ABSTRACT Title of Study: HOW ESOL TEACHER CANDIDATES CONSTRUCT THEIR TEACHER IDENTITIES: A CASE STUDY OF AN MATESOL PROGRAM Bedrettin Yazan, Doctor of Philosophy, 2014 Directed By: Assistant Professor, Megan Madigan Peercy, Ph.D. Department of Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership This study examined the contributions of teacher education courses and the teaching practicum to three ESOL teacher candidates’ (TCs) teacher identity construction in a thirteen- month intensive MATESOL program (IMP). This study was conceptually based on sociocultural understanding of second language (L2) teacher learning and knowledge base and it conceived identity as intertwined with teacher learning, teacher cognition, participation in communities of practice, teaching contexts, teacher biographies, and teacher emotions. Theoretically, this study relied on Wenger’s (1998) conceptualization of identity development which foregrounds individuals’ self-identification and negotiation as they seek access and membership to professional communities and participate in their activities. This study defined teacher identity as teachers’ dynamic, constantly evolving self-conception and imagination of themselves as teachers. Data collection efforts included two rounds of in-depth individual interviews with the TCs, observations of the classes they taught in their school-based practicum and their teacher education classes, and analysis of their artifacts (e.g., reflection papers, online discussions). Through their teacher education courses, the three TCs engaged in teacher identity negotiation and construction as they were afforded opportunities to take on an ESOL teacher perspective, their professors and peers valued their teaching practicum experiences in public school context, and the TCs had professional interactions with their peers in the social spaces of teacher education classes. Moreover, during their practicum experiences, their teacher identity development was supported through their mentors’ sharing of power and ownership of students, having a designated work space in the school, and experiencing various emotional states in relation to their teaching. Lastly, coursework and practicum collectively contributed to the TCs’ teacher identity construction through guided reflection opportunities, exposure to professional language of ESOL, and opportunities to identify what is important for them in teaching English language learners. Implications include incorporating teacher identity development as an explicit and conscious goal in the activities of teacher education programs. This immersion necessitates creating safe spaces for personalized identity negotiation, focusing on TCs’ prior conceptions and dispositions, training mentor teachers to support TCs’ identity formation, paying attention to TCs’ emotional experiences, enhancing guided reflective practices, and supporting beginning teachers’ induction into the profession. HOW ESOL TEACHER CANDIDATES CONSTRUCT THEIR TEACHER IDENTITIES: A CASE STUDY OF AN MATESOL PROGRAM By Bedrettin Yazan Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2014 Advisory Committee: Assistant Professor Megan Madigan Peercy, Chair Professor Jeffrey MacSwan Assistant Professor Melinda Martin-Beltran Associate Professor Rebecca Silverman Professor Linda Valli © Copyright by Bedrettin Yazan 2014 ii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. v List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1 1.1. Introduction to Problem ....................................................................................................... 1 1.2. Purpose and Significance of Study ...................................................................................... 3 1.3. Research Questions ............................................................................................................. 6 1.4. Definition of Terms ............................................................................................................. 7 1.5. Scope and Delimitations .................................................................................................... 13 1.6. Overview ........................................................................................................................... 14 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................. 16 2.1. Conceptual Framework ........................................................................................................ 18 2.1.1. Development of SLTE as a Field .................................................................................... 18 2.1.2. Shifting Conceptualizations ............................................................................................ 21 2.1.3. Shifting Epistemologies .................................................................................................. 24 2.1.4. Growing Interest in L2 Teacher Identity ........................................................................ 27 2.1.4.1. Conceptualizing Identity .......................................................................................... 28 2.1.4.2. Defining Teacher Identity ........................................................................................ 29 2.1.4.3. Teacher Identity Development ................................................................................. 33 2.1.5. Relevant Themes and Domains of Research .................................................................. 38 2.1.5.1. Teacher Learning ..................................................................................................... 41 2.1.5.2. Teacher Cognition .................................................................................................... 44 2.1.5.3. Participation in Communities of Practice ................................................................. 47 2.1.5.4. Contextual Factors ................................................................................................... 50 2.1.5.5. Teacher Biographies ................................................................................................ 53 2.1.5.6. Teachers’ Emotions ................................................................................................. 56 2.2. Review of Studies on L2 Teacher Identity ........................................................................ 58 2.2.1. L2 Teacher Candidates’ Identity Formation ................................................................... 59 2.2.1.1. Preservice Teacher Education Program in General .................................................. 59 2.2.1.2. Teacher Education Coursework. .............................................................................. 68 2.2.1.3. Teaching Practicum Experiences ............................................................................. 74 2.2.2. Practicing L2 Teachers’ Identity Formation ................................................................... 81 iii 2.2.3. Summary of Review ....................................................................................................... 94 2.3. Theoretical Framework ...................................................................................................... 96 2.3.1. Social Theory of Learning .............................................................................................. 97 2.3.1.1. Introductory Caveats. ............................................................................................... 98 2.3.2. Participation, Non-participation, and Reification ........................................................... 99 2.3.3. Identity in Practice ........................................................................................................ 101 2.3.4. Modes of Belonging ..................................................................................................... 102 2.3.4.1. Engagement ........................................................................................................... 102 2.3.4.2. Imagination ............................................................................................................ 103 2.3.4.3. Alignment .............................................................................................................. 104 2.3.5. Dual Processes of Identity Formation: Identification and Negotiation ......................... 106 2.3.5.1. Identification .......................................................................................................... 106 2.3.5.2. Negotiability .......................................................................................................... 107 2.3.6. Wenger’s Theoretical Framework Problematized ........................................................ 109 2.4. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 111 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ......................................................................................... 114 3.1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 114 3.2. Research Questions ......................................................................................................... 114 3.3. Research Design .............................................................................................................. 115 3.3.1. Case Study Design .................................................................................................... 115 3.3.2. Rationale for Case Study Design .............................................................................. 116 3.3.3. Case Selection. .......................................................................................................... 118 3.4. Research Settings ............................................................................................................. 122 3.5. Research Participants ....................................................................................................... 125 3.5.1. Focal Participant One: Zoe ....................................................................................... 126 3.5.2. Focal Participant Two: Elizabeth .............................................................................. 129 3.5.3. Focal Participant Three: Leslie ................................................................................. 131 3.6. Data Collection ................................................................................................................ 134 3.6.1. Individual Interviews ................................................................................................ 135 3.6.2. Classroom Observations ........................................................................................... 136 3.6.3. Document Analysis ................................................................................................... 139 3.7. Data Analysis .................................................................................................................. 140 3.8. Researcher’s Position ...................................................................................................... 144 3.9. Internal Validity ............................................................................................................... 146 iv 3.10. External Validity ........................................................................................................... 149 3.11. Reliability ....................................................................................................................... 152 3.12. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 153 CHAPTER 4: Three Fledgling ESOL Teachers’ Winding Journey into the Profession ... 154 4.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 154 4.2. University-based Coursework .......................................................................................... 159 4.2.1. Building an ESOL Teacher’s Perspective ................................................................. 162 4.2.2. Professional Interaction in Coursework ..................................................................... 177 4.2.3. Value of Practicum in Coursework ........................................................................... 181 4.3. The School-based Teaching Practicum ............................................................................ 187 4.3.1. Sharing Power and Ownership .................................................................................. 188 4.3.2. Having a Work Space ................................................................................................ 195 4.3.3. Teacher Candidates’ Emotions and Identity .............................................................. 200 4.4. University-based Coursework and School-based Teaching ............................................. 206 4.4.1. Guided Reflection ...................................................................................................... 206 4.4.2. Acquisition of Professional Discourse ...................................................................... 212 4.4.3. Priorities in Teaching ESOL. ..................................................................................... 218 4.5. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 224 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION, IMPLICATIONS, AND FURTHER RESEARCH ............. 228 5.1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 228 5.2. Discussion ........................................................................................................................ 229 5.2.1. Intertwined Nature of Teacher Learning and Identity ............................................... 229 5.2.2. The Nexus of Individual and Social .......................................................................... 231 5.2.3. Handling Emotions, Framing Identities. .................................................................... 233 5.2.4. Reflecting Back, Negotiating Meanings .................................................................... 237 5.2.5. Professional Discourse: Tool for Teacher Identity Negotiation ................................ 240 5.3. Empirical Contributions ................................................................................................... 242 5.4. Theoretical Contributions ................................................................................................. 249 5.5. Practical Implications ....................................................................................................... 251 5.5.1. Make TCs’ identity development a conscious and intentional process ...................... 252 5.5.2. Create safe spaces in teacher education classes ......................................................... 254 5.5.3. Start teacher preparation with TCs’ preconceptions .................................................. 256 5.5.4. Select mentors carefully and provide them with professional development .............. 258 5.5.5. Guide TCs in the handling of emotional experiences ................................................ 261 v 5.5.6. Augment reflective practices to support identity construction .................................. 263 5.5.7. Provide support for beginning teachers’ induction .................................................... 265 5.6. A Note on Accreditation Standards .................................................................................. 268 5.7. Limitations of This Study and Implications for Future Research ..................................... 270 5.7.1. Examine TCs from various linguistic, cultural and educational backgrounds ........... 271 5.7.2. Explore the contribution of different language TEPs ................................................ 272 5.7.3. Continue observing TCs as they start their paid teaching career ............................... 272 5.7.4. Document ESOL teachers’ identities in the context of education reform .................. 273 5.7.5. Investigate the influence of teacher educators’, mentors’, and supervisors’ identities on TCs’ identity formation .................................................................................................. 274 5.8. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 275 APPENDICES ........................................................................................................................... 278 Appendix A: Consent Form .................................................................................................... 278 Appendix B: Interview Protocols ............................................................................................ 283 Individual Interview 1 ......................................................................................................... 283 Individual Interview 2 ......................................................................................................... 284 Appendix C: Email Letter to Teacher Educators ..................................................................... 287 Appendix D: Recruitment Script ............................................................................................. 288 Appendix E: Summary of the Previous Studies on L2 Teacher Identity ................................. 289 REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................... 294 vi List of Tables Table 1. Definitions of Teacher Identity: An Overview of Literature ...........................................31 Table 2. Intensive MATESOL Program with K-12 Certification ................................................123 Table 3. Required Coursework for the Intensive MATESOL Program (IMP) ............................124 Table 4. Data Collection Instruments ..........................................................................................135 vii List of Figures Figure 1a. Initial Conceptual Framework for Teacher Identity Construction ................................39 Figure 1b. Revised Conceptual Framework for Teacher Identity Construction ............................40 Figure 2. Four Major Categories of Participation ...................................................................... 100 Figure 3. Two Contexts of the Case Study ..................................................................................121 1   CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1. Introduction to Problem The United States has witnessed a rapid and constant growth in public school enrollment of ethnolinguistically and culturally diverse student populations during the past two decades, many of whom are English Language Learners (ELLs). ELLs who speak a language other than English, the mainstream societal language, constitute the most rapidly growing subgroup of students among the public school population (Samson & Collins, 2012; Short & Boyson, 2012; Wolf, Herman, Bachman, Bailey, & Griffin, 2008), whose number increases by nearly 10% each year (Kindler, 2002; McCardle, Mele-McCarthy, Cutting, Leos, & D’Emilio, 2005). Short and Boyson (2012) note that the ELL enrollment in preK-12 schools nationwide increased 51% within 10 years from 1998–1999 to 2008–2009, compared with 7.2% increase in the total population of preK-12 students including ELLs in this period. According to the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition (NCELA) data published in 2011, more than 5.3 million students were identified as ELLs who represent 11% of the total enrollment of almost 49.5 million students (Short & Boyson, 2012). At present, nearly one out of every nine students in U.S. classrooms is designated as an ELL (Thompson, 2012) and the projections suggest that by 2025 almost one out of every four school children will be an ELL (Thompson, 2012; van Roekel, 2008; Zehler, Adger, Coburn, Arteagoitia, Williams & Jacobson 2008). Additionally, the U.S. ELL population is continuously becoming a more diverse group in terms of their linguistic and academic backgrounds (Samson & Collins, 2012). There are more than 400 languages spoken in this group and depending on their home countries, their prior schooling experiences largely vary, which makes their education a more challenging task (Wolf, et al., 2008). This skyrocketing increase and extensive diversification of ELLs in US necessitates a well-equipped cadre of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) teachers who are 2   adequately qualified to serve a diverse population of students coming from various cultural, linguistic, and academic backgrounds. These students are in the process of learning English and they need to be linguistically supported so that they can access and learn academic content. ESOL teachers play a significant role in the education of ELLs who go through many challenges regarding their adjustment to the language and culture in US schools and society at large. Because of their students’ diverse needs and challenges, ESOL teachers’ work is uniquely challenging. Therefore, the ways in which they are prepared for this challenging job in formal preservice teacher education programs (TEPs) is an important factor in their development. Although TEPs have long been critiqued in terms of the difference or impact they can make in teacher candidates’ (TCs’) learning to teach (Tabachnick & Zeichner, 1984), “the quality and extent of teacher education” is influential on teachers’ effectiveness and professional competencies (Darling-Hammond, 2000, p. 166) that are significant contributors to students’ academic achievement (Harris & Sass, 2011; Stronge, Ward, & Grant, 2011; Rockoff, 2004). Hence, enhancing ELLs’ education requires high quality preservice teacher education that prepares ESOL TCs as effective teachers who can better help ELLs while they are confronting linguistic, cultural, academic, and emotional challenges in US K-12 classrooms. During their initial teacher preparation in TEPs, ESOL TCs are expected to engage in teacher learning by constructing their pedagogical knowledge, dispositions, and skills through their experiences in university-based teacher education courses and field-based teaching practica. As they traverse contours and processes of learning to teach and professional growth, they craft their teacher identities (Ronfeldt & Grossman, 2008) which constitute a basis and framework through which they interpret, value, and make sense of pedagogical theories and classroom teaching experiences (Bullough, 1997; Olsen, 2011; Sachs, 2005). Their teacher learning in TEPs 3   and beyond is not inseparable from their teacher identity formation (Tsui, 2011). The kind of teacher they conceive themselves to be and the kind of teacher they aspire to become have a deciding influence on their teacher learning. Also, as they learn more about teaching theoretically and practically, they constantly renegotiate and readjust their images of themselves as teachers and the image of teacher they envision becoming. Preparing ESOL TCs who can effectively serve fast-growing ELL populations entails consideration of the role of those TCs’ emerging teacher identities in the way they learn to teach ELLs and perform their teaching in the classroom. Their initial formal preparation for the profession is not only comprised of gaining necessary pedagogical knowledge and skills but also constructing teacher identities. They go through a process of transition from an identity of undergraduate or graduate student to an identity of ESOL practitioner in part through their experiences in teacher education coursework and the teaching practica. Thus, for the purpose of adding to the understanding of ESOL TCs’ development as teachers in TEPs, this study examines the contributions of ESOL TCs’ experiences in a TEP to their teacher identity construction. 1.2. Purpose and Significance of Study The major goal of TEPs is to foster and promote TCs’ learning to teach processes and to help them construct their theoretical and practical knowledge base. For that purpose, they aim to provide TCs with optimal experiences to engage in teacher learning and pedagogical knowledge construction. As TCs navigate programmatic provisions in TEPs, they continuously negotiate and take on different teacher identities which impact their emergence and growth as teachers. TCs’ learning to teach and identity formation are mutually constitutive processes. Their emerging identities as teachers influence the ways they make sense of their teacher learning experiences in TEPs and the ways in which they renegotiate and reconfigure their teacher 4   identities. Therefore, teacher identity casts a major influence on how TCs learn to perform their teaching, how they practice their theory and theorize their practice, how they work with their students, how they make instructional decisions, and how they interact and collaborate with their teacher educators, mentors, supervisors, and colleagues in professional settings. This research study places emphasis on the understanding of ESOL TCs’ teacher identity construction as a process intertwined with their preparation and growth as teachers in TEPs. It aims to explore the ways in which teacher education coursework and the teaching practica contribute to ESOL TCs’ teacher identity formation in an intensive MATESOL (Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) program. First, this research study aims to provide a description of how this intensive MATESOL program (IMP1) contributes to ESOL TCs’ identity construction through teacher education coursework and the teaching practica. This exploration can add to the existing understanding of ESOL TCs’ teacher identity formation in the literature on alternative TEPs which are common across the US (Zeichner & Conklin, 2005). Additionally, since the focal participants recruited for this research from the IMP were all White females and native speakers of English, which is demographically similar to the overall population of ESOL teachers and TCs throughout the US, this exploration may shine light on the processes of teacher identity formation in similar TEPs across the country. Second, another purpose of this study is to provide implications for how TEPs like this IMP can facilitate ESOL TCs’ preparation and growth as ESOL professionals by considering the process of their teacher identity construction as an inseparable component of their teacher learning. Examining three focal TCs’ teacher identity construction through teacher education courses and the teaching practica offered in the IMP, the goal of this study is to inform those                                                              1 All names (program, participants, courses etc.) are pseudonyms.  