problematized the impact of
teacher education programs informed by the tenets of critical pedagogy in
prospective teachers’ professional identity. The authors conducted a
qualitative study that observed the role of the program as an attempt to
influence the professional identity of future EFL teachers. The authors
implemented reflective journals, class discussions, and semi-structured
interviews before and after the program with 19 future teachers to observe the
building of their identity. They found that the participants went from a
student’s voice to a teacher’s voice, from an uncritical attitude to developing
agency, and from a narrow view of ELT to a broader one. For these two studies
the focus were not teachers’ students but the teachers´ identities in relation
to elements that may be found in their criticality. The purpose of the authors
was to conduct interventions that favored transformations in the participants
perceptions in relation to their criticality.
Fernández (2019) presented a
complete description of the philosophy and model of Xicanx Institute for
Teaching & Organizing, which is a very interesting proposal that is not
related to the ELT field, but that is a good example of a pedagogical
experience that is interested in training and supporting critically conscious
teachers. Although the field in which this study takes place is Ethnic Studies,
it is interesting how criticality is across the whole proposal. The purpose of
the model is to implement a pedagogy that is humanizing, critical and
community-responsive. The model is motivated by the need of a model of Ethnic
Studies professional development that opposes to the model of current teacher
education by infusing critical identity, work decolonizing and re-humanizing.
The proposal is basically “an act of resistance to the attack on Mexican American
Studies in Arizona as well as in response to the need for decolonizing and
re-humanizing Ethnic Studies professional development” (Fernández, 2019, p.2).
I decided to include this study although it is not addressed to English
language future teachers because it gives account of teachers’ CI in action.
Similarly, Vavrus (2009) analyzed a curriculum based on a multicultural
critical teacher education, that looked for including an alternative to teach
sexuality and gender education in a meaningful way. The author implemented an
autoethnographic narrative assignment with future teachers to reflect about
their identities as something influenced by their experiences with gender and
sexuality. The study included 38 students, and each one carried out an
autoethnography that exposed their lived histories. The analysis observed
elements such as gender identification, heteronormativity, patriarchy, sex
education, schooling experiences, teacher complicity, and teacher identity.
These elements were perceived as influential in the existence of agency. The
study found that, at first, the future teachers informed a lack of preparation
to talk about certain topics with their students, but after the implementation
of the proposed curriculum the participants felt more self-assured about
addressing topics related to sex education that are normally ignored.
Singh and Richards (2006)
problematized how teaching and learning in the language teacher education
dominates the technical-rational discourse, perpetuating the idea that language
teaching knowledge can be learnt with content-based courses and then just
having a practicum experience. This tendency makes practitioners focus on LTE
issues that just relate to knowledge about pedagogy, which reinforces a
training model. The authors pointed that these courses tend to ignore elements
that favor changes in teachers’ classroom like including the notion that in
humans learning there are elements that mediate such as social interactions,
the context and the identity. According to what I have discussed in this paper,
not only the proposed course was conceived from the perspective of a teacher’s
CI, but it also looks for the construction of a CI in future teachers as the
intention is to promote a socially constructed identity as professionals.
Khan (2019) shared in her
study the experiences derived from a course framed in a bilingual education
program with future teachers at a university, which had to do with gender and
sexuality in the classroom and in policy. The study examined students’ reflective
journals, which highlighted the importance of including gender and sexuality in
the ELT curriculum and teacher education programs. This was another proposal
that promoted critical consciousness throughout the inclusion of content in the
curriculum. The authors concluded that it is difficult to connect the theory to
the practice in the design of the course, but, according to students’
reflections, the content included in the program had an influence over the
participants’ perceptions about stereotypes, and over the building of their
self-identity as future teachers. The authors pointed that teacher training
academic programs should favor through the curriculum the construction of
identities rooted in critical pedagogy.
After discussing what has been
found in terms of criticality in the ELT field, it is important to mention that
there is a gap because this issue has been explored in relation to our students
and to the strategies that we should implement to favor the development of
their critical thinking, but English language teachers’ criticality, as a
constituting and constitutive element in our identities, does not seem to be
fully explored. It is relevant to research about those teachers that in our
sense of agency confront or resist certain institutionalized impositions, that
is, teachers as critical thinkers. I have to point that I do not agree with the
idea that the construction of CI can or should be forced throughout courses or
programs. On the contrary, I am more interested on understanding how we build
CI through our histories and stories.
CI embodied by EFL
teachers.
As I mentioned before, I have
conceptualized CI as changing structures that constitute us as teachers, which are
built throughout our lives, and which can be located in our reflections in
relation to our histories and stories, our practices, and our contexts. But these
identities may also be observed in what we do as teachers inside and outside
the classrooms. There is not one single critical identity and that is why I
have referred to this concept in plural as Critical Identities, because they
are manifested and understood in different ways. This means that CI are defined
by subjective elements that are shaped by each teacher based on our own lives
and perceptions, and we embody them in different and particular ways.