5   actors who are involved in the preparation of ESOL TCs. By comprehensively scrutinizing the programmatic components by means of multiple data sources, this study can contribute to the existing literature by informing second language (L2) teacher educators, supervisors, mentor teachers, and TCs about what aspects of initial teacher preparation practices are conducive to TCs’ identity construction processes. Upon learning more about the experiences TCs go through in terms of their identity development in a TEP, teacher educators, supervisors, and mentor teachers can better facilitate this development by orchestrating the programmatic provisions for which they are responsible. Teacher educators, mentor teachers, and university supervisors may be able to utilize the findings in this study to aid TCs with traversing the programmatic provisions to (re)negotiate and (re)configure their teacher identities in TEPs. A third purpose of this study is to create a conceptual framework by relying on prior work on identity in teacher education literature and test whether this framework can capture the complexities of TCs’ identity development by explaining what teacher identity influences and is influenced by. Thereby, through this framework, this study seeks to make a theoretical contribution to the understanding of teacher learning and identity development in the SLTE literature. As the fourth purpose, by making available this information about the three focal TCs, I hope that TCs who read this work would use the findings as a way to consider their own growth as ESOL teachers and identity development throughout TEP and beyond. I hope that TCs who read the discussion in this work become aware that they engage in identity negotiation and construction as they learn to teach ELLs. This awareness is likely to lead them to take ownership of the contours of their teacher identity formation journey. 6   1.3. Research Questions Scholars in the field of SLTE have pointed out L2 teacher identity as an underresearched and undertheorized domain of inquiry (e.g., Cross, 2010; Miller, 2009; Varghese, Morgan, Johnston & Johnson, 2005) although it is repeatedly underscored as an influential aspect of teachers’ initial preparation and further development (Johnston, Pawan, & Mahan-Taylor, 2005; Tsui, 2011). Some researchers have examined L2 TCs’ emerging teacher identities in the context of their TEPs. They concentrated on varying factors impacting teacher identity such as contradictions in the teaching practicum (Dang, 2012), discursive constructions of identity (Ilieva, 2010), learning in practice (Kanno & Stuart, 2011), TCs’ changing conceptions of self (Liu & Fisher, 2006), TCs’ constructions of theory and practice (Peercy, 2012), imagined linguistic and professional communities (Pavlenko, 2003), and identity in discourse and practice (Trent, 2010). However, casting a global look at the contribution of preservice teacher education practices to L2 TCs’ identity formation process can give us a novel perspective to gain a nuanced understanding of L2 TCs’ learning to teach and professional growth during their initial preparation. As L2 TCs engage in teacher learning through teacher education courses and the teaching practica, their fledgling teacher identities orient what they value, how they interpret their experiences, and what decisions they make. It is important to explore how L2 TCs negotiate, imagine, take on, and enact their teacher identities while they are traversing the provisions of the IMP. More specifically, scrutinizing the ways in which coursework and practica in the IMP are separately and jointly conducive to the three focal ESOL TCs’ teacher identity formation is a significant research endeavor. This is because its findings can be applied to other TEPs in the US which are similar in terms of their program structure and TC demographics. Shedding light on an uncharted territory, this inquiry can afford us deeper and more important insights to better 7   understand how TCs grow in TEPs and how their growth can be enhanced through the lens of teacher identity formation. Centering on teacher identity formation as the ultimate goal in TEPs can yield teacher educators a more fruitful direction to reconsider and redesign L2 teacher education practices in preservice TEPs. Therefore, this dissertation research examines the following research questions: 1. How does university-based teacher education coursework in an intensive MATESOL program contribute to ESOL TCs’ teacher identity construction? 2. How do field-based teaching practicum experiences in an intensive MATESOL program contribute to ESOL TCs’ teacher identity construction? 1.4. Definition of Terms This study needs to define terms which are frequently used throughout its chapters, because some concepts in the field of TESOL are represented with more than one name, some terms may refer to different meanings depending on the context, and some researchers prefer certain namings to others.   edTPA (Teacher Performance Assessment): edTPA is a preservice assessment process designed by educators to answer the essential question: “Is a new teacher ready for the job?” edTPA includes a review of a teacher candidate’s authentic teaching materials as the culmination of a teaching and learning process that documents and demonstrates each candidate’s ability to effectively teach his/her subject matter to all students (http://edtpa.aacte.org/).  English as a second language (ESL): The term ESL refers to English instruction or learning in “a setting in which the language is necessary for everyday life (for example, an immigrant learning English in the US) or in a country in which English plays an important role in education, business, and government (for example in Singapore, the 8   Philippines, India, and Nigeria)” (Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, Richards & Schmidt, 2010, p. 197). It is usually used interchangeably with the term English for speakers of other languages (ESOL). It is generally juxtaposed with the term English as a foreign language (EFL) which refers to the “formal classroom setting, with limited or no opportunities for use outside the classroom, in a country in which English does not play an important role in internal communication (China, Japan, and Korea, for example)” (Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, Richards & Schmidt, 2010, p. 197).  English language learners (ELLs): In this study, this term is mainly used to describe K- 12 students in United States schools, who speak a native language other than English. ELLs are “those who did not grow up in a primarily English-speaking setting and lack the skills necessary to learn in an English-only environment” (LeClair, Doll, Osborn, & Jones, 2009, p. 568). According to National Center for Education Statistics (2006) data, “students who qualify for ELL services must have been raised in a setting where English is not the dominant language” (p. 568). In the U.S. context, it is preferred as a substitute for the legislative term “limited English proficient (LEP)” because ELL as a term focuses on what students are achieving whereas the latter highlights the students’ temporary “limitation” before becoming proficient in the language (García, Arias, Murri, & Serna, 2010). Although the terms English learner (EL) and English language learner (ELL) are used interchangeably (García, et al., 2010), this dissertation study opts to use ELL in order to refer to K-12 students who have been or are being provided supplementary English lessons to be able to learn academic content. 9    Intensive MATESOL program (IMP): The IMP with K-12 Certification is a 13-month intensive full-time program that leads to a Master’s of Education (M.Ed.) as well as eligibility for state certification to teach ESOL in elementary or secondary schools. It is an alternative teacher education program for individuals who have completed a baccalaureate degree and want to be certified to teach at the K-12 level. The teacher candidates in this program have two semester-long practicum courses: one at the elementary and one at the secondary level. The teacher candidates need to complete 42 credits within 13 months: 36 credit hours of coursework and 6 credit hours of field experience.  Knowledge base of SLTE: The term refers to one of the central issues in SLTE which revolves around the following questions: “What do teachers need to know and how is that knowledge embedded in teacher education in both preparation programs and ongoing professional development for teachers?” (Tedick, 2005, p. 1). How SLTE programs respond to those major questions determines the content of their teacher education practices offered for L2 TCs. The term of knowledge base of SLTE revolves around such issues as “[L2] teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, teacher cognition, teacher learning in formal and informal contexts, teachers’ ways of knowing, teacher socialization, reflective teaching, teacher identity, values and ethical dispositions, and the nature of disciplinary knowledge” (p. 1).  Mentor teacher: This term is used to describe experienced teachers who work with teacher candidates throughout their school-based teaching practicum and are responsible for providing “one-to-one, workplace-based, contingent and personally appropriate support for the person during their professional acclimatization (or integration), learning, 10   growth, and development” (Malderez, 2009, p. 260). Other terms such as collaborating teacher, cooperating teacher and associate teacher are also used to describe the teachers with the same responsibility.  PBA (Performance-Based Assessment): In the department where the IMP is housed, PBA refers to an online platform which facilitates the evaluation of teacher candidates’ supervised teaching throughout the course of practica. University supervisors, mentor teachers, and teacher candidates utilize this platform through LiveText (an American browser-based e-portfolio and assessment management web application) in order to assess TCs’ progress. They use a rubric which is composed of seven sections, namely, the following: (a) planning instruction, (b) delivery of instruction, (c) assessment of student learning, (d) classroom management and organization, (e) knowledge of content, (f) attitudes/student-teacher interaction/interpersonal skills and (g) professionalism.  Practicum (plural: practica or practicums): Also known as practice teaching, student teaching, internship, field experience, apprenticeship, practical experience, and clinical experience, practicum refers to one of the main components of initial teacher preparation, which “is intended to give student teachers the experience of classroom teaching, an opportunity to apply the information and skills they have studied in their teacher education program, and a chance to acquire basic teaching skills” (Richards & Schmidt, 2010, p. 589). Although there are many differences across the designs of practica in the U.S. or abroad, it “usually involves supervised teaching, experience with systematic observation, and gaining familiarity with a particular teaching context” (Gebhard, 2009, p. 250). 11    Second language teacher education (SLTE): The term refers to the field of research and practice that is concerned with the initial formal preparation and in-service professional development of second language teachers in ESL and EFL settings. As a line of inquiry in its infancy, “the activity [of SLTE] was labeled, and thus its boundaries were (re)defined” in the 1990s. “In this process of definition, the term second language was increasingly taken to refer to English as a foreign, second or additional language” (Freeman, 2009, p. 13). However, because “second and foreign language (FL) teacher education have more commonalities than differences” (Bigelow & Tedick, 2005, p. 295) and this study includes the examination of research in foreign language teacher education, too, the term SLTE refers to both English language teacher education and foreign language teacher education in this paper. Recent books that have the term SLTE in their titles (Burns & Richards, 2009; Johnson, 2009a; Richards & Nunan, 1990; Tedick, 2005) use it in its broad sense, referring to both English and foreign language teacher education, whereas the international language teacher education conference in the field uses the term language teacher education, without including “English,” “second,” and “foreign.”  Teacher candidate (TC): This term is used to refer to students who are enrolled in a preservice teacher education program and engage in teacher learning practices through university-based coursework along with school-based practicum experiences. Upon completing the program, ESOL teacher candidates are typically licensed or certified to teach ESOL and start working with language learners in schools. Although several other terms in the literature represent the same group of students learning to teach such as student teacher, trainee, future teacher, preservice teacher, prospective teacher, and 12   teacher learner, I selected to use teacher candidate throughout this study. Also, when they are in their practicum schools, teacher candidates are called as interns or mentees, as well.  Teacher education coursework: The term refers to the collection of university-based courses that TCs are expected to successfully complete as one of the major components of preservice teacher education curriculum. Through these courses, TCs are introduced to research-oriented educational theories, progressive pedagogies, theories of second language acquisition, and practitioner research methods. L2 TCs’ experiences in those courses are assumed to contribute to their construction of pedagogical knowledge and skills which occurs through interacting with what they bring into teacher education, namely, “strongly-held conceptions” and “tacit personal theories” (Graves, 2009, p. 117).  Teacher Identity: This dissertation study defines teacher identity as teachers’ dynamic and constantly evolving self-conception and imagination of themselves as teachers. Teachers develop and manifest their identities through their participation in activities and interactions in human relationships. Their identities are also shaped through their contexts, social positioning, and ways of making meaning.  Teachers of English (Teaching English) to speakers of other languages (TESOL): The term is used to refer both to the US-based international organization with the same name – TESOL International Association – and to the teaching of English in situations where it is either a second language or a foreign language. It does not distinguish between ESL and EFL contexts and it represents the entire field of teaching English to speakers of other languages. The term English language teaching (ELT) replaces TESOL in British or European contexts (Freeman, 2002). 13    University supervisor: This terms refers to an experienced teacher who is hired by the university teacher education program “to assess through observation whether [practicum practices are] ‘done right’ or not, passing on his or her assessment and giving the trainee advice on what to improve and how to do better next time” (Malderez, 2009, p. 259). More specifically, university supervisor is also responsible for providing feedback and helping “the teacher [candidate] develop a reflective stance towards his or her teaching” through classroom observations and feedback conferences which is also called as clinical supervision (Richards & Schmidt, 2010). 1.5. Scope and Delimitations This study has chosen to concentrate on a specific scope, so it has been delimited in several ways. First, this study delimited its scope to the teacher candidates who were enrolled in the IMP during the time in which the data for this study were collected. A longitudinal study which examines different cohorts of TCs across three or four years in the IMP would have yielded more insights to better understand the contribution of coursework and practicum to TCs’ teacher identity formation. Also, incorporating teacher educators’, university supervisors’ and mentor teachers’ perspectives would have provided a more comprehensive exploration of the role of coursework and practicum in TCs’ identity development. This research delimits itself to the case study of one teacher education program and capitalizes on its contribution to TCs’ teacher identity construction, instead of focusing on multiple programs which are similar or different in structure and length. Additionally, this study delimits its data collection instruments to individual interviews, observations, and document analysis. Although it recruited all six TCs enrolled in the IMP for the research, this study concentrates on three focal participants who were available to share their experiences throughout the course of the research. The study is an in-depth qualitative examination of the experiences of 14   three focal TCs to explore the way teacher education coursework and the teaching practicum separately and jointly contributed to their teacher identity development. Lastly, although researchers have directed attention to the paucity of research on the ways in which practicing teachers, novice or experienced, engage in negotiation and reconstruction of their teacher identities, this study has elected to confine its scope to TCs’ teacher identity formation during preservice teacher education. This choice is based on the fact that in terms of identity development and professional learning, (a) preservice teacher preparation is a transitory process through which TCs gradually step into the teaching profession and (b) this preparation impacts TCs’ pedagogical conceptions, dispositions, and practices that are all tethered to their teacher identities. 1.6. Overview In this dissertation, the current chapter is followed by four chapters. Relying on the existing conversations in the literature about teacher learning and identity development, Chapter 2 describes the conceptual framework that informed and oriented this research in its examination of the way teacher education coursework and the teaching practicum contribute to three focal TCs’ identity formation. It provides a review of relevant research studies that focus on L2 teachers’ teacher identity construction. It also explains Wenger’s (1998) theory of identity development as the theoretical framework which provided the lens to understand TCs’ identity development in this study. Chapter 3 outlines the methodological design of this qualitative case study by describing research settings, participants, data collection and analysis phases, and the way internal and external validity were maximized as standards of quality in this study. Chapter 4 reports the research findings on the contribution of teacher education courses and the teaching practicum to the three focal TCs’ identity formation in the course of the IMP. Finally, Chapter 5 presents a discussion about the focal TCs’ identity development during initial teacher preparation 15   in light of the findings in this study. It discusses the theoretical, empirical, and practical contributions of this research study to the field’s understanding of teacher identity formation. It also presents the limitations of this study, and recommends future research directions for exploring questions about language teacher identity formation. 16   CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter presents a review of the literature pertaining to the issues surrounding L2 teacher identity development. It is comprised of three main sections: a description of the conceptual framework, a review of relevant studies on L2 teacher identity, and an explanation of Wenger’s (1998) social theory of identity construction, which underpins the theoretical framework for this study. This study examines ESOL TCs’ teacher identity construction in the IMP because identity plays a key role in teachers’ learning to teach and development processes. Therefore, this chapter first presents the conceptual framework of the current study. In order to situate this dissertation study in the larger literature of SLTE, this framework discusses the novel perspectives to teacher learning and knowledge base in SLTE (e.g., Freeman, 2009). It explains the shifting conceptualizations and epistemologies about teacher learning in SLTE as an evolving field in comparison with the previous assumptions about teacher learning that have permeated SLTE research and practice since the 1960s. The conceptual framework also defines teacher identity and describes the research on teacher identity development. Additionally, L2 teachers’ identities and the ways they access and operate their knowledge base are closely interconnected (Brutt-Griffler & Varghese, 2004) and teacher identity is viewed “as an integral part of teacher learning” (Tsui, 2011, p. 33). This means that the subject of L2 teacher identity cannot be conceived of separately from other relevant subjects in the SLTE literature such as teacher learning, teacher cognition and teacher biographies. Therefore, major themes or domains of research that are conceptually interrelated (Maxwell, 2005) with L2 teacher identity are included in the conceptual framework of this study. Second, this chapter engages in reviewing the research studies which focused on L2 teacher identity. Discussing the issues and approaches concerning the way L2 teachers construct 17   their teacher identities allows scholars in SLTE to better understand how L2 teacher identity has been investigated so far and what significant themes have emerged in these investigations so that I make decisions concerning the scope and design of this research study. A critical review of the current empirical data is necessary to learn about the results yielded, data collection instruments utilized, methodologies exploited, and to locate the gaps to be addressed in this project. It is also functionally imperative for me as a researcher to determine how this study could potentially contribute to the existing research on L2 teacher identity. Through the review of research into the target territory (ESOL TCs’ teacher identity development), I can not only observe to what extent the previous studies have explored this territory and decide which unexplored area(s) my inquiry can seek to address, but also evaluate the methods they have used and decide which ones I should utilize to explore my phenomenon of interest. Thirdly, the conceptual framework for this study is based upon Wenger’s (1998) social theory of identity formation. Wenger’s work provides me with the theoretical framework through which I will scrutinize ESOL TCs’ teacher identity construction in the IMP and its relationship to teacher learning and analyze the data accordingly. The framework suggested by Wenger provides an analytical lens through which I investigate and interpret the phenomenon of interest. Because Wenger’s theory affords a coherent explanation of relational, experiential, social, and personal aspects of identity formation (Tsui, 2011), it offers an appropriate set of tools to make sense of the ways or processes through which TCs form their identities as they navigate the activities of initial teacher preparation. Additionally, the framework drawing on this theory “helps us to understand how different forms and trajectories of participation in the community’s core practice can shape the identities formed by teachers” (Tsui, 2011, p. 33). Therefore, this 18   chapter includes a description of Wenger’s theory and its implementation in scrutinizing L2 teacher identity formation processes, which lie at the center of this study. Briefly, the synthesis of the abovementioned three clusters informs this research study empirically, methodologically, and theoretically so that I can ultimately accomplish “a disciplined inquiry” (Shulman, 1988, p. 3). 2.1. Conceptual Framework This section of the study explicates the conceptual understanding that constitutes the basis for this study. Thus, it “explain[s] the main things to be studied—the key factors, concepts, or variables—and the presumed relationships among them” (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 18). First, after presenting the drastic shifts in SLTE transpiring within the last two decades as a backdrop, this section outlines the growing conversations about the L2 teacher learning and knowledge base and the calls made for novel conceptualizations of the L2 teacher learning and knowledge base in SLTE. Then, it reviews the recent discussions of and approaches to six major subjects which are intricately intertwined with teacher identity construction: (a) teacher learning, (b) teachers’ participation in communities of practice, (c) contextual factors (d) teacher biographies, (e) teacher cognition, and (f) teachers’ emotions. The review of these areas in the context of teacher education provides this study with a conceptual basis that pulls together the discussions centering on and pertaining to the notion of L2 teacher identity. 2.1.1. Development of SLTE as a Field Applied linguistics and TESOL are two relatively new disciplines, whose emergences date back to the 1960s. The initial approaches to the undertaking of L2 teacher education started with short training certificates and programs in the same period (Burns & Richards, 2009). In the 1960s and the 1970s, ELT teacher certification included not only short courses like the Royal Society of the Arts Certificate of Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Adults (RSA- 19   CTEFLA) but also higher education courses and degrees (Freeman, 2009), which indicates the lack of unity in the preparation of L2 teachers at its outset. University-based preparation is different for foreign language teachers and ESL/EFL teachers and they are usually housed in different departments and even in different colleges (Bigelow & Tedick, 2005): the first group included “language, literature, and cultural studies, with some attention to classroom teaching” whereas the second included “learning about language content through grammar and applied linguistics; about learners, through the study of second language acquisition (SLA); and about teaching itself, through the study of classroom methodologies” (Freeman, 2009, p. 12). Demonstrably, L2 teacher preparation in both fields during the 1960s and 1970s was informed to a considerable extent by the research produced in such disciplines as linguistics, applied linguistics and SLA (Freeman, 1989, 1994; Tsui, 2011) which shaped “the disciplinary knowledge that commonly define[d] the field” (Freeman, 1994, p. 180). Freeman (2004) and Johnson (2009a) draw attention to a problematic assumption that was prevalent in SLTE at that time: the disciplinary knowledge of language, its use, and acquisition, which has been generated by the fields of linguistics and SLA, is the same knowledge which is used by the teachers to teach the L2 and needed by the L2 learners to learn it. In other words, Freeman (2004) and Johnson (2009a) call into question whether L2 teachers’ knowledge base really should be comprised of disciplinary knowledge of language.  Specifically, to respond to this assumption, Johnson (2009a) stresses the distinction that mainstream educational research has made between disciplinary knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman, 1987) used by teachers to present the content in such a way that students find it relevant and accessible. Therefore, she calls for more attention to defining what constitutes pedagogical content knowledge in SLTE, 20   whether it really includes disciplinary knowledge of language, and exploring how L2 TCs can construct this knowledge as they traverse the activities of initial teacher preparation. Beginning in the 1980s, as a consequence of the shifts in general teacher education toward the impact of TCs’ personal experiences in their conceptions of teaching, calls were voiced for conceptual and theoretical bases beyond the abovementioned ancillary disciplines that primarily constitute disciplinary knowledge in SLTE (Tsui, 2011). The focus was shifting towards “the person of the teacher” as a learner (Freeman, 2009, p. 13), that is, towards “language teachers, their purposes, contexts, and forms of activity” (Freeman, 1994, p. 183). This focus was reinforced by the inception of two professional groups, namely, Teacher Education Interest Section in the TESOL International Organization and Teacher Development Special Interest Group in the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL) in the early 1980s (Freeman, 2002, 2009). These two groups emerged and evolved “in the early 1990s, providing the first marker of the central interest in teacher learning” in SLTE (Freeman, 2002, p. 8). The second marker was the first prominent publication, namely, Nunan and Richards’ (1990) book Second Language Teacher Education which is believed to have formally established SLTE as an area of research and gave it the name (Freeman, 2009; Johnston & Irujo, 2001; Tsui, 2011). The studies in this collection instigated a shift from the concept of skills-oriented teacher training to cognitively-oriented teacher education (Freeman & Richards, 1996). The decade of the 1990s also marked the beginning of conceptual discussions about the nature of the knowledge base of SLTE which reached the pinnacle with Freeman and Johnson’s (1998) cogent and forceful arguments concerning how L2 teachers learn to teach and construct their teacher knowledge (Freeman, 2009; Velez-Rendon, 2002). Although their standpoint was 21   critiqued by Yates and Muchisky (2003) and Tarone and Allwright (2005) for downplaying the importance of L2 teachers’ disciplinary knowledge about language and language acquisition, they had a heightened influence upon the views on teachers’ knowledge base and teacher learning in SLTE. In the wake of the discussions in this decade, the definition of the scope of SLTE transformed in three aspects: “First, the activity [of SLTE] itself was labeled, and thus its boundaries were (re)defined; second, an independent research base for SLTE began to develop; and third, alternative conceptions of what that scope might include were introduced” (Freeman, 2009, p. 13). Having become a legitimate field of inquiry with defined boundaries, SLTE produced an increasing number of publications like books, journal articles, and dissertations, coupled with conferences on language teacher education in EFL/ESL contexts. The conferences organized by Jack Richards and his colleagues in Hong Kong in 1991, 1993 and 1995 served as the inspiration for the first biannual International Conference on Language Teacher Education first held at the University of Minnesota in 1999 (Johnston & Irujo, 2001). 2.1.2. Shifting Conceptualizations The growing body of SLTE research has generated four major shifts in the primary conceptualizations guiding the field (Crandall, 2000), namely, (a) shift from transmission- oriented to process-oriented assumptions about teacher learning, (b) the questioning and critique of the instrumentality of SLTE programs in preparing L2 teachers, (c) the recognition of teachers’ previous experiences as a prominent source of teacher learning, and (d) acknowledgment of L2 teaching as a legitimate profession. First of all, SLTE research shifted its focus from “transmission, product-oriented theories to constructivist, process-oriented theories of learning, teaching, and teacher learning” (Crandall, 2000, p. 34). Freeman (1989) is one of the first SLTE scholars to have directed attention to the problematic nature of transmission theories. He stressed that two interrelated misconceptions occur in SLTE in relation to the lack of 22   distinction between language teaching and ancillary areas of inquiry such as applied linguistics, SLA research, and methodology. One misconception is that SLTE is conceived of as being concerned with transmitting knowledge about these ancillary areas to TCs rather than encouraging them to apply them to their teaching practices. The other misconception is that this mere transmission of knowledge will lead to effective teaching practice in the classroom setting. About the downsides of process-product research, Freeman and Johnson (1998) contend that it neglects and devalues teachers’ experiences, preconceptions, personal theories, and growing pedagogical perspectives. For Freeman and Johnson, all that process-product research creates is “an abstract, decontextualized body of knowledge that denies the complexities of human interaction and reduces teaching to a quantifiable set of behaviors” (p. 399). Abandoning transmission and process-product theories, SLTE is moving towards constructivist perspectives of teaching and teacher learning which assign L2 teachers as a primary source of knowledge about teaching. The field of SLTE thus started directing its focus on “teacher cognition, the role of reflection in teacher development, and the importance of teacher inquiry and research throughout teacher education, and development programs” (Crandall, 2000, p. 35). The second shift in SLTE research is a critique and realization about the instrumentality and functionality of SLTE programs in preparing TCs for the L2 teaching profession (Crandall, 2000). There has emerged a growing sense that traditional SLTE programs are incapable of preparing future teachers for the realities and complexities of the classroom setting. Operating from a one-size-fits-all perspective, these programs present preservice teachers with ‘best’ teaching practices considered to be appropriate and effective in all contexts. However, these practices are highly likely to prove useless or inapplicable once teachers witness numerous variances in learners, programs, curricula, materials, policies and sociocultural aspects, and 23   discern that they are not well prepared for the particularities of the second language classroom setting (Crandall, 2000; Freeman, 1989, 2002; Freeman & Johnson, 1998; Johnson, 2009a). This disjuncture between teachers’ preparation and the realities of their teaching setting makes clear that the traditional approach in SLTE programs hinges on decontextualized theories. Those theories provide a body of knowledge characterized as “too abstract, stripped of its particulars, and void of the very context that constructs the basis upon which decisions are made” (Johnson, 1996, p. 765). Consequently, traditional methods-based approaches to SLTE fail to take into account “the multidimensionality and unpredictability of the classroom environment” when preparing L2 TCs for the profession (Crandall, 2000, p.35). The third major shift in SLTE concerns the recognition of teachers’ prior learning experiences as a pivotal variable in molding their conceptions of effective teaching and learning and their teaching practices (Crandall, 2000; Graves, 2009; Johnson, 1999; Roberts, 1998). It is recognized that like all learners, TCs, who are in the process of learning how to teach L2, make use of their prior knowledge and experience when they encounter “new learning situations, which are social and specific” (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999, p. 258). This conception of teacher learning underscores “the complex ways in which teachers think about their work as being shaped by their prior experiences as students, their personal practical knowledge, and their values and beliefs” (Freeman & Johnson, 1998, p. 400). Therefore, TCs need to be provided opportunities to link their previous knowledge with new learning to teach situations, which leads to the notion that “teacher learning takes place over time rather than in isolated moments in time” (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999, p. 258) and encapsulates personal histories and future aspirations in the present. 24   The last crucial shift in SLTE is about how second language teaching should be viewed as a profession in regards to teachers’ roles as theorizers of their own practice and creators of their own personal practical knowledge (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988), and their capabilities to take the initiative to direct their development (Crandall, 2000). It is crucial to encourage TCs and practicing teachers to engage in critical reflections on their own preconceptions and educational theories, “collaborative observation, teacher research and inquiry, and sustained in-service programs, rather than the typical short-term workshop or training program” (Crandall, 2000, p. 35). From a perspective of L2 teachers as professionals, teachers are viewed as active participants in the construction of meaning and “thinking decision-makers who play a central role in shaping classroom events” (Borg, 2006, p. 1) rather than passive recipients of transmitted theoretical knowledge. Therefore, they can reflect in and on their own teaching, engage in reasoning and theorizing about the instructional situations they confront, detect the areas that need adjustments or modifications, and determine what kind of professional development would increase their teacher effectiveness. In short, they can actively “make decisions about how best to teach their second language students within complex socially, culturally, and historically situated contexts” (Johnson, 2006, p. 241). In addition, they are considered teacher-researchers since they can conduct a research study to investigate and provide solutions for issues that they encounter in their teaching, thereby, they can create knowledge concerning both their instructional practices and the particular L2 classroom setting. 2.1.3. Shifting Epistemologies The abovementioned four shifts in SLTE have been spearheaded by an epistemological shift from a post-positivistic to an interpretative paradigm in teacher education in general (Shulman, 1986). This shift has been accompanied with and necessitated by growing new interests in L2 teaching and SLTE about sociocultural theory of mind (Vygotsky, 1978) and 25   situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991), which cannot be explicated through positivistic lenses. In the wake of the emergence of a huge body of research in teacher cognition, the complexities of teachers’ mental lives have come to the forefront in SLTE research (Borg, 2003, 2009). This has led SLTE researchers and teacher educators to concentrate on what prior knowledge and dispositions L2 TCs bring into teacher education, how they construe what they experience, what they value in teaching L2, and the kinds of contexts in which they work (Johnson, 2006). L2 TCs’ prior knowledge and dispositions, interpretations of their experiences, and teaching contexts are viewed as influential on L2 TCs’ understanding of L2 teaching, the instructional decisions they make, and their classroom teaching practice. However, epistemologically, the field of SLTE has been permeated by the positivistic paradigm which posits that “objects in the world have meaning prior to, and independently of, any consciousness of them” (Crotty, 1998, p. 27). This paradigm proves thoroughly incompatible with the socioculturally favored understanding of the L2 teacher knowledge base and teacher learning (Johnson, 2009a). Positivistic epistemology has had a considerable influence upon the research about teaching and teacher education for about five decades (Shulman, 1986). Positivism operates from the premise “that reality exists apart from the knower and can be captured through careful, systematic processes of data collection, analysis, and interpretation” (Johnson, 2009a, p. 7). Positivist scholars hold the belief that knowledge is “objective and identifiable, and represents generalizable truths” (p. 7). This paradigm requires researchers to “keep the distinction between objective, empirically verifiable knowledge and subjective, unverifiable knowledge very much in mind” (Crotty, 1998, p. 27). When applied in the field of education, positivist research has been entitled as process-product research, which has endeavored to focus on teacher behaviors that promote student achievement that equals high test 26   scores and evaluate teacher effectiveness accordingly (Johnson, 2009a). Having positioned “teachers as conduits to students,” the positivistic paradigm maintains that what effective teachers need is “discrete amounts of knowledge, usually in the form of general theories and methods that were assumed to be applicable to any teaching context” (Freeman & Johnson, 1998, p. 399). Therefore, the enterprise of SLTE has traditionally relied upon the premise that teacher educators can transmit knowledge about teaching and learning to TCs and practicing teachers through theoretical readings, lectures in preservice teacher education, and professional development seminars (Johnson, 2009a). Classrooms and schooling are considered to be a locus from which researchers can abstract decontextualized knowledge that can “become general and hence generalizable, thus transferable to situations of use in the ‘real’ world” (Lave, 1997, p. 18). The main criticism towards the dominance of a positivist epistemology in SLTE is that positivist research is underlain by “oversimplified, depersonalized, and decontextualized assumptions (e.g., broad characterizations about teaching such as all students are the same), and the simplistic, almost commonplace nature of the findings (e.g., more time on task leads to higher test scores)” (Johnson, 2009a, p. 8). The generalizations achieved through clinical experimental research designs neglect the multi-layered social, cultural, historical, economic, and political facets of schools and schooling (Shulman, 1986). The sociocultural turn in SLTE necessitates abandoning a positivistic stance which is not able to grasp the complexities of teachers’ mental lives, and adopting an interpretative paradigm which seeks “culturally derived and historically situated interpretations of the social life-world” (Crotty, 1998, p. 67). Interpretative epistemology accentuates the socially-constructed nature of knowledge and its emergence from peoples’ social practices. Therefore, social reality is conceptualized as being constructed by people and existing largely within people’s minds (Johnson, 2009a). Through the 27   utilization of this perspective to explore teachers, their teaching and learning to teach, SLTE research has started centering on the question: “How do teachers participate in and constitute their professional worlds?” (p. 9). It thus aims at accessing the knowledge that is socially constructed in the context through individuals’ participation. Johnson (2006) observes that currently in the field of SLTE the implementation of an interpretative paradigm, fundamentally resting on “ethnographic research in sociology and anthropology, came to be seen as better-suited to explaining the complexities of teachers’ mental lives and the various dimensions of teachers’ professional worlds” (p. 236). This paradigm places intense emphasis on the “situated” (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and the social nature of teacher learning and promotes the scrutiny of the mental processes involved in teacher learning. It suggests that teacher learning should be viewed as occurring in a context which represents an “ecological” space (Singh & Richards, 2006; Tudor, 2003) and evolving through the participants’ interaction and participation in that context (Richards, 2008). Oriented and illuminated by this paradigm, SLTE does not view teacher learning as translation of theoretical knowledge into teaching practice, but as construction of pedagogical knowledge and theory by actively “participating in specific social contexts and engaging in particular types of activities and processes” (Richards, 2008, p. 164). 2.1.4. Growing Interest in L2 Teacher Identity The shifts in both conceptualizations orienting the field of SLTE as explicated above have considerably impacted our understanding of the L2 teacher learning and knowledge base. Ellis (2010) observes that L2 educators are not deemed as operators utilizing the methods that SLA researchers engineer, instead they are seen as individuals having their own conceptions about L2 teaching and learning, which have been considerably molded by their previous classroom experiences as learners and TCs and “their own theories of action” that form and 28   inform their decisions when teaching (p. 194). SLTE scholars started directing their focus more to such questions as “how teachers come to know what they know, how certain concepts in teachers’ consciousness develop over time, and how their learning processes transform them and the activities of L2 teaching” (Johnson, 2009a, p. 17). These new directions have engendered an increasing interest in the theorization and investigation of L2 teacher identity development (Cross, 2006, 2010). Teacher identity has recently started attracting the attention of researchers as a sub-area in the field of SLTE, which has its own developing agenda (Miller, 2009; Morgan, 2004; Tsui, 2011; Varghese, 2001). The remaining section explains the theories, assumptions, and concepts that pertain to L2 teacher identity formation and presents a picture of this growing subtopic in SLTE. Then, it will explain additional subtopics and major themes in SLTE that are centrally related to the process of teacher identity construction, namely, (a) teacher learning, (b) teachers’ participation in communities of practice, (c) contextual factors (d) teacher biographies, (e) teacher cognition, and (f) teachers’ emotions. 2.1.4.1. Conceptualizing Identity Identity is a complex concept which has risen as a subject of interest in the field of TESOL since approximately the mid-1990s. It became one of the major key themes in the field through seminal works by Bonny Norton (1995, 1997, 2000, 2006, 2010) and Aneta Pavlenko (2001, 2003, 2004) on identities of L2 learners. As more research explored the complexities of language classrooms (e.g., Nunan, 1988) and the impact of L2 teachers’ beliefs, knowledge, and dispositions on their teaching (e.g., Johnson, 1994), teacher identity started receiving researchers’ attention in the field of SLTE (Varghese, et al., 2005). Having observed the evolution of the current conception of identity, Varghese et al. (2005) state that a new conceptualization of identity has started gaining prominence and recognition in anthropology, sociology, and other associated fields like general education and language teaching. That is, there 29   occurs a prevalent shift “away from identity in terms of psychological processes towards contextualized social processes” (Miller, 2009, p. 173), which explains the new understanding and its three principal premises which are all aligned with sociocultural turn in SLTE. First, “identity is not a fixed, stable, unitary, and internally coherent phenomenon but is multiple, shifting, and in conflict” (Varghese, et al., 2005, p. 22). Second, identity is context-bound, therefore, it is “crucially related to social, cultural, and political contexts—interlocutors, institutional settings, and so on” (p. 23). Third, individuals construct, maintain, and negotiate their identities to a considerable degree “through language and discourse” (p. 23). Norton (2010) comments that “Every time we speak, we are negotiating and renegotiating our sense of self in relation to the larger social world, and reorganizing that relationship across time and space” (p. 350). Miller (2009) observes these three premises cutting across the existing trends to define identity in SLTE. She comments that identity is considered “as relational, negotiated, constructed, enacted, transforming, and transitional” (p. 174; emphases original). Additionally, she directs attention to the primary role of discourse in identity processes and of the “Other” (whether/how individuals are recognized by surrounding community members) in negotiation and legitimation of one’s identity work. Moreover, Tsui’s (2007) comment resonates with the patterns in these definitions. She maintains that “identity is not just relational (i.e., how one talks or thinks about oneself, or how others talk or think about one), it is also experiential (i.e., it is formed from one’s lived experience)” (p. 33; emphases original). Thus, individuals have multiple identities which they continuously negotiate, reconstruct, and enact through discursive tools as they interact with other individuals in different contexts. 