Some of the studies included
here are related to elements in teachers’ identities such as teachers’ own self-images,
critical awareness development, agency, and ethical considerations, which can
be triggering CI as an embodiment practice. For instance, Zare-Ee and Ghasedi (2014)
problematized how teachers’ professional identity (TPI) is constructed.
According to the author, TPI is influenced by many factors and conditions
inside and outside the classroom. Issues such as how successful the teacher
thinks he is, or how successful students think he is; issues such as whether
the teacher has a family or a second job, etc. Teachers’ professional
self-image is about how we define our professional roles, how we see ourselves as
teachers. These factors affect the way our identity as professionals, is
formed. The authors mention that there are societal pressures and conditions
such as others’ expectations that shape a teacher’s identity. In this study CI
is embodied by the participants when they talk about administrative issues in
relation to how they have an incidence over the building of the teachers’
identities. One participant, while talking about the people in charge of the
administration, said that they “control you, to see where your qualifications
are weak, what may wipe out your name from the list of teachers…; they never
give you a hand to lift you up to the position you deserve…” (p.1994). This is
a manifestation of a critical identity that expresses a critical position
regarding the way teachers are evaluated. CI may not be evident during our
practices, but in conversations out of our classes, we allow ourselves to
express our critical standings.
Monica (2017) carried out a
study in which problematized the process of redefining the teachers’ identities
and their critical awareness development by exploring areas of their
socialization. This study could be easily placed in any of the three trends
that I have presented as self-reflections were implemented in a program for
pre-service teachers, but it is included in this trend because the author pointed,
as evidence of critical awareness, that the participants “explored teaching
methods that are new for the students and teaching methods that are new for
them” (p.18). This implies that throughout their practices, the participants
found a way to embody their CI by exploring different methods that considered
the development of critical awareness. The author points that becoming a
teacher involves the (trans)formation of the identity, a process of being open,
negotiated and shifting, and it is not a totally personal or isolated process
because it happens depending on the social and cultural context within the field
of education.
Miller et al., (2017)
problematized language teacher identity as the base of educational practice and
observed Foucault’s notion of ethical self-formation to understand the
development of teacher agency and critical identity work. The author carried
out a case study of an elementary reading and language arts teacher. The study
considers that the most important objective of teacher education and language
teacher education, should be generating change in classroom practices that can
lead to improved learning outcomes. The study allowed a discussion in which the
authors indicate that teachers’ professional development may contribute to
favor language teachers’ awareness of their subjectivity in relation to the discourses
related to the value of language teaching. Ibrahim et al., (2013) problematized
teachers’ resistance to educational changes imposed by education authorities.
The authors observed four factors for educational change in government schools
in the United Arab Emirates which were: psychological, personal,
school-culture-related, and organizational. The data was collected by
implementing a survey with 39 statements, which was answered by 255 male and
female, foreign and national teachers who taught different grade levels in
public schools. The outcomes of this study indicated, according to what I have
presented along this document, that teachers embodied CI by resisting the
changes, which became an obstacle for the government proposal. This resistance has
its origins in how change was initiated and administered. It was observed that
a reason for resisting change was the fact that teachers were left out from the
decision-making process.
Sloan (2006) carried out a
study in which explored how teachers responded to curriculum policies based on
accountability. The author implemented class observations and teacher
interviews to observe their identities and how agency emerged in response to
accountability explicit curriculum policies. The study concluded that teachers’
reactions towards locally conceived accountability-explicit curriculum policies
are different and particular. The author also found that teachers react to
accountability explicit curriculum policies based on their identities, (which I
perceive as an embodiment of CI). Finally, it was determined that teachers´
agency is the way the participants resist accountability explicit curriculum
policies.
Conclusions
Considering the little
research that has been done in relation to CI and the trends that I have
identified, I can state that criticality, in relation to identities, has not
been explored enough. Most of the research carried out in this sense refers to
how teachers implement criticality as part of their teaching practice. CI do
not seem to be a huge interest in the problematization of identity, and I
believe that it is important to revise the issue, especially in troubled
societies as the Colombian one. Colombian teachers are constantly performing
critical positions inside and outside the classrooms, so, exploring English
language teachers´ CI may contribute to a better understanding of how we
position ourselves as critical, and how this influences our decisions,
perceptions and in general our practices. Criticality is something that
teachers develop as we immerse in the education field, and it is relevant to
understand how it influences the construction of our identities. Research in
education has shown that it is important to know ourselves if we want to
understand how we build our practice because our stories and histories are
connected to the way we exercise our profession (Day et al., 2006). There are
social conditions, policies and historical events that have influenced the
development of the Education system as a conflicted field in which teachers
resist, confront or negotiate, building diverse CI.
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