2.1.4.2. Defining Teacher Identity Teacher identity can be viewed as “an organizing element in teachers’ professional lives” (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009, p.175), and a resource that teachers can “use to explain, justify 30   and make sense of themselves in relation to others, and to the world at large” (MacLure, 1993, p. 311). Exerting indiscernible yet extensive power over their teaching practices (Rex & Nelson, 2004), teacher identity offers a framework through which teachers can build their own ideas of their beings, actions and understandings of their teaching practice and their place in society (Sachs, 2005) and a basis for their decision making and meaning making processes (Bullough, 1997). Teacher identity has connotations for both current and aspired to or imagined self- identifications. That is, it concerns teachers’ responses to the following questions with respect to their teaching self-images: “Who am I at this moment?” and “Who do I want to become?”, which highlight the dynamic and ever-changing nature of teacher identity (Beijaard, Meijer & Verloop, 2004). Teachers’ identities mold “their dispositions, where they place their effort, whether and how they seek out professional development opportunities, and what obligations they see as intrinsic to their role” (Hammerness, Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005, p. 384). More specifically, the way they view, feel, position, or identify themselves as teachers in their specific context is intricately interwoven with their beliefs, values, conceptions, theories and “personal practical knowledge” (Clandinin, 1985). Identity determines and is determined by their experiences of teacher learning and teaching practice. This inevitable and close interrelationship between teacher identity, teacher-learning, and teaching practices necessitates the close investigation of identity to yield implications for practice: “a more complete understanding of identity generally and teacher identity in particular could enhance the ways in which teacher education programs are conceived” (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009, p. 176). Lacking a clear definition for teacher identity has proved a dire challenge for understanding the impact of identity on teacher education practices (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011; Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009; Beijaard, et al., 2004). There exist only vague conceptualizations 31   of teacher identity in the literature, which causes “the concept of teacher identity to be taken for granted” (Bukor, 2011, p. 107). There is a consensus in the emerging teacher identity literature on the complex and complicated nature of the concept of identity in general and teacher identity in particular, which might be the reason why a definition of teacher identity is not readily reached (Mockler, 2011). The authors who attempt to offer a comprehensive understanding of teacher identity mostly present how teacher identity is characterized, what it influences and is influenced by, and how it is theorized rather than explicitly defining teacher identity (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011; Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009; Beijaard, et al., 2004; Coldron & Smith, 1999; Mockler, 2011; Varghese, et al., 2005). During my review of the pertinent studies, I found a few researchers who ventured to define teacher identity and Table 1 below summarizes these definitions to present an overview of the conceptualizations of teacher identity that exist in the current teacher education literature. Table 1. Definitions of Teacher Identity: An Overview of the Literature Source Definition (Kelchtermans, 1993, p. 447)  “[teachers’] conception about themselves as a teacher and a system of knowledge and beliefs concerning ‘teaching’ as a professional activity.”   (Bullough, 1997, p.21) “what beginning teachers believe about teaching and learning as self-as-teacher.” (Lasky, 2005, p. 901) “teacher professional identity is how teachers define themselves to themselves and to others [and is] a construct of professional self that evolves over career stages and can be shaped by school, reform, and political contexts.” (Beijard, Meijer, & Verloop, 2004, p. 108) “Teacher identity refers not only to the influence of the conceptions and expectations of other people, including broadly accepted images in society about what a teacher should know and do, but also to what teachers themselves find important in their professional work and lives based on both their experiences in practice and their personal backgrounds.” 32   (Olsen, 2008a, p. 139) “as a label, really, for the collection of influences and effects from immediate contexts, prior constructs of self, social positioning, and meaning systems (each itself a fluid influence and all together an ever-changing construct) that become intertwined inside the flow of activity as a teacher simultaneously reacts to and negotiates given contexts and human relationships at given moments.” (Urzúa & Vásquez, 2008, p. 1935) “how teachers relate to their practice in light of both social and individual perspectives.” (Cohen, 2010, p. 473) “how teachers view themselves as professionals in the context of changing work situations, often driven by changes in education policy.” (Hsieh, 2010, p. 1) “the beliefs, values, and commitments an individual holds toward being a teacher (as distinct from another professional) and being a particular type of teacher (e.g., an urban teacher, a beginning teacher, a good teacher, an English teacher, etc.).” (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011, p. 135) “should be defined as an ongoing process of negotiating and interrelating multiple I-positions in such a way that a more or less coherent and consistent sense of self is maintained throughout various participations and self-investments in one’s (working) life.” (Mockler, 2011, p. 519) “the way that teachers, both individually and collectively, view and understand themselves as teachers [and it] is thus understood to be formed within, but then also out of, the narratives and stories that form the ‘fabric’ of teachers’ lives.” Comparing these definitions coming from various scholars of teacher education, I identified five main commonalities regarding the conceptualization of teacher identity that resonate with my understanding. I based this identification upon my theoretical understanding of identity which is oriented by Wenger’s (1998) social theory of learning, which foregrounds individuals’ self- identification and negotiation as they seek access and membership to professional communities and participate in their activities (for further details, see section # 2.3. p. 108). Therefore, the common threads across various scholars’ definitions are as follows: Teacher identity includes 33   teachers’ conceptions and beliefs about themselves as teachers (Bullough, 1997; Cohen, 2010; Kelchtermans, 1991; Lasky, 2005; Mockler, 2011); teacher identity involves others’ expectations and social positioning (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011; Beijaard, et al., 2004; Olsen, 2008a; Urzúa & Vásquez, 2008); teacher identity is dynamic and evolves constantly (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011; Olsen, 2008a); teacher identity is constructed and reconstructed in social contexts and interactions (Cohen, 2010; Lasky, 2005; Olsen, 2008a); teacher identity develops through teachers’ commitment to, participation, and investment in the profession (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011; Hsieh, 2010). Relying on these authors’ understandings of teacher identity which represent a sociocultural perspective, I conceptualize teacher identity as teachers’ dynamic and constantly evolving self-conception and imagination of themselves as teachers. Teachers develop and manifest their identities through their participation in activities and interactions in human relationships. Their identities are also shaped through their contexts, social positioning, and ways of making meaning. 2.1.4.3. Teacher Identity Development Research in general teacher education stresses the significance of teacher identity formation in relation to becoming a teacher. Sachs (2005) situates teacher identity at the center of the teaching profession because it “provides a framework for teachers to construct their own ideas of ‘how to be,’ ‘how to act,’ and ‘how to understand’ their work and their place in society” (p. 15). Teachers view everything encompassed in their profession through this framework, which supports the way they become teachers. In the same vein, Danielewicz (2001) comments that rather than exposure to methodology, becoming a good teacher “requires engagement with identity, the way individuals conceive themselves so that teaching is a state of being, not merely ways of acting or behaving” (p. 3). Danielewicz examines the ways to implement this understanding into formal teacher education programs, and equates becoming a teacher to 34   constructing a teacher identity and depicts her experiences with her TCs. Beijaard et al. (2004) also highlight the salience of investigation into teachers’ identity development for those who are responsible for the education of the future teaching force. They note that research into this subject can help “teacher educators and mentors … to better understand and conceptualize the support student teachers need” (p. 109). Bullough (1997) also asserts: “Teacher identity…is of vital concern to teacher education; it is the basis for meaning making and decision making….Teacher education must begin, then, by exploring the teaching self” (p. 21). In brief, inquiring into teacher identity development is highly crucial and essential in better exploring how individuals grow into professional teachers, and implications and recommendations yielded in such line of inquiry can inform and enhance the practice of formal teacher education. Tsui (2007; 2011) observes three central teacher identity themes that have received attention in general teacher education research. First, professional teacher identity comprises multiple dimensions, which are interrelated. The second theme pertains to the emphasis on the personal and social aspects of identity construction processes. The third theme regarding teacher identity refers to how agency2 and structure relate to each other in the process of identity formation. Learning about these three themes cutting across the literature, researchers designing an investigation on teacher identity could consider them as possible venues to explore from an innovative angle, or to build upon in order to locate an unexplored theme. Research on L2 teacher identity in second language education began to emerge following interest in teacher identity in general teacher education. Although research on L2 teacher cognition (Borg, 2003; 2006), the teacher knowledge base (Freeman & Johnson, 1998), and                                                              2 Richards and Schmidt (2010) define agency as “a philosophical term referring to the capacity for human beings to make choices and take responsibility for their decisions and actions” (p. 18). They observe that “agency, together with its connections to identity and societal context, is an important construct in sociocultural theory and critical pedagogy” (p. 18).  35   teacher learning (Johnson, 2006; 2009a) has grown significantly since the beginning of 1990s, SLTE researchers have underlined the fact that there is very little research devoted to the investigation of teacher identity in the field of TESOL (Johnson, 2003; Johnston, 1997, 2005; Miller, 2009; Morgan, 2004; Varghese, 2001; Varghese, et al., 2005; Tsui, 2007; 2011). That is, the field has directed limited attention “to understanding the processes of identity formation, the interplay between these processes and the identities constituted as teachers position themselves” (Tsui, 2007, p. 658). L2 teacher identity has recently started developing as a sub-topic in TESOL (e.g., Abednia, 2012; Dang, 2012; Duff & Uchida, 1997; Farrell, 2011; Gaudelli & Ousley, 2009; Johnson, 2003; Johnston, 1999; Johnston, et al., 2005; Kanno & Stuart, 2011; Mawhinney & Xu, 1997; Morgan, 2004; Peercy, 2012; Tsui, 2007; Varghese, 2001). Morgan and Clarke (2011) attribute this development to the increasing interest in “the complicated nature of knowledge, power, and identity, in which the teacher’s own identity suddenly takes on a new significance in understanding the dynamics of the language classroom” (p. 825). Therefore, in line with Danielewicz’s (2001) call for a pedagogy which can cultivate “classroom climates where [teacher] identities can flourish” (p. 14), Morgan (2004) and Morgan and Clarke (2011) regarded L2 teacher identity as a promising venue which serves for “pedagogical intervention” in terms of teacher learning and affords “an explicit focus” to intentionally and consciously attend to in the preparation of L2 teachers (p. 825). In this growing area of research in SLTE, teacher identity is viewed as multiple and continually shifting rather than unitary and stable; it is generated within social, cultural, political, and economic contexts; and it is negotiated, enacted, maintained, (re)constructed, and transformed considerably through linguistic and discursive means while interacting with others 36   (Miller, 2009). Research on L2 teacher identity formation broadened its scope and started scrutinizing “outside conditions [that] shape both classroom teaching and teachers’ lives outside the classroom” along with teaching and learning incidents happening in classrooms (Varghese, et al., 2005, p. 23). Therefore, four key issues gained paramount importance in the research agenda of L2 teacher identity, namely, (1) social and professional marginalization of L2 teachers, (2) position of nonnative speakers in TESOL, (3) questioning of TESOL in terms of its initial formal teacher education, and (4) the role of teacher-student relations in teacher identity formation (Varghese, et al., 2005). Regarding these four issues, Varghese et al. (2005) first note that studies in SLTE place more emphasis on how L2 teachers are professionally and socially marginalized both inside and outside schools (e.g., Casanave & Schecter, 1997; Johnston, 1999; Pennington, 1992), which underlines the necessity to discuss and investigate L2 teacher identity. The second issue concerns the position of nonnative speakers who constitute the majority of the teaching force in the field of TESOL. The research on this issue by scholars such as Braine, (1999, 2010), Kamhi-Stein (2004, 2009), Liu (1999), Mahboob (2010), and Pavlenko (2003) has resulted in “a close critical analysis of the hegemonic relations between native-speaker and non-native- speaker teachers in a great many contexts worldwide” (Varghese, et al., 2005, p. 23) and questioning of discrimination against NNESTs in hiring practices. Third, Varghese et al. (2005) observe that “the status of TESOL in particular, and language teaching in general, as a profession has been questioned” in terms of the practices and activities of teacher learning in preservice teacher education (p. 23). More attention was directed to L2 teachers’ knowledge base and its construction through their learning to teach experiences in SLTE programs. Lastly, L2 teacher identity formation has been put under scrutiny with reference to “the teacher–student relation, especially its intrinsic 37   hierarchical nature” (Varghese, et al., 2005, p. 23). How L2 teachers position themselves in relation to their students is one of the major factors shaping their self-image as teachers, which pertains to the role of ‘other’ in teacher identity building process (Coldron & Smith, 1999; Danielewicz, 2001; Miller, 2009). Following this outline of existing research issues in L2 teacher identity, the subsequent section describes the major themes and domains of research that provide insights into the understanding of teacher identity formation by relying upon both SLTE literature and mainstream teacher education literature. Exploring teacher identity development is important for better understanding how teachers learn to teach, and how they plan and execute teaching practice in classrooms. During initial teacher preparation, TCs’ emerging teacher identities shape the ways in which TCs respond to the theoretical and practical knowledge to which they are introduced in teacher education courses and practicum. Depending on the kind of teacher they imagine becoming in the future, they have certain priorities regarding what competencies they believe they need to develop or gain. On the other hand, as they learn to teach, their teacher identities evolve, especially through professional interactions, practice teaching, and reflections. Additionally, when they begin their teaching careers, they are exposed to various contexts as they interact with their co-workers, students, and students’ parents. The kind of teacher they are or they aspire to become determines how they act in those contexts, how they respond to varying issues, and to what extent they are influenced by those issues and contexts. Teacher identity negotiation and reconstruction continue to evolve in the processes of planning, teaching, and reflecting on their teaching. Furthermore, what teachers view as effective or quality teaching is also going to evolve as they are expected to teach aligned with certain standards or curricula designated by district or state policies. 38   Finally, the examination of teacher identity also speaks to ongoing conversations in the field about teacher quality (Darling-Hammond, 2000; NCTQ, 2013). While aspects of teacher identity are not directly related to whether one is considered a high quality teacher, a better understanding of one’s own identity and an awareness of the factors and processes that contribute to the ongoing development of one’s identity are all part of reflection-in and –on- practice (Schön, 1983, 1987), which is considered critical for ongoing teacher development and growth (Valli, 1992, 1997). 2.1.5. Relevant Themes and Domains of Research This section explains the themes and domains of research, which pertain and contribute to the exploration of L2 teacher identity. The issues concerning L2 teacher identity construction cannot be adequately and comprehensively understood without relating them to these themes and domains. They are drawn from the literature in order to help construct a foundation for the investigation of L2 teacher identity formation in this dissertation research. The following domains are going to be drawn upon in this section: (a) teacher learning, (b) teacher cognition, (c) teachers’ participation in communities of practice, (d) contextual factors (e) teacher biographies, and (f) teachers’ emotions. The visuals provided below (see Figures 1a & 1b) represent my attempt to encapsulate the significant phenomena that interact with L2 teachers’ identity construction, thereby to present the basis into which the conceptualization of teacher identity could be tethered in the inquiries of L2 teacher identity. 39   Figure 1a. Initial Conceptual Framework for Teacher Identity Construction Based upon my literature review, this initial conceptual framework (see above) included what stood out as the significant dynamics that interact with teacher identity development. These dynamics were teacher learning (e.g., Tsui, 2011), teacher cognition (e.g., Peercy, 2012), teacher biographies (e.g., Olsen, 2008a), participation in communities of practice (e.g., Varghese, 2001), and contextual factors (e.g., Flores, 2001). This reflected my initial conceptual understanding of teacher identity construction which is intricately entangled with all those dynamics. I placed teacher identity inside the teacher learning bubble because identity development is conceived as an integral part of teacher learning. Then, by using bidirectional arrows, I demonstrated the interrelation between teacher identity and the other three factors, namely, teacher cognition, teacher biographies, and participation in communities of practice. Additionally, contextual factors surround and impact all five dynamics. As a caveat about the focus of this visual 40   representation, teacher identity is located in the center and the purpose is to demonstrate how teacher identity is interrelated with the dynamics of teacher learning, teacher cognition, teacher biographies, participation in communities of practice, and contextual factors. The visual is not intended to map out the interrelation among those five dynamics. However, as I conducted my data analysis and composed the discussion of my findings, I came to realize that teacher learning and teacher identity are in constant interaction and TCs’ emotions play a significant role in their teacher identity development. This change in my understanding is represented in Figure 1b below. Figure 1b. Revised Conceptual Framework for Teacher Identity Construction 41   The initial conceptual framework went through a revision (see above) in the wake of the data analysis of the current research study and the discussion of findings. Whereas in the previous figure, I embedded teacher identity formation in the process of teacher learning, which did not demonstrate the interaction between the two and I did not have the concept of teachers emotions as a factor interrelated with teacher identity formation. Therefore, Figure 1b reflects two main revisions in the conceptual framework. First, the findings of this study directed my attention to the interplay and interdependence between TCs’ processes of learning to teach and negotiating and taking on changing teacher identities. Therefore, I modified the visual in order to reflect this interplay. Second, my research findings underscored the reciprocal relationship between teachers’ emotional states and their identities. In the previous version of the figure I did not include teachers’ emotions as a factor interrelated with teacher identity development, but as it became apparent through data analysis that emotion played an important role in the identity formation of the TCs in this study, I added teacher emotions to the updated figure as another critical factor which interacts with the process of teacher identity development. 2.1.5.1. Teacher Learning The conceptualization of L2 teacher learning has undergone a dramatic change in the last two decades, thanks to the introduction of sociocultural understandings of L2 teacher learning, which is part of “a quiet revolution” (Johnson, 2000, p. 1) that has brought about innovations in SLTE. This sociocultural turn in SLTE was triggered by Freeman and Johnson’s (1998) landmark article on the knowledge base and teacher learning in SLTE. These two scholars criticized the prevalent assumption that SLTE programs should present teacher candidates with discrete amounts of knowledge about language, language learning, and language teaching, teach them a body of decontextualized teaching practices or methodologies, and place them in a school where they are expected to find opportunities to apply their theoretical knowledge in real 42   teaching settings. These programs reflect the traditional approach to teacher learning which sees teacher learning “as a cognitive issue, something the learner [does] on his or her own” (Burns & Richards, 2009, p. 4) and construct prospective teachers as blank canvasses to be painted upon with theoretical and practical knowledge. Researchers contend that the conglomeration of TCs’ experiences, memories, values, and beliefs impact the entire process of teacher learning that is expected to occur throughout preservice teacher education and beyond (e.g., Johnson, 1994; Freeman & Johnson, 1998; Olsen, 2008a). TCs and teacher educators should be cognizant of the fact that these experiences, memories, values, and beliefs interact with what they are exposed to in terms of theory and practice during their experiences in the program. Then, this interaction leads to the constitution of their practically-oriented personalized knowledge (Borg, 2003; Connelly & Clandinin, 1988; Golombek, 1998) upon which they will rely while planning and executing L2 teaching practices in their classes. Recent trends in SLTE entail reexamining, reconceptualizing, and redesigning of the ways L2 teachers are educated (Johnson, 2009b). The teacher’s task was traditionally seen as the application of a decontextualized body of disciplinary knowledge to practice, although current trends view teacher learning as theorizing teaching practices which foregrounds practitioner knowledge and inquiry, reflection in and on practice (Schön, 1987), and critically reviewing, elaborating, and revising personal pedagogical theories (Burns & Richards, 2009). Therefore, teacher educators in TESOL have started to understand the learning to teach process “as socially negotiated and contingent on knowledge of self, students, subject matter, curricula, and setting” (Johnson, 2009b, p. 20). From this understanding, TCs become part of a learning community in which they participate in activities of teacher education and interact with their ELLs, peers, teacher educators, mentors, and supervisors. Then, the following elements stand out as vital in 43   teacher learning: the roles TCs and others take on in the community, the discourses they negotiate, construct, and navigate, the activities and practices in which they partake, and the tools and resources they use (Burns & Richards, 2009). This novel view on how L2 teachers learn to teach can be summarized in Johnson and Golombek’s (2003) comprehensive definition of teacher learning: “normative and lifelong, emerging out of and through experiences in social contexts: as learners in classrooms and schools, as participants in professional teacher education programs, and later as teachers in the institutions where teachers work” (p. 729). From a sociocultural theory and situated learning orientation, this definition views teacher learning as socially constructed and negotiated through teacher-learners’ involvement and participation in learning and teaching contexts. These discussions about teacher learning fueled by the sociocultural turn in SLTE have prepared the scene for the growing research on L2 teacher identity. What does teacher learning research offer for our understanding of the development of L2 teacher identity? Before the sociocultural perspective on teacher learning became recognized, much emphasis was placed on understanding L2 learning and learners, and there was very little focus on teachers themselves as the primary agents of teaching (Freeman, 1994). Once those primary agents were placed in the center of SLTE research and practices in the sociocultural understanding of teacher learning, researchers attend to how L2 teachers’ self-conceptions and imaginations as teachers influence and are influenced by their learning to teach. Their identities and learning constantly interact and shape each other. TCs enter teacher education with their prior experiences, beliefs, values, aspirations and imaginations about teaching which, as part of their initial teaching identity, constitute their initial “interpretive frame” (Olsen, 2010) and “implicit theories” (Peercy, 2012). Their emerging identities function as a frame and basis which 44   orient and mold TCs’ understanding and interpretation of their experiences while participating in the practices of preservice teacher education (Bullough, 1997; Sachs, 2005). Their identities play a deciding role in where TCs’ channel their efforts and energy (Hammerness, et al., 2005) and how they make decisions about their learning to teach and teaching behaviors and practices in the classroom. As they further learn to teach by participating in the discourses and activities of teacher education through courses and the teaching practica, they continuously negotiate, frame, take on, and imagine different identities (Ronfeldt & Grossman, 2008) in various “ecological spaces” (Singh & Richards, 2006). While engaging in teacher learning and negotiating meanings by means of teacher education activities, they are afforded with the opportunity to revise and reconfigure their self-images as L2 teachers and enact and experiment with their fledgling teacher identities. In brief, teacher learning and teacher identity development are two intimately connected contours which are both driving forces underpinning TCs’ professional growth. 2.1.5.2. Teacher Cognition As a consequence of the focus on teacher cognition in both SLTE and general education research from the late-1980s through the mid-1990s, research on L2 teacher cognition has flourished in the SLTE literature, and, according to Johnson (2009b), has tremendously enhanced the field’s understanding of L2 teachers’ work. Research on L2 teacher cognition bloomed in the wake of Freeman and Richards’s (1996) seminal work which underscores the importance of scrutinizing the mental dimensions of teachers’ work to better understand L2 teaching. From the mid-1990s onwards, the field of SLTE witnessed a growing number of research studies on varying dimensions of L2 teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and thoughts, and of the ways they relate to their teaching practices in the classroom (Borg, 2006). Since then, L2 teacher cognition has become an established field of research in the field of SLTE. 45   Teacher cognition refers to teachers’ constellations of “beliefs, knowledge, theories, attitudes, images, assumptions, metaphors, conceptions, perspectives about teaching, teachers, learning, students, subject matter, curricula, materials, instructional activities, self” (Borg, 2003, p. 82). Influenced by “a complex nexus of interacting factors” ranging from learning and teaching experiences to interactions with students and colleagues (Barnard & Burns, 2012, p. 2), teacher cognition concerns almost all aspects of teaching and learning practices, so it became a vital point of interest in teacher education. Teacher cognition research examines language teaching and teacher learning in relation to teachers’ “complex, practically-oriented, personalized, and context-sensitive networks of knowledge, thoughts, and beliefs that language teachers draw on in their work” (Borg, 2006, p. 272). Therefore, it lies on the premise that teaching is a complex undertaking which is cognitively oriented and influenced by classroom dynamics, teachers’ goals and decisions, learners’ motivations and responsiveness to the class, and the way teachers handle critical situations throughout the class (Burns & Richards, 2009). When focusing on L2 teachers’ cognition, SLTE researchers are primarily interested in exploring “unobservable mental dimensions of teaching and learning to teach,” (Borg, 2009, p. 163) that is, how teachers make instructional decisions, what theories they hold about teaching and learning, how they conceive their subject matter, and how they problem-solve and improvise to handle unexpected teaching situations (Burns & Richards, 2009). Delving into this broad repertoire of issues, teacher cognition research dives into the depths of the ocean of L2 education to uncover and shine light upon the unseen part of the iceberg. The SLTE research has presented very important insights about the interrelations among L2 teachers’ cognition, learning to teach, and teaching practices. Borg (2003) summarizes the three major findings of this body of research as follows: 46   (1) teachers’ experiences as learners can inform cognitions about teaching and learning which continue to exert an influence on teachers throughout their career; (2) although professional preparation does shape trainees’ cognitions, programmes which ignore trainee teachers’ prior beliefs may be less effective at influencing these; and (3) teacher cognitions and practices are mutually informing, with contextual factors playing an important role in determining the extent to which teachers are able to implement instruction congruent with their cognitions. (p. 81) These findings underscore the constant impact of cognition on teacher learning, the necessity to attend to teachers’ prior beliefs in formal SLTE practices, and the interplay between teachers’ cognition and their classroom practices. In other words, it places teachers in the center of SLTE practices and their experiences and cognition as the primary “fuel” or source for teacher learning. This domain of research has proven particularly instrumental to better explicate the inherent complexities of L2 teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, processes of learning to teach, and teaching practices in various settings during their professional preparation and beyond (Johnson, 2009a). As TCs grow as L2 teachers, their cognition provides a basis for the justification of their teacher behaviors in and out of the classroom and contributes to their identity development. When he reviews the research on teacher cognition, Borg (2003, 2006, 2009) does not explicitly expound upon how identity can be a key issue in relation to what teacher think, know, believe and do in the classroom. However, according to Miller (2009), teachers’ identity construction is inseparable from their thoughts, knowledge, beliefs, and activities, that is, they are “part of teachers’ identity work which is continuously performed and transformed through interaction in classrooms” (p. 175). Therefore, when researchers investigate how L2 teachers develop their 47   identity, one of their major foci is what L2 teachers think, know, believe and do with respect to their teaching practices. What does teacher cognition research offer in our understanding of the development of L2 teacher identity? In Borg’s (2003) description, teachers’ selves, along with other aspects, are part of their cognitions, so our understanding of teacher identity can be informed by the findings from the teacher cognition literature. When L2 TCs forge and enact their teaching identities, what constitutes their teacher cognition plays an important role because their beliefs, knowledge, thoughts, assumptions, and attitudes about all aspects of their teaching are closely intertwined with their current self-images, self-conceptions, and future aspirations as L2 teachers. As they engage in more teaching experience and interact with teacher educators, mentor teachers, supervisors, and students, what they think, say, and do is oriented by what they believe, think and know and all their learning experiences influence their cognition. Their thinking, speaking, and doing manifest the negotiation and enactment of their emerging identities, and their beliefs, thoughts, and knowledge are shaped by their identities. Characterized as being “practically- oriented, personalized, and context-sensitive” (Borg, 2006, p. 272), teacher knowledge and cognition is inseparable from teacher identity. Therefore, capturing a complete picture of L2 TCs’ identity development behooves researchers to consider how teacher cognition factors into this development. 2.1.5.3. Participation in Communities of Practice From sociocultural perspectives in SLTE, L2 TCs learn to teach and their cognitions evolve as they actively participate in the practices of teaching communities and seek membership to these communities (Lave, 1996; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Sfard, 1998; Wenger, 1998). This perspective locates teacher learning and cognition in their social and context-embedded interactions and recognizes “the ‘situated’ and the social nature of learning,” (Lave & Wenger, 48   1991). Throughout the practices of preservice teacher education, L2 TCs are “immersed in socially organized and regulated activit[ies]” which constitute “process[es] through which human cognition is formed” (Lantolf & Johnson, 2007, p. 878). L2 TCs do not develop their pedagogical knowledge through acquisition or gathering of discrete sets of information, yet it “is shared, negotiated and co-constructed through experience” as they partake in the communities of practice (Legutke & Schocker-v. Ditfurth, 2009, p. 210). That is, learning to teach occurs when TCs construct theoretical and practical knowledge (Putnam & Borko, 1997) to guide their L2 teaching through participation in social contexts and engagement in certain kinds of activities by means of coursework and the teaching practica (Burns & Richards, 2009; Freeman & Johnson, 1998). In this definition of teacher learning in SLTE, participation in social context(s) is apparently afforded a central role, so it holds great significance in teacher identity construction, as an “integral part of teacher learning” (Tsui, 2011). Those researchers who investigate teacher identity in SLTE usually understand participation in social context(s) in light of Lave and Wenger’s (1991) notion of “communities of practice” and postulation that learning is an “evolving form of membership” (Kanno & Stuart, 2011; Mantero, 2004; Singh & Richards, 2006; Tsui, 2007; Varghese, 2000, 2001, 2006). For instance, Varghese (2000, 2001) examines the process of L2 teacher identity construction as situated learning, that is, as a process of becoming a member of a community of practice. Moreover, Singh and Richards (2006) conceptualize acquiring membership in a new community of practice and L2 teacher identity formation as two intricately interwoven processes. They remark that “becoming a member of a new community of practice is not just about learning new content but also about acquiring new practices, values, and ways of thinking which enable particular identities to be realized” (p. 158). Moreover, Mantero (2004) highlights that teacher 49   identity formation and participation in communities of practice are inevitably and inseparably yoked. He comments that contours of L2 teacher identity are not fixed or preset, but they are shaped by their participation in the activities of communities of teaching profession. Thus, L2 teachers’ identity negotiation and construction occur when they are actively participants “in the arenas of the language classroom, the profession, the curriculum, and the community” (Mantero, 2004, p. 143). What does research into participation in communities of practice offer in our understanding of L2 teacher identity development? The prevailing contention about teachers’ identity formation in the SLTE literature is that becoming a teacher or forging a teacher identity means negotiating and acquiring membership in a community of teaching practice, which can only happen through their participation in the activities of this community (Tsui, 2007; 2011). They “enact socially situated identities while engaging in socially situated activity” (Lantolf & Johnson, 2007, p. 885). That is, their participation shapes their membership and socially situated identity formation because they dialogically negotiate, frame, experiment, and craft their identities as they participate in the professional activities and interact with the other community members. This participation provides TC with opportunities to revise and realign their ways of professional reasoning as they utilize the tools and resources accessible through the community and observe and partake in the activities. It also reinforces their self-identification (Wenger, 1998) as emerging L2 teachers who are seeking others’ recognition and endorsement in the community (Coldron & Smith, 1999; Miller, 2009). Additionally, as they craft their identities, TCs calibrate their participation and channel their energy to what they value and what they view as important considering the dynamics in the community. In brief, the notion of participation in communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) should be a part of the 50   conceptual lens in the investigation of the way L2 teachers’ identities flourish (Trent, 2010; Trent & Gao, 2009; Varghese, 2000). 2.1.5.4. Contextual Factors L2 teachers’ identities emerge and evolve to considerable degree in their responses to such contextual factors, as well as their future aspirations and vision. Therefore, research into these factors can inform and illuminate the exploration of how teachers forge their identities. Context surrounds and impacts all the phenomena that are intimately interrelated with L2 TCs’ identity development. To apply to L2 TCs’ experiences, context can be defined as the set of circumstances and dynamics that shape the setting for L2 teacher learning and teaching practices both at macro and micro planes. That is, context refers to not only micro contexts such as a TCs’ teaching practica schools, classrooms where they experiment with and practice teaching, and preservice teacher education settings, but also broader macro social, political, cultural, and educational contexts. Thus, contextual factors for L2 teacher identity formation are those that are borne out of both micro and macro contexts. However, because micro contexts are shaped by the dynamics of macro contexts, although they have their own idiosyncratic subtleties and undercurrents at work, sometimes it might be quite challenging to determine if a contextual factor is solely germane to the former or the latter. It could be at the nexus of the two. Researchers have underscored context as a significant element or variable that factors into L2 TCs’ identity construction. For example, Morgan (2004) is emphatic that all the spaces in schooling are value-laden and ideologically loaded rather than being neutral, and “there are no ways to insulate oneself from the social consequences of one’s activities” in those spaces (p. 176). Freeman (2002) applies this argument to teacher education, and in his seminal work he expounds upon the impact of context in teacher education articulating that “In teacher education, everything is context” (p. 11). He observes that in the current literature, context has come to be 51   regarded as a more complicated notion than previously, since it is “situated in personal and institutional histories and seen as interactive (or dialogical) with others – students, parents and community members, and fellow teachers – in the settings in which [these personal and institutional histories] unfolded” (p. 12). That is, there is a shift from context as a backdrop “like the decor and props in the staging of a theatre play” (Tudor, 2002, p. 1) to context as an interlocutor in the definition of the nature of teaching and learning (Breen, 1985), and in teachers’ construction and use of their knowledge (Freeman, 2002). This shift is buttressed by Freeman and Johnson (1998) who assert that it is imperative to critically examine the sociocultural contexts in which L2 TCs’ learning to teach processes take place if we want to better document and understand how TCs develop professional knowledge and grow as teachers. Researchers in the field of SLTE place emphasis on the crucial role of contexts in the (re)construction of teacher identities. For instance, Duff and Uchida (1997) note that teachers’ identities rely to a large degree upon “the institutional and interpersonal contexts in which individuals find themselves, the purposes for their being there, and their personal biographies” (p. 452). In these contexts, depending on the self-image they frame for themselves, they negotiate what they value in terms of their teaching and exert their energy into what they see as important. Also, while discussing the current theorization and conceptualization of teacher identity in SLTE, Varghese et al. (2005) remark that identity is bound to “social, cultural, and political context – interlocutors, institutional settings, and so on” (p. 23). Teacher identities are configured and reconfigured as they utilize the tools and resources available in these contexts, interact with their colleagues and students, and navigate the system of activities. More specifically, Singh and Richards (2006, 2009) concentrate on the “course room” (in which teacher education courses take place) as an influential context. Underscoring the fact that the 52   microprocesses of the course room relate “to the larger macro context in which [S]LTE is situated,” Singh and Richards (2009) foregrounds context as a space in which L2 TCs engage in teacher learning and craft their teacher identities. They assert that L2 TCs learn to teach as they appropriate or resist to sets of knowledge and skills offered in the contexts of teacher education classes “for the purpose of remaking identity” (p. 202). From this perspective, the value-laden cultural setting of the SLTE course room receives utmost importance in TCs’ identity construction processes because L2 TCs forge and enact their identities in connection with “socially organized and complex ecological spheres of activity” which are nested in teacher education classrooms (Singh & Richards, 2006, p. 170). L2 TCs’ identities are subjected to another set of contextual factors in the school environment during their teaching practicum experiences, which is usually an integral component of preservice teacher education practices. There is a clear consensus among SLTE researchers about the instrumentality of school-based experiences for helping TCs learn how to navigate in the school setting and immerse themselves in the teaching context (Gebhard, 2009; Legutke & Schocker-v. Ditfurth, 2009). Practicum experiences provide teacher candidates with opportunities to not only practice teaching under the mentorship of an experienced teacher, but also to become aware of the importance of school culture. When starting their practicum, teacher candidates move into the world of school, another complex ecological site, “at a marginal position” (Singh & Richards, 2009, p. 203), because they are not yet true members of the school community. They might also feel vulnerable in the school context in which they experiment with and enact their teaching identities in practice working with L2 learners and might be scared that their teaching is disapproved of because the way they teach is not aligned with their mentor’s way of ideologies or teaching philosophy (Beck & Kosnik, 2006; Cattley, 2007). However, TCs 53   can acquire agency through the appropriation of discourses and claim ownership of “cultural and social artifacts” available in the context (Singh & Richards, 2009, p. 203). Thereby, they can “challenge this negative social position” or these feelings of vulnerability and fear when trying out teaching (p. 203). TCs can assert their agency and acquire discourses through their participation in school activities, namely, their teaching practice and other duties they are assigned in the school, which lead them to have relations with their students and mentor(s), other practicing teachers, as well as the school leadership. Yet, this assertion and acquisition might turn into a challenging and lengthy process and necessitate support and guidance from teacher educators, their university supervisor, and their mentor teacher. What does research into contextual factors offer in our understanding of L2 teacher identity development? Context is one of the significant determiners of the entangled processes of L2 teacher learning and identity formation. It has a shaping influence on the way L2 TCs negotiate, frame and enact their identities as they traverse the provisions of preservice teacher education, and transition from being a student to being a teacher (Flores, 2001; Flores & Day, 2006). During the experiences of university-based teacher education courses and field-based practica, teachers are exposed to certain contextual factors, (e.g., curriculum, testing, students’ needs), which play a defining role, either affording or constraining, in their negotiation, imagination, and construction of their self-images as teachers. TCs always find themselves obligated to keep in mind the impact of context when making interpretations and decisions about their teaching. These different facets of context lead them to adjust the imagination and enactment of teaching identities they envision for themselves. 2.1.5.5. Teacher Biographies L2 TCs’ personal histories or biographical trajectories have been found to hold a crucial role in the construction and reconstruction of their pedagogical knowledge and in their growth as 54   teachers in general (Clandinin, 1985; Freeman, 2002). Knowles (1992) defines biography in teacher education contexts as “those formative [prior] experiences of preservice and beginning teachers which have influenced” their conceptions about teaching and learning and, later, their teaching practice in the classroom (p. 99). Through their schooling process, that is, approximately 13,000 hours of observations as learners (Lortie, 1975) or 3,060 days of learner experiences (Kennedy, 1990), TCs “play a role opposite teachers for a large part of [their] lives” (Britzman, 1986, p. 443) as “apprentices of observation” (Lortie, 1975, p. 61). As a result, they have constructed strongly held views about teaching and learning before entering the preservice teacher education. That is, TCs’ prior learning experiences play a critical role in shaping their preconceptions regarding teaching and learning which they bring into formal teacher education (Bailey, 1996; Farrell, 1999; Flores, 2001; Graves, 2009; Johnson, 1994; Knowles, 1992; Numrich, 1996; Tabachnick & Zeichner, 1984; Urmston, 2003; Warford & Reeves, 2003). These deeply entrenched initial views hold “a persistent influence” upon TCs throughout their participation in the activities of teacher education and beyond because learning to teach relies upon “interactions between prior knowledge … and new input and experience” (Borg, 2009, p. 164). In other words, as Kennedy (1991) puts it, teachers make sense of “new content through their existing understandings, and modify and reinterpret new ideas on the basis of what they already know and believe” (p. 2). Therefore, if teacher education programs neglect the “persistent influence” of TCs’ prior experiences and beliefs in the orchestration of their practices and do not give TCs opportunities to raise a critical “awareness of their own theories” (Beijaard, et al., 2004, p. 115), it is highly likely that TCs will not be able “to internalize new material” (Borg, 2009, p. 164) and teacher education will fail to make a difference or impact in preparing effective teachers. 55   TCs’ identity formation is to a large extent mediated and organized by their biographical trajectories and “implicit theories” (Peercy, 2012). Sugrue (1997) calls preservice teachers’ initial conceptualizations about teaching “lay theories” which he maintains are crucially important in the process of teachers’ identity formation. To further explicate, these lay theories molded by TCs’ “implicit institutional biographies” according to Britzman (1986), “contribute to well-worn and commonsensical images of the teacher’s work and serves as the frame of reference for prospective teachers’ self-images” (p. 443). Sugrue (1997) finds that TCs’ personalities constitute the starting point for the formation of their “lay theories” and their teaching identities, yet the following biographical factors importantly shape those theories and identities: “(a) immediate family, (b) significant others or extended family, (c) apprenticeship of observation, (d) atypical teaching episodes, (e) policy context, teaching traditions, and cultural archetypes, and (f) tacitly acquired understandings” (p. 222). Charting the impact of teacher biographies on identity, Knowles’ (1992) work reveals a shorter list of factors including early childhood experiences, early teacher role models, previous teaching experiences, significant or important people and significant prior experiences. Formal teacher education needs to recognize TCs’ powerful and persistent lay theories and their determining impacts on the way they negotiate, frame, and craft their teaching identities (Britzman, 1986; Knowles, 1992; Olsen, 2008a, 2010; Sugrue, 1997) because they constitute “an indispensable dimension of how [TCs’] teaching identities” are constructed as well as an essential condition for continual reconfiguration of identities (Sugrue, 1997, p. 223). In short, the research on teacher identity development converges on the finding that especially TCs’ biographies and their preconceptions shaped by these biographies stand out as “important constituents of teachers’ professional identity formation” (Beijaard, et al., 2004, p. 109). 56   What does research into teacher biographies offer in our understanding of L2 teacher identity development? The process of teacher identity construction cannot be conceived as a phenomenon which is temporally detached from teachers’ past experiences and how they understand, tell, and retell them, and their future aspirations and how they envision them. Thus, research on the interaction between teachers’ biographical trajectories and their current self- images illuminates our understanding of how L2 teachers develop and enact their identities as they traverse the activities of initial teacher education. To put it simply, it is imperative to explore the ways in which TCs’ biographies determine their current beliefs and conceptions in order to shine much brighter light on teacher identity construction and reconstruction. This is because these beliefs and conceptions are the basis of their pedagogical “interpretive frame” (Olsen, 2010) that orients their contours of identity formation and professional learning. 2.1.5.6. Teachers’ Emotions Comprehensive exploration of how TCs are developing their identities as teachers also requires an examination of their emotions and how they learn to handle them. Lasky (2005) views teachers’ emotions “as a heightened state of being that changes” as result of their reflections on past and future teaching practices and interactions with the dynamics of their teaching context and with their colleagues, students, and students’ parents (p. 901). TCs experience various emotions of various degrees as they respond to numerous instructional and non-instructional situations they encounter and have to manage in their teaching contexts (Benesch, 2012; Day, 2004; Day & Leitch, 2001; Golombek & Doran, 2014; Lasky, 2005; Nias, 1996; Hargreaves, 1998, 2001; Shapiro, 2010; Sutton & Wheatley, 2003). Since teaching is largely composed of human interaction by nature, teachers’ emotional states are inevitably at the epicenter of their work (Nias, 1996). Hargreaves (1998) asserts that as the “most dynamic qualities” of teaching, teachers’ “emotions are at the heart of teaching” (p. 835). He also 57   underscores the central importance of emotions in teaching by remarking that “Good teachers are not just well-oiled machines. They are emotional, passionate beings who connect with their students and all their work and their classes with pleasure, creativity, challenge and joy” (p. 835). In the same vein, Nias (1996) draws attention to the inseparable relationship between feeling and perception, and affectivity and judgment, and she contends that “teachers’ emotions are rooted in cognitions” (p. 294). Therefore, to grasp a better understanding of the complicated process of how teachers learn and think entails the exploration of their emotions (van Veen & Lasky, 2005). During the journey of growing as a teacher, emotions emerging out of TCs’ interaction with their colleagues, students, and students’ parents orient, inform, and define the formation of their teacher identity. TCs go through and reflect on various emotional states which signal and point to their instructional values in which they are deeply invested (Zembylas, 2003). Thus, they can gain a more enhanced “self-knowledge” (Zembylas, 2003, 2005), that is, they learn better what saddens, scares, annoys, frustrates, and stresses as well as what excites, animates, pleases, satisfies and heartens them as teachers in their teaching practice. This self-knowledge also bolsters TCs’ incipient “emotional literacy” (Hayes, 2003) which refers to their capabilities to handle emotion-evoking experiences to have “appropriate” emotions for particular situations (Benesch, 2012, p. 112) and keep their individual integrity, commitment to teaching, and professional practice. TCs need support from their teacher educators, university supervisor, and mentor teachers to develop this literacy. On the other hand, their emerging teacher identity influences how they respond emotionally to varying incidents that they are confronted with as they journey the activities of initial teacher education. As their identities have a deciding effect on where they are channeling their efforts and exerting their energy (Hammerness, et al., 2005), they determine to a large degree the type and intensity of their emotions. 58   What does research into teacher emotions offer in our understanding of L2 teacher identity development? Because emotions give us deeper insights into what matters and concerns teachers have at stake, the scrutiny of emotions can contribute to the increased and nuanced understanding of their commitment and identity as teachers (van Veen, 2005). In conceptualizing L2 TCs’ knowledge and cognition, Golombek and Doran (2014) propose the addition of emotions to Borg’s definition of teacher cognition because they conceive cognition, activity, and emotion inseparable, that is, it should read: what teachers think, know, believe, do and feel. Then, as important signals of their beliefs and values undergirding their identities, L2 teachers’ emotions should be incorporated into any discussion about their teacher identity construction. Examining how L2 TCs are coping with their emotions and acquiring the literacy for that (Hayes, 2003) can afford SLTE researchers with new dimensions to observe how they negotiate, frame, and enact their identities in these emotional situations. 2.2. Review of Studies on L2 Teacher Identity The previous section outlined the conceptual infrastructure for this study relying on existing discussions on teacher identity development. This section describes the empirical foundation which my dissertation research builds upon and extends. For this purpose, it presents a critical review of the relevant previous research studies. The current dissertation study examines the contribution of teacher education coursework and the teaching practica to the ESOL TCs’ teacher identity as they journey through an intensive MATESOL program (IMP). Therefore, the review in this section will critique and synthesize the relevant studies on L2 teacher identity in the following strands: (1) L2 TCs’ identity formation (a) during preservice teacher education in general, (b) exclusively during teacher education coursework, and (c) exclusively during their practicum experiences, as well as (2) practicing L2 teachers’ identity formation. The studies under group (1) (a) focus on how L2 TCs craft their teacher identities 59   while they are in the program, concentrating on the programmatic offerings in general. Those under (1) (b) delimit their focus exclusively to L2 TCs’ teacher identity formation in relationship to their experiences in teacher education classes. Those studies reviewed in section (1) (c) examine how L2 TCs develop their identities throughout their teaching practicum experiences. 2.2.1. L2 Teacher Candidates’ Identity Formation As mentioned earlier in this review, L2 TCs’ emerging pedagogical knowledge and their learning to teach experiences are of paramount importance for their identity construction processes. Conceptually and empirically supported by the body of research on teacher cognition (Borg, 2003), a line of inquiry has begun scrutinizing the nexus of teacher identity, teacher learning, and pedagogical knowledge construction in the field of L2 teaching (Miller, 2009). L2 TCs’ identity work, the process of learning to teach, and the development of teacher knowledge start to intersect and coalesce during the activities of formal preservice teacher education, and their personal biographical trajectories influence this intersection and coalescence to a significant extent (Olsen, 2008a). Preservice teacher education is “a limbic stage of becoming” (Gaudelli & Ousley, 2009, p. 931) during which TCs extensively engage in the negotiation, framing, road- testing, and enacting of their emerging teacher identities. Therefore, researchers who are interested in tracking and exploring L2 teacher identity formation from its outset examine TCs’ experiences in preservice teacher education programs which represent “loci” for teacher identity construction (Ilieva, 2010). 2.2.1.1. Preservice Teacher Education Program in General This section presents a review of research studies which explored how L2 TCs frame and enact their teacher identities during their experiences in L2 teacher education programs. More specifically, this section critically reviews the work by Johnson (2001), Ilieva (2010), and Liu and Fisher (2006). 60   Johnson (2001) observed that research on the issues regarding NESTs (native English speaking teachers) and NNESTs (non-native English speaking teachers) has centered considerably more on the perceived dichotomous relationships between NESTs and NNESTs in terms of language use than on their professional identity. My study participants were all native English speaking teachers, but I chose to include Johnson’s work in this review because it illustrates the individual and social dynamics in a TCs’ teacher identity development. Highlighting the fact that NNESTs constitute a pronounced majority among TESOL professionals both internationally and in the U.S., Johnson (2001) attempted to explore the experiences of one NNES TC, a Mexican woman in her late twenties (called Marc), in a US- based MATESOL program. She built her study upon the social identity theory of Hogg and Abrams (1988). This theory conceives social identity with respect to such social categories as nationality, race, class, and occupation, generated by society, which “are relational in power and status” (Johnson, 2001, p. 6). Johnson’s (2001) inquiry also utilized the theory of self- categorization proposed by Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher and Wetherell (1987), which underscores “the self-categorization of the self into social groupings and how that is reflected in one’s self-concept, or identity” (p. 6). Employing the abovementioned theoretical lens, Johnson’s (2001) research was guided by the three questions below: 1. How useful is social identity theory in understanding NNES teacher identity? 2. What role does NNES group membership and social identity play in the development of a teacher identity? 3. How significant is the social identification as a nonnative speaker of English in the formation of an ELT professional identity for MATESOL students? (p. 9) 61   Johnson’s study was methodologically oriented by Connelly and Clandinin’s (1999) “storied” approach which draws on stories of teacher experiences in order to explore “both personal– reflecting a person’s life history–and social–reflecting the milieu, the contexts in which teachers live” (p. 9). In light of this approach, during a one and a half-year period, Johnson gathered data through two semi-structured interviews, informal discussions, and an on-going collaborative reflective journal, which were complemented by member checking with the participant. One of the major findings that Johnson’s (2001) study yielded was that Marc’s teacher identity development was immensely impacted by her self-categorizations and the perceptions of the surrounding community members. As a new and emerging NNEST in an ESL setting, Johnson observed Marc grappling with “the fact that she was both a student of teaching and a student of the language” (p. 13). This TC seemed to be highly concerned about her non- nativeness in the language she learned to teach, which made her professional identity formation increasingly complicated. However, Johnson did not extensively discuss how Marc’s self- identification as an NNEST influenced the way she identified herself as an ESOL professional. One of the significant contributions of Johnson’s (2001) inquiry to the literature is her finding that NNES TCs undergo a different, and more complex professional identity development process. This is primarily because of the significant differences in their contexts as TCs, as compared to their contexts when they were students themselves. Marc’s prior learning experiences occurred in a socially, culturally, linguistically, and educationally different context and she was expected to acquire a completely new identity both as learner and teacher in the U.S. context. Her linguistic identification factored into that, as well. NNES teacher candidates might be entrapped by the prevalent misconception that native proficiency in the target language is required for effective second or foreign language teaching (Phillipson, 1992). Johnson’s other 62   contribution is her use of stories as a window and channel to explore the TC’s perceptions concerning her “self” in varying socioeducational settings, and her ever-changing conceptions while she was moving from student identity to teacher identity. Furthermore, Johnson’s study constitutes an example of longitudinal research into L2 teacher identity development, which has recently been called for by Kanno and Stuart (2011). Johnson’s (2001) inquiry did not address two interrelated dimensions. First, it presented a salient incident regarding the accuracy of the classroom material in terms of the information about Marc’s home culture (she was concerned about misrepresentation of her culture in class materials she was expected to use, but did not speak to her mentor about it). However, the study did not elaborate on how her cultural values in general or the educational culture she was accustomed to could influence her relations with the faculty in her teacher education program, her mentor, peers, and students, which represent important factors that contribute to her teacher identity development. Second, Johnson’s study did not pay sufficient attention to Marc’s prior learning and teaching experiences, which molded her present beliefs, knowledge, and thoughts (Britzman, 1986; Olsen, 2008a) or, stated another way, her “implicit theories” (Peercy, 2012) about L2 teaching and learning. Current literature in SLTE views these experiences as a rather prominent factor in TCs’ identity development (e.g., Singh & Richards, 2006; Varghese, 2006). Ilieva’s study (2010) investigated “how teacher education programs allow NNESTs to construct positive professional identities and become pro-active educators” (p. 343). Her study explored how NNES TCs negotiated program discourses (e.g., group work in language classrooms, sociocultural theorizing, linguistic multi-competence) that they were exposed to in an MATESOL program in Canada, which was designed particularly for international students who are pursuing a degree and certification in TESOL. Ilieva’s study methodologically adhered 63   to Charmaz’s (2000) grounded theory approach and theoretically rested upon post-structural (Norton, 2000) and sociocultural renditions (Bakhtin, 1981; Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner & Cain, 1998) of identity in order to scrutinize “the identities displayed through the discourses these student NNESTs employ[ed] in their end-of-program portfolios” (p. 345). It specifically centered on the following three research questions: (1) How do student teachers articulate their professional identities as they engage with program discourses? (2) Do these NNESTs appropriate the authoritative discourses embedded in their TESOL program to serve their own purposes and local contexts and if so, how? (3) What is the nature of the authoritative discourses in the program with which these NNESTs have engaged? (p. 347) To answer these questions, Ilieva collected data from end-of-program portfolios compiled by 20 TCs from China, most of whom had just completed their Bachelor’s degrees. As an analytic lens to approach these data, Ilieva drew on Bakhtin’s (1981) understanding of “identity processes as dialogical” (p. 346), which conceptualizes “identity formation”, or what he calls ”the ideological becoming of a human being,” as ‘the process of selectively assimilating the words of others’” (p. 346). Ilieva (2010) found that the TCs adopted certain authoritative discourses (e.g., sociocultural theorizing, linguistic multi-competence), and enjoyed greater negotiation opportunities with others (e.g., group work in language classrooms) as they participated in the activities of initial teacher preparation. She accentuated the fact that MATESOL programs in which the TCs in her study participated functioned “as a locus for professional identity construction” through TCs’ interaction with and navigation across “particular discourses, relationships, and positionings” (p. 361). Her study also revealed that the TCs in the program 64   appeared to “link being a teacher with doing teaching” (p. 362) when forming their teacher identities by negotiating program discourses in which they were being immersed. Her discovery about the link between the TCs’ “being” and “doing” demonstrated the intricate and intimate connection between their emerging teacher identities and future teaching practices, which solidified through “discourse appropriation” (p. 362). That is, while L2 TCs navigated and negotiated program discourses, their understanding of their local teaching contexts entered into a dialogue with these program discourses and teacher TCs assessed whether or not they were meaningful for their contexts. They then inserted their own intentions into program discourses so that they could make more practical sense in terms of their local teaching needs. Through this dialogue, the TCs in Ilieva’s (2010) study not only positioned themselves as teachers making assessments about their imagined practice but also envisioned themselves executing L2 teaching practices in their local contexts. Ilieva (2010) noted that one of the contributions that her study was meant to make to L2 teacher identity literature is: “a Bakhtinian analysis of the complex nature of discourse appropriation in developing professional identities” (p. 349). She employed a Bakhtinian perspective to understand how L2 TCs appropriate TESOL discourses as part of their teacher identity formation process. Emphasizing the interaction between our personal world and social relations, Bakhtin’s stance on identity can add one more perspective to the understanding of L2 TCs’ identity construction. Additionally, Ilieva presented a microanalytic examination of L2 TCs’ identity development through examination of how their “selves” interacted with program discourses. It contributed to the charting of TCs’ identity construction processes by zeroing in on one central component, namely, discourse appropriation. 65   Liu and Fisher’s (2006) study examined “the development patterns” of three foreign language (French, German, Spanish) TCs’ conceptions of self, namely, “conceptions of their classroom performance, …their relationship with pupils, …their self-image in pupils’ eyes, and …[their] teacher identity” (p. 357). Their study epistemologically drew on the view that learning to teach is “a constructive and iterative process in which the person interprets events on the basis of existing knowledge, beliefs, and dispositions” (Borko & Putnam, 1996, p. 674 cited in Liu & Fisher, 2006, p. 348). It methodologically followed “a constructivist approach, which emphasizes a hermeneutic interpretation and reconstruction of meanings” (p. 348). Having these epistemological and methodological bases, Liu and Fisher attempted to answer the following questions: “(1) What are the development patterns of three modern foreign language student teachers’ conceptions of self during a one-year PGCE programme? (2) How do the three student teachers explain the change or lack of change in conceptions of self?” (p. 348). Liu and Fisher (2006) utilized case study as a research method and they considered each one of the three foreign language teacher candidates as an individual case. They took the above- mentioned four aspects of L2 TCs’ conceptions of self as units of analysis. This case study was conducted over a period of nine months, which encompassed all three terms of the postgraduate certificate program in education in which participants were enrolled as students. Data collection techniques included semi-structured interviews, weekly reflective teaching logs, responses to an open-ended questionnaire, and an end-of-course self-reflection report written by the TCs. The data analysis demonstrated that all three TCs’ conceptions of their classroom performance and teacher identity consistently changed in a positive direction, while the pattern of their conceptions about relationships with students and their self-image in students’ eyes displayed variance from informant to informant. The authors attributed the changes in these 66   conceptions to two sets of factors: “Academic, institutional, and curricular factors (e.g., school environment and atmosphere, course content and structure) and cognitive, affective and social factors (e.g., relationship with mentor, the role of reflection)” (p. 355). One of the major contributions of Liu and Fisher’s (2006) work, pertinent to my study, is the fact that this longitudinal case study provided a comprehensive description of the L2 TCs’ cases in terms of changes in their “conceptions of self” (p. 344). It tracked the participants from the outset of their program to the end of the program to present as detailed an exploration of their changing conceptions as possible. Furthermore, this study represents a rare research endeavor to outline the changes that L2 TCs experienced in terms of their conceptions of self through their participation in the activities of their preparation program. Liu and Fisher examined TCs’ conceptions of self by analyzing the bodies of data collected at three points over three three- month terms. My study engages in a similar endeavor to chart the process of three ESOL TCs’ identity development from the time they enrolled in the program to their graduation. I investigate my participants’ (L2 TCs’ in an SLTE program) teacher identity development through in-depth individual interviews at two points throughout the program as well as document analysis, observations of their teacher education courses, and observations of lessons they taught in their student teaching placements. Deeper insights could have emerged from Liu and Fisher’s (2006) study if it had capitalized on the interrelationship between the four sets of conceptions of self (conceptions of their classroom performance, relationship with pupils, self-image in pupils’ eyes, and teacher identity) which “were inspired by the relevant literatures on science and mathematics teachers” (p. 350). Their study revealed some factors, which led to the changes in these conceptions, but it is highly likely that the changes in one set of conceptions impacted the changes in other sets of 67   conceptions. For instance, the participants’ conceptions of their classroom performance would most probably influence their conceptions of teacher identity, which could have been discussed in their report. I think the authors’ treating each set of conceptions separately was due to the fact that they conceptualized TCs’ self in relation to four different aspects which they seemed to believe did not interact with each other. On the other hand, as for the four types of conceptions of self under scrutiny, the authors’ use of “inspiration by the relevant literatures” (p. 350) was not sufficiently elucidated. That is, the authors should provide some justification as to why these four aspects were selected. Therefore, I would ask why the study included TCs’ conceptions of their relationship with pupils, while it excluded TCs’ conceptions of their relationship with their colleagues or surrounding community members, which is an essential component of the teaching profession. These studies reviewed above (Ilieva, 2010; Johnson, 2001; Liu & Fisher, 2006) focused on TCs’ identity formation in preservice L2 teacher education programs in general without delimiting their focus to any programmatic component. Along with their contributions to a better understanding of the topic of L2 teacher identity building, this review located gaps that need to be addressed by further research. Gaps that require more investigation are (a) the influence of TCs’ biographical trajectories on their identity (Johnson, 2001), (b) observation of teacher education classrooms in which TCs negotiate their identities (Ilieva, 2010), and (c) conceptualization of teacher self by focusing on its interrelated dimensions (Liu & Fisher, 2006). The fact that these empirical studies have some gaps creates an opportunity for my study to contribute to the literature. Therefore, in my dissertation study, L2 TCs’ biographies were considered as one of the key factors contributing to their teacher identity development. Also, observations of teacher education classes were conducted as a data collection method to gain 68   more insights concerning the way class discussions and TCs’ relations with their peers and teacher educators in a professional environment influence their identity construction. Lastly, identity was conceptualized as relational and experiential (e.g., Miller, 2009) with emphasis on not only social, cultural, and political but also individual aspects as well as the role of language and discourse so that the study could yield as comprehensive a picture as possible regarding teacher identity development. 2.2.1.2. Teacher Education Coursework This section reviews prior studies which have examined L2 TCs’ teacher identity construction in the context of university-based teacher education courses. More specifically, there are studies which put under scrutiny the impact of teacher education courses upon L2 TCs’ identity (Abednia, 2012; Pavlenko, 2003) and in a review of the literature, I identified only one study which explored the influence of L2 TCs’ emerging identities on the way they viewed theoretical and practical aspects of teacher education courses. Pavlenko (2003) sought a nuanced understanding of the interrelation between TCs’ professional identities and the communities in which they envisioned becoming involved. She discussed “imagined professional and linguistic communities available” to prospective and practicing ESL and EFL professionals in an MATESOL program in the U.S. (p. 251), whereby she “aim[ed] to contribute to the discussion of critical praxis in teacher education in TESOL” (p. 252). Pavlenko’s study conceptually relied upon the work of Vygotsky (1978), Anderson (1991) and Wenger (1998) along with the scholarship of Norton (2000, 2001) who introduced the idea of imagination to TESOL (p. 252). In light of these authors’ rendition of imagination with respect to community and identity, Pavlenko explored the following questions: “(1) how are the students’ imagined communities linked to their perceived status in the profession? (2) How can critical praxis engage the students’ imagination and broaden their options?” (p. 253-254). 69   Pavlenko (2003) gleaned the data for her study from autobiographies of two cohorts of 44 MATESOL students in an SLA class, who constituted an ethnically, racially, and linguistically diverse group including both native speakers of English and other languages. She utilized “the framework of discursive positioning” introduced by Davies and Harré (1990) and Harré and Langenhove (1999). Therefore, she defined discourse as “a way of organizing knowledge through linguistic resources and practices” and positioning as “the process by which individuals are situated as recognizable and observably coherent participants in story lines” (p. 255). Pavlenko’s data analysis exhibited that given the three available communities, namely, native speaker, L2 learner, and L2 user communities, the community in which TCs chose to “invest” played a prominent role in how they viewed “themselves, their relationship with the L2, and their own professional legitimacy” (p. 256). Pavlenko pointed out that the discourse of Standard English did not allow NNES TCs to imagine themselves as members of native speaker community and they did not find L2 learner community as “an appealing alternative” option to appropriate (p. 260). Her analysis also revealed that “classroom readings and discussions of the NS/NNS dichotomy [in her SLA class] opened up new discourses and offered new identity options” for some TCs (p. 256), which helped NNES TCs reimagine themselves as members of a multilingual / L2 user community. This re-imagination, as Pavlenko contended, could potentially help them appropriate a legitimate professional identity in TESOL. Pavlenko (2003) contributed to the SLTE literature by displaying how a teacher education course could play a crucial role in affording TCs with opportunities to construct their professional identity. She empirically supported the idea that class readings and discussions could afford TCs with a platform or space to (re)negotiate their identities. Also, she exemplified 70   the utilization of the notion of imagination as part of her theoretical framework to understand L2 teacher identity construction which presents a relatively new perspective in the SLTE research. Pavlenko’s (2003) investigation delimited itself to examining the impact of a Second Language Acquisition (SLA) Theories course on their teacher identity with regards to the linguistic community they imagined themselves adhering to. Yet, it could have been more comprehensive if it had included an exploration of the ways in which L2 TCs’ changing identities influenced their teacher learning in the other teacher education courses. Imagining themselves in a multilingual community characterized as being bilingual and multicompetent, the NNES TCs gained a professional legitimacy in Pavlenko’s (2003) study. Her inquiry could have provided deeper insights about how the TCs framed their identities as teachers if she had observed their professional learning experiences in other teacher education courses they were enrolled. Abednia (2012) scrutinized the change in the teacher identity construction of seven Iranian EFL TCs in the wake of taking an undergraduate level Second Language Teaching Methodology course that made use of a critical pedagogy (Crawford, 1978) framework. He based his conceptualization of teacher identity upon Kelchtermans’s (1993) comprehensive picture of different aspects of teacher identity which include self-image, self-esteem, job motivation, task perception, and future perspective. He complemented this picture with Bolívar and Domingo’s (2006) notions of retrospective identity and prospective identity and Varghese et al.’s (2005) claimed versus assigned identity. Having these theoretical bases, Abednia’s inquiry addressed the following three questions: (1) What features mainly characterize EFL student teachers’ professional identity prior to critical EFL teacher education? (2) What features mainly characterize EFL student 71   teachers’ professional identity following critical EFL teacher education? (3) What major changes are made in EFL student teachers’ professional identity during critical EFL teacher education? (p. 707) Abednia (2012) collected his data from 7 EFL TCs’ through pre- and post-course interviews on their teacher identities, their reflective journals, recorded class discussions, and teacher educator’s reflective journals. Analyzing the data with Glaser’s (1978) grounded theory method, Abednia observed three primary changes in those EFL TCs’ emergent teacher identities. Thanks to their participation in this critical EFL teacher education course, TCs’ identities appeared to shift (a) from conformity to and romanticization of dominant ideologies to critical autonomy, (b) from no orientation or an instrumentalist orientation to a critical and transformative orientation of teaching, and (c) from a linguistic and technical view to an educational view of English language teaching (ELT). The “transformative vision of teaching EFL” that became part of the 7 TCs’ teacher identities views “ELT as a tool for individuals’ mental development, social transformation, and emancipation” (p. 713). Yet, this is not aligned with what market values and demands from teachers, which meant those TCs would have to be “going against the tide” (p. 713) if they maintained this transformative vision in their teaching practices. Abednia’s (2012) study contributed to the SLTE literature by bringing a critical lens into the discussion of L2 teacher identity construction, and by demonstrating how a teacher education course could lead to shifts in TCs’ emerging identities. It presented empirical support for the reconstruction of L2 TCs’ teacher identities as they were introduced to new teacher learning experiences in a teacher education course. It also exemplified how L2 TCs could become actively and intentionally involved in identity negotiation and reconstruction when they were 72   provided the opportunity and environment so that they could become cognizant about what beliefs and conceptions they held about teaching and learning EFL and what kind of teacher they envisioned to become. Abednia’s (2012) study relied on Singh and Richards’ (2006) argument that “the extent to which teacher education leads to positive changes is … largely determined by the identities teachers bring to courses and how they are reconstructed during teacher education” (p. 707). Keeping this argument in mind, his study could have yielded much deeper insights concerning EFL TCs’ identity development if it had broadened its focus and included the exploration of how TCs’ identity shifts impacted how they participated in and what they contributed to the other EFL teacher education courses they took simultaneously with this Second Language Teaching Methodology course. Furthermore, he could have observed the enactment of TCs’ shifted identities in their practice teaching. It would have been intriguing to see to what extent and how long they maintain and enact their shifted identities in their teaching. Peercy (2012) explored the impact of two ESOL TCs’ emerging identities as teachers upon the ways they made sense of the theoretical and practical components embodied in their teacher preparation courses. Her main focus was on the way the two ESOL TCs’ emerging identities manifested in their divergences in conceiving what was useful and what was not useful in their teacher education courses in terms of being related to their future practices. Resting on sociocultural theories in SLTE (e.g., Golombek & Johnson, 2004) and L2 teacher cognition research (e.g., Borg, 2003), she conceptualized L2 teacher learning as an ongoing and nonlinear process which is socially and dialogically situated and mediated as TCs existing thoughts, beliefs, and knowledge constantly interact with their new learning experiences. Focusing on the characteristics of teacher identity such as unstable, complex, contradictory, temporally and 73   spatially ever-changing, and discursively constructed, Peercy situated teacher identity construction as intertwined with teacher learning. Peercy (2012) obtained her data through two formal interviews (as well as informal follow-up discussions) with the two participants, interviews with the professors of four teacher education courses taken by the TC participants, observations of teacher education classes, and document analyses. Analyzing those lines of data with Strauss and Corbin’s (1998) constant comparative method, she found that the two ESOL TCs’ fledgling identities which were undergirded by their “implicit theories” and teacher cognition (Borg, 2003) determined how they constructed their understandings of what was useful and what was not useful in their teacher education courses. Her findings provided a main implication for teacher education practices: ESOL TCs could be conceiving the theory-practice relationship differently, so “we must realize that we need to examine what is useful and not useful for each individual teacher, and explore how this interfaces with their constructions of themselves as teachers” (p. 25). Peercy’s (2012) study contributed to the SLTE literature by bringing a new perspective to the long-discussed theory-practice relationship, that is, her use of teacher identity as a lens to better explore TCs’ understanding of practical and theoretical components in teacher education. Furthermore, her study clearly indicated how ESOL TCs’ emerging identities functioned as a frame that had a deciding impact on their teacher learning during formal teacher education, which was a crucial implication for teacher education practices. Also, Peercy’s (2012) work empirically demonstrated that L2 TCs’ implicit theories, their teacher cognition, and identity all orient, form, and inform their teacher learning. Peercy (2012) acknowledged that there was a symbiotic relationship between L2 teacher learning and identity and she delimited her inquiry to how the latter impacted the former. Yet, 74   her study could have provided much richer insights if it had capitalized on the way TCs’ developing professional knowledge was shaping their identities. It could have presented both sides of the symbiosis occurring between learning to teach and teacher identity formation. Then, it could have evidenced how their teacher education classes interacted with their evolving self- images as ESOL teachers. The studies reviewed in this section (Abednia, 2012; Pavlenko, 2003; Peercy, 2012) examined L2 TCs’ identity development exclusively in relationship to their L2 teacher education course(s). Apart from their relevant contributions to our understanding of L2 teacher identity development, this review attended to the gaps that need to be addressed by further research. The gaps that require more investigation are (a) the influence of the changes in TCs’ imagined community membership on their learning to teach (Pavlenko, 2003), (b) changes in TCs’ participation in and contribution to teacher education classes as their identities shift (Abednia, 2012), and (c) impact of teacher learning on identity building (Peercy, 2012). These three gaps concern the mutual relationship between teacher identity construction and their learning to teach. Therefore, my dissertation study has directed its focus not only to how the three TCs’ teacher identities change as they participate in teacher education classes but also how this change impacts their learning to teach. 2.2.1.3. Teaching Practicum Experiences It is widely believed in the current literature that actual teaching practice “is what enables student teachers to make a transition from aspiring to become a language teacher to actually being one” (Kanno & Stuart, 2011, p. 239). Therefore, this section reviews the studies that explore L2 teacher identity development during TCs’ initial teaching experiences. The studies conducted by the following researchers have been selected for this review: Trent (2010), Kanno and Stuart (2011), and Dang (2012). 75   Trent (2010) investigated eight preservice English language teachers’ practicum experiences utilizing teacher identity construction as a framework. His study drew on the notion of identity-in-practice delineated in Wenger (1998) and the notion of identity-in-discourse as discussed by Fairclough (2003). He believed that these two concepts complemented one another so that the study could present a multifaceted and multilayered analysis of L2 teacher identity development. Utilizing this theoretical lens, Trent (2010) looked at what TCs believed about English language teaching and learning and how they understood the requirements of their teacher education program and the school in which they were placed for their practicum, as well as their relations with mentor teachers in the schools. Thereby, he set out to answer this research question: “How was the process of teacher identity construction shaped by the experiences of a teaching practicum for one group of preservice English language teachers in Hong Kong?” (p. 3). Trent (2010) obtained data from 40-45 minute in-depth semi-structured interviews with eight TCs enrolled in the final year of a four-year Bachelor of Education program in Hong Kong. Concerning the scope of the practicum, each B.Ed. student was required to successfully complete two eight-week periods of teaching practice during years three and four of the program, which took the form of a full time practicum placement within a local school. The data analysis revealed that the L2 TCs in this study adopted, resisted, and rejected various identity options they were presented in their practicum schools and teacher education program. As a consequence, they built “rigid divisions between different identities (e.g., robot textbook teacher, vs. creative teacher), which were underpinned by relations of antagonism” (p. 12). This was attributed to “multiple and potentially contradictory discourses” (p. 11), which were borne out of the disconnection and tension between the two institutional settings, namely, teacher education program and local school settings. Relying on Alsup’s (2006) work on teacher identity, Trent 76   (2010) contended that discursive conflict could play a significant part in TCs’ identity development, but he cautioned that the tensions might become too great and impede their identity growth. Then, such practicum experiences with too many discursive tensions would prove counter-productive for TCs’ identity formation. One major contribution that Trent (2010) made to the emerging research on L2 teacher identity formation is the fact that his study positively responded to the call that Varghese et al. (2005) had made about the theorization of L2 teacher identity. Underscoring the prominence of L2 teacher identity for teacher education, Varghese et al. maintained that the concepts of identity-in-discourse and identity-in-practice had great potential to help precipitate and bolster the attempts towards a comprehensive conceptualization of L2 teacher education. Trent (2010) followed Varghese et al.’s line of thinking, and employed a theoretical framework that is comprised of the notions of identity-in-discourse and identity-in-practice. This framework was intended to enable the study to present a comprehensive picture of L2 teacher identity development in particular, thus, the deeply involved process of teacher growth in general. The in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted in Trent’s (2010) study provided him with access to L2 TCs’ stories, which could constitute a vast amount of data regarding their experiences, beliefs, and dispositions during their practicum experiences. However, given that Trent (2010) placed great emphasis on identities-in-practice, interview data could be supplemented with observations of actual teaching practices that TC engaged in during practicum, so that the inquiry could better investigate how identities were nurtured, enacted, or forged in actual practice and help gain richer and deeper insights through a complementary channel of data. 77   Kanno and Stuart (2011) investigated the way L2 TCs “learn to teach and come to identify themselves as [and grow into] professional language teachers” (p. 236). Reviewing the studies following L2 TCs’ development over time, they discerned the paucity of research into L2 TCs’ identity development process. Following Varghese et al.’s (2005) suggestion to theoretically combine the concepts of identities-in-discourse and identities-in-practice, Kanno and Stuart drew on two dimensions of situated learning theory, namely, learning-in-practice (Lave, 1996) and identities-in-practice (Lave, 1996; Wenger, 1998). However, while Varghese et al. theorized identities-in-discourse and identities-in-practice as two mutually exclusive notions, Kanno and Stuart assumed that identities-in-discourse “are verbal expressions of the ongoing mutual relationship between the self and the practice of a teacher,” hence, they are part of identities-in-practice (p. 240). Therefore, they called discursively constructed identities “narrated identities” and those manifested in practice “enacted identities.” Having these theoretical bases, Kanno and Stuart sought to answer the three following questions: “(1) How do student teachers of an L2 learn to become professional L2 teachers? (2) What classroom practices contribute to the formation of L2 teacher identities? (3) How do novice L2 teachers’ emerging identities manifest themselves in and shape their teaching practice?” (p. 240). Kanno and Stuart (2011) utilized a qualitative case study design and considered the two participants enrolled in a two-year MATESOL program in the U.S. as individual cases. They selected these participants because they were “promising” TCs who undertake “the challenge of teaching their own classes for the first time” (p. 240-241). The researchers followed these two ESOL TCs during their practicum in the university’s ESL center over one year and collected data through interviews, teaching journals, stimulated recalls, classroom observations, video-tapings of classes, and documents, which were complemented through member checking with 78   participants. They carried out both within-case and cross-case analysis by specifically attending to the extent to which the “narrated identities” matched or mismatched “the enacted identities as emerged from the different sources of data” (p. 241). Through data analysis, the study revealed that even those L2 TCs who explicitly mentioned their “commitment to become L2 teachers” did not quickly and automatically transition “from the identity of a graduate student to that of a teacher” (p. 249). It also showed that continual practice played a significantly contributive role in L2 TCs’ emerging identities, and likewise, their evolving identities led to telling changes in their teaching practice in L2 classrooms. In brief, teaching practice and identity construction mutually constituted each other during teacher development processes. Resting on these findings, Kanno and Stuart (2011) maintained that teacher identity construction holds a vitally major role in the process of teacher learning, and therefore must be incorporated into the knowledge base of SLTE. Kanno and Stuart’s (2011) inquiry made a theoretical and empirical contribution to the line of discussion about theorization of L2 teacher identity initiated by Varghese et al. (2005). This qualitative inquiry not only helped sharpen and detail the theorization regarding teacher identity formation but also presented a great amount of “thick description” (Geertz, 1973), oriented by this theorization, about the way L2 TCs move from the identity of student to identity of teacher. As one of the rare studies which followed L2 TCs’ identity development longitudinally, it exemplified the mutual constitution between practice and identity, and added to the nuanced understanding of complex interaction between the two in teacher learning. Kanno and Stuart (2011) scrutinized the interplay between identity construction and teaching practice, both of which are interrelated with teacher knowledge. Due to its focus on practice, their study did not attempt to explore how TCs’ pedagogical knowledge, beliefs, and 79   thoughts which are challenged or expanded through coursework and practicum impact upon identity or practice. More specifically, Kanno and Stuart’s (2011) study did not take into consideration the extent to which TCs’ biographies and coursework factor into the emergence of their teacher identities. For the purpose of accomplishing a comprehensive and multifaceted investigation, my study attempts to address those points which were not included in the scope of Kanno and Stuart’s (2011) inquiry. Thus, my study takes into account varying programmatic components such as coursework, practicum, action research, PBA (Performance Based Assessment), and edTPA (Teacher Performance Assessment) to best explore the three L2 TCs’ fledgling teacher identities throughout their experiences in the IMP. Dang’s (2012) study focused on two Vietnamese EFL TCs’ teacher identity construction during a 15-week paired-placement teaching practicum experiences and the mediation of this construction through dynamics specific to pair-work. She was interested in observing teacher identity construction in a collaborative setting. She primarily based her study on sociocultural theories of learning, so she utilized Engeström’s (2001) activity theoretical framework with an emphasis on the idea of contradiction, and Vygotsky’s (1978) concepts of zone of proximal development and perezhivanie (emotional experience). Also, because of its focus on “the dynamic nature of teacher identity, its social origin, and the tensions in its construction” (p. 49) which suited the purpose of her inquiry, Dang elected to make use of Akkerman and Meijer’s (2011) definition of teacher identity: “an ongoing process of negotiating and interrelating multiple I-positions in such a way that a more or less coherent and consistent sense of self is maintained throughout various participations and self-investments in one’s (working) life” (cited in Dang, 2012, p. 315). Holding these theoretical and conceptual lenses, Dang’s study addressed the following research questions: 80   (1) What contradictions were identified in the teachers’ joint-activity systems? (2) To what extent were the contradictions resolved or not in the course of the study? (3) What are the implications of the trajectories of contradictions for teacher development in the paired placement context? (p. 48) Dang (2012) employed qualitative data collection tools. She individually interviewed the TCs before the practicum and after each one of their four lessons the researcher observed and video-recorded. She also reviewed the TCs’ artefacts like lesson plans, and other instructional materials. Through her data analysis, she found that the pair of EFL TCs confronted contradictions in their perceptions of what the teaching practicum involves, unequal power relationships between each other, and varying levels of “appropriation of pedagogical tools” (p. 48). However, although her study revealed that practicum placements as pairs represented a learning environment characterized with tensions, Dang pointed out that the EFL TCs had to work on the resolution of conflicts, contradictions, and tensions that opened up new opportunities for L2 professional learning during practicum. Dang’s (2012) inquiry made a contribution to the exploration of L2 teacher identity development by empirically testing the use of Engeström’s (2001) activity theory tenets, and specifically the sociocultural notions of contradiction, ZPD, and perezhivanie (emotional experience). The use of activity theory was suggested by Cross (2006), but it has not been sufficiently tested on empirical basis. It is a novelty to see how activity theory applies to the investigation of L2 teacher identity formation. Additionally, L2 TCs’ collaborative teaching placement experiences have never been examined to understand teacher identity development. Dang (2012) observed the pair of EFL TCs developing a colleague/mentor identity in relation to their partner because they recognize each other as colleagues who were offering 81   mentorship for one another. Yet, her study could have provided much deeper insights if it had analyzed data about the EFL TCs’ interactions with their mentor teachers assigned for their practicum or other experienced teachers they worked with during their teaching practicum experiences. This could have given another perspective to explore what other contradictions TCs encountered and how they went about resolving them. This perspective could afford us with a much more nuanced portrait of L2 TCs’ teacher identity development with regards to their experiences during the teaching practicum. The studies reviewed above (Dang, 2012; Kanno & Stuart, 2011;Trent, 2010) examined L2 TCs’ identity development exclusively in the context of their teaching practicum experiences as part of their initial formal teacher preparation. As well as the contributions they made to our increased understanding of L2 teacher identity construction, this review specified some gaps which provide opportunities for further research endeavors. Those gaps include (a) the observational data to supplement the findings about L2 TCs’ identities-in-practice gleaned from interviews (Trent, 2010), (b) the influence of teacher cognition and teacher education coursework on TCs’ emerging identities in their teaching practicum (Kanno & Stuart, 2011), (c) the role of mentor teachers’ on TCs’ teacher identity construction in the teaching practicum (Dang, 2012). Therefore, my research included observations of TCs’ teacher education classes as well as the classes they taught in their placement, incorporated the TCs’ teacher cognition into the exploration of TCs’ identity development, and investigated the mentor teachers’ role in the way TCs frame, take on, and enact their teacher identities. 2.2.2. Practicing L2 Teachers’ Identity Formation The way in-service teachers (re)construct and (re)form their identities has been one of the foci in L2 teacher identity literature, since identity is conceived of as “a process of continual emerging and becoming” (He, 1995, p. 216) which is not terminated upon graduation from 82   formal teacher preparation. Although TCs rather than practicing ESOL educators are the principal focus of this dissertation study, I believe that it can be theoretically, methodologically, and empirically informed by the previous research on practicing teachers’ identities, which provides implications and recommendations for the practices of preservice teacher education. Therefore, the following studies have been selected for review in this section of the current paper: Duff and Uchida (1997), Varghese (2006), Tsui (2007), Urzúa and Vàsquez, (2008), and Farrell (2011). Duff and Uchida’s (1997) article presented one of the earliest research studies that explored the question of L2 teachers’ identity, and it is quite often cited in the later pertinent research. The subject of teacher identity was one of the three major foci in the study. It investigated the interrelationship (a) “between language and culture,” (b) “between teachers’ sociocultural identities and teaching practices,” and (c) “between their explicit discussions of culture and implicit modes of cultural transmission in their classes” (p. 451). This study was theoretically driven by the premise that identities and beliefs are under constant co-construction, negotiation, and transformation through linguistic tools “in educational practice as in other facets of social life” (p. 452). In this study, Duff and Uchida (1997) sought to find answers for these research questions: “(a) How are teachers’ sociocultural identities, understandings, and practices negotiated and transformed over time? (b) What factors are associated with those changes?” (p. 457). Duff and Uchida (1997) utilized ethnographic case study design in their in-depth investigation of four teachers (with at least two years of teaching experience) and four classes in an adult EFL program in Japan. They gathered data from teachers and their classes over a six- month period through (1) teacher/student questionnaires, (2) retrospective journal entries, (3) 83   audio- or video-taped classroom observations, (4) field notes, (5) post-observational interviews, (6) life-history interviews, (7) review of instructional materials, and (8) the use of a participant observer’s journal. The analysis of this huge amount of data from a host of various methods was conducted “in a recursive, reflexive, and triangulated manner,” which included participants’ and researchers’ insights and feedback. Duff and Uchida (1997) presented key findings concerning L2 teachers’ identity (re)construction. They observed that participating teachers became adjusted “to their contexts, roles, and identities, resolving incongruities, and gaining greater experience with each new cohort of students” (p. 476). Their study also exhibited that teachers’ biographical trajectories in relation to prior educational, professional, and cultural experiences were fairly prominent in their perceptions of their sociocultural identities. Such contextual components as “classroom/institutional culture, instructional materials, and reactions from students and colleagues” led them to continuously (re)negotiate their professional, social, political, and cultural identities which are fraught with complexities and paradoxes (p. 460). Being one of the first inquiries with an explicit emphasis on teacher identity, Duff and Uchida’s (1997) extensive research project made a significant contribution to the L2 teacher identity literature. Through a tremendous amount of data coming from varying sources, it generated empirical support for the joint impact of teacher biographies and contextual factors upon the way teachers (re)negotiate their identities during the actual practice of L2 teaching. The interrelation and interaction among teacher biographies, their teaching context, and their teaching practices were brought forth as important components in L2 teachers’ identity construction. Duff and Uchida’s (1997) empirically supported conceptualization can be adopted as a starting point to be evaluated and perhaps further developed through the findings yielded in my study, although 84   the context they investigated is dissimilar from the one my study capitalizes on. They examined practicing expatriate EFL teachers’ construction, conceptualization, and interrogation of their own identities and practices in a Japanese private educational institute and I examine ESOL TCs’ teacher identity construction during their teacher education classes and teaching practica as two main components of a US-based teacher education program. Relying on their study, Duff and Uchida (1997) made several significant recommendations to enhance the practices implemented in SLTE programs, which can be viewed as one contribution of their research to the practical endeavors. On the other hand, to make these recommendations for SLTE practices more relevant, Duff and Uchida (1997) could have concentrated on (perhaps through narration) the link between their participants’ teacher identities and their formal teacher preparation. That is, the study could have had a sub-focus on how their formal learning to teach experiences to obtain their teaching credentials influenced the L2 teachers’ self-images as teachers in their immediate context at that time. The main focus in my study is to explore this link between ESOL TCs’ formal preparation and their identity formation, that is, the extent to which their preservice teacher education, composed of graduate coursework and the teaching practica, contribute to their identity development. Varghese (2006) scrutinized how four bilingual Latino/a teachers constructed and enacted their professional identities in an urban public school district in the U.S. She placed particular emphasis on “structural and institutional concerns” along with national and local discourses as vital dynamics in “the construction and location of their identities” (p. 212). Her inquiry rested upon the premises of cultural production in the work of Levinson and Holland (1996) and communities of practice in the works of Lave and Wenger (1991) and Wenger (1998), in order to theorize L2 teacher identity. 85   Using an ethnographic approach as a research methodology, Varghese (2006) longitudinally studied four bilingual teachers in two types of settings: (1) a professional development institute for apprentice-bilingual teachers from May to December 1996; and (2) three different schools where teacher participants taught from January to May 1997. For data collection purposes, she interviewed and observed (participant observation in professional development institute) teachers, teacher trainers, and administrators, examined archival documents and took field notes. Her email correspondence with the participants was used as a data source, as well. Varghese’s (2006) inquiry yielded some major findings illuminating the way L2 teachers appropriate and forge their teacher identities. First, it revealed that our understanding of the complex nature of teacher identity is contingent upon the explication of how relevant structural influences at macro and micro levels interact with one another in their teaching context, and how teachers react to these surrounding micro- and macro-level influences. Second, it further indicated that due to the dearth of uniform and consensual views on bilingual teaching, “the dominant discourses as well as the professional discourses … did not necessarily allow teachers to completely espouse or identify with a uniform and collective sense of bilingual teaching in Urbantown” (p. 222). Concluding her article, Varghese made a crucial suggestion regarding the conceptualization that undergirds L2 teachers’ professional development practices. She contended that “professional development should address and formulate what teachers should become (e.g., language policy creators) rather than solely what they should know (e.g., knowing about language policy)” (p. 223), so that the professional knowledge base of L2 teachers can interact with and be influenced by the dynamics and realities of their local teaching settings in which they continually negotiate their teacher identities. 86   Varghese (2006) longitudinally investigated professional development and subsequent teaching practice, which enabled a detailed exploration and unwrapping of varying deep intricacies embedded in L2 teacher identity construction processes. Thanks to this temporally and spatially expanded focus like Trent (2010), and Kanno and Stuart (2011), Varghese inquired into the tensions and interactions between surrounding professional discourses and actual L2 teaching practice as they pertain to L2 teacher identity formation. Therefore, this inquiry especially informed my study which examines L2 TCs’ teacher identities in concurrent university-based teacher education and school-based the teaching practicum. Like Varghese’s work, my study explores L2 teacher identity negotiation and construction in the context of their professional learning and teaching practice. In her inquiry, Varghese focused on practicing teachers, while my study looks at an earlier stage of becoming an L2 teacher, and it adds to our understanding of the ways in which teacher education coursework and the teaching practica contribute to L2 TCs’ teacher identity construction as they traverse the IMP. Varghese (2006) focused on novice teachers’ experiences in a professional development institutes and their teaching practices in different schools later. I understand that she delimited her scope to a specific professional development and following practices and that her study found personal histories as a prominent factor in teachers’ identity construction. However, her investigation could have presented much deeper insights if it had had a discussion of how the activities of their initial teacher preparation contributed to their current identities which they may have further negotiated during professional development as novice teachers. Although their teaching contexts have tremendous impact on the way they frame their identities, novice L2 teachers’ initial teacher learning experiences merit attention since they must be factoring into this framing. 87   As another study which attends to practicing teachers’ identity development, Tsui (2007) explored an in-service EFL teacher’s lived experiences during six years of his teaching. Her main focus was this EFL teacher’s negotiation of multiple identities, “the interplay between reification and negotiation of meanings, and the institutional construction and his personal reconstruction of identities” (p. 658). Tsui utilized Wenger’s (1998) theory of learning and identity formation since she believed it was one of the most rigorous theories which can elucidate the three main issues in teacher identity: (a) multidimensional nature of professional identity, (b) relationship between personal and social dimensions of teacher identity, (c) relationship between agency and social structure. Tsui (2007) conducted her study using narrative inquiry design because she aligned herself with Connelly and Clandinin (1999) who assign a central role to “stories to live by” in exploring teacher identity. Tsui collected the data over six months following this procedure: data collection started with teacher participant’s telling his stories face-to-face to Tsui, followed and (re-)shaped by the participant’s written reflections in diaries which were responded to by the researcher, who shared her own experiences and asked probing questions for more information, and ended with four four-hour conversations over a one-week period. The data analysis particularly focused on “forms and sources of reification [of meanings], participation and non- participation in reification, negotiability and non-negotiability of meanings, and participation and non-participation in the negotiation of meanings” (p. 659), which were derived from the premises of Wenger’s (1998) identity formation theory. Tsui’s (2007) examination of lived experiences of her informant as an EFL teacher illustrated that two dialectically connected and mutually constitutive dimensions play a crucial role in professional identity formation: The individual’s developing awareness about his or her 88   competence as a member that is valued by the community, and his or her reception of “legitimacy of access to practice” of this community (p. 675). It further illustrated the interaction between L2 teachers’ identification process and their “participation in negotiating meanings and sharing the ownership of meanings” (p. 678). Additionally, she drew attention to the determining role of “power relationships among members of a community” in participation and nonparticipation in the negotiation of meanings (p. 678). Finally, the EFL teacher participant’s narrations demonstrated that identity conflicts could emerge from the interaction of “identification and the negotiability of meanings,” and they could bring about either “new forms of engagement in practice, new relations with members of the community, and new ownership of meanings,” or conversely, marginal, disengaged, and nonparticipant identities (p. 678). Tsui’s (2007) study is unique in that it explored L2 teacher identity construction over six years of EFL teaching through retrospective methods. No other study attempted to understand the dynamics and incongruities of L2 teacher identity by looking at such a lengthy time period. The inquiry itself lasted for six months, and the data it pulled together through narrative methods concern the EFL teacher’s identity negotiation and evolution over six years of his teaching career. This quality afforded Tsui’s investigation temporal depth and richness. Moreover, Tsui made a contribution to the theorization of L2 teacher identity by illustrating the utilization of Wenger’s (1998) theory of identity formation as an analytic lens when looking at an EFL teacher’s case. She elucidated the patterns of L2 teacher identity construction by using the tools presented in Wenger’s theoretical frame. Her study demonstrated the instrumentality of the premises in Wenger’s conceptual model in understanding the intricate interplay between competence and (non)participation in a community of practice and between identification, 89   (non)participation and power, as well as the complex nature of conflicts involved in identity formation processes. Tsui (2007) employed narrative inquiry as research methodology in her study, which delimited her focus to her participant’s stories pertaining to the way his identity played out in his teaching settings. Therefore, she addressed the way her participant crafted his identities throughout his teaching practice in relation to conflicts and tensions, but her scrutiny hinged more on the interaction of the experiential narratives recounting his teaching and her critical responses to them, than on her actual observation of his teaching. My study makes use of individual interviewing in order to gather data to explore ESOL TCs’ narrated identities, as well. Additionally, it utilizes observations (not only in their teacher education classes but also in the public school classes they teach) and relevant artifacts to examine how they enact their identities in their teaching and professional learning settings. Then, it attempts to present a comprehensive portrait of the three ESOL TCs’ teacher identities by elucidating the aspects of both narrated and enacted identities. Moreover, my study collected data about ESOL TCs’ coursework and practicum experiences as they ‘live’ them. Different from Tsui’s investigation, in my project, the point of having these experiences and the point of sharing them was temporally closer. Thus, participants were able to narrate their experiences more vividly and more in detail. Urzúa and Vàsquez (2008) investigated novice ESOL teachers’ future-oriented talk as discursive means for prospective reflection and identity imagination and construction. They conceptually based their study upon the discussions about future-oriented teacher reflection (Conway, 2001) which is intended to complement Schön’s (1983, 1987) model of “reflective practitioner” and future dimension in identity construction (Conway, 2001; van Lier, 2004; Norton, 2000). Therefore, placing stress “on a goal-orientated and problem-solving type of 90   reflection” manifested through teacher talk, they conceived teacher identity as “relationally and discursively constructed…in any utterances which include first person reference to one’s activities, knowledge, beliefs and attitudes related to teaching” (p. 1937). Urzúa and Vàsquez (2008) collected their qualitative data from novice ESOL teachers working at an intensive English program at a southwestern US university in two phases: (1) Twenty mentoring meetings (with seven female, native English speaking teachers) in 2001, which occurred at the beginning, middle, and end of the semester; (2) Nineteen post-observation meetings (with 1 male and eight female teachers, three of whom are non-native English speakers) between 2002 and 2004. The data analysis yielded a taxonomy of novice teachers’ future-oriented talk: planning (expressing definite plans or future actions, usually involving volition, intentionality, or commitment), prediction (expressing assessments of likelihood), uncertainty (expressing doubt about a future state or outcome), and conditionals (referring to future outcomes contingent on a condition (e.g., if-clause) being satisfied). Their main finding about teacher identity development was that teachers’ future-oriented talks in planning and prediction are connected to various strategies of the (re)presentation of their teacher identities and perspective taking, which can be considered as manifestation of discursive construction of their teacher identities. Their findings implicated that teacher educators, supervisors, and mentor teachers need to know the crucial functions of mentoring meetings. These meetings constitute “discursive spaces” which afford novice teachers with “an opportunity to verbalize plans, predict outcomes, consider possibilities, and reflect on their evolving pedagogical practices” (p. 1945). Urzúa and Vàsquez’s (2008) study contributed to L2 teacher identity literature by incorporating reflection, particularly prospective reflection, into the conceptualization of teacher identity construction and by providing empirical evidence to illustrate the contribution of 91   prospective reflection to L2 teacher identity construction. More specifically, the taxonomy of novice ESOL teachers’ future-oriented talk adds to our understanding of how teachers envision their future practices and imagine or project their identities in those future practices. It opens up a new dimension to approach teacher identity formation: a futuristic dimension. That is, teachers discursively situate and construct their self-images in their future practices while they are verbalizing their plans and imaginations. Urzúa and Vàsquez’s (2008) inquiry could have presented much richer insights if it had included observational data, as well, in order to see how congruent the novice ESOL teachers’ “designated identities” (Sfard & Prusak, 2005) were with their current representation and framing of their teacher identities. Additionally, although they delimited their focus to future- oriented talk, Urzúa and Vàsquez could have gained a more comprehensive picture by adding teachers’ biographical trajectories into the equation. That way, they could have explored what past experiences had an impact on their future projections or imaginations with regards to their identities. Farrell (2011) examined the experienced (over 15 years) ESL teachers’ identities as emerged and manifested in their talks in regular group discussions as they worked in an intensive English program at a Canadian university. He based his definition of identity upon Urrieta (2007) and Holland et al.’s (1998) notion of figured worlds. Thus, in his conceptualization, teachers “come to ‘figure’ who they are, through the ‘worlds’ that they participate in and how they relate to others within and outside of these worlds” (Urrieta, 2007 cited in Farrell, 2011, p. 55) and they recognize and are recognized by other actors in these worlds through interaction (Holland, et al., 1998). Relying on this theoretical base, he addressed this research question: “When experienced ESL teachers talk regularly about their practice in a teacher group, what do 92   they communicate, either explicitly or implicitly, about their professional role identity as ESL teachers?” (p. 55). Farrell (2011) met with these three established ESL college teachers over a period of two years and facilitated 12 group discussions and follow-up interviews, all of which he audio- recorded. Through his data analysis, he came up with a taxonomy of teacher identities which included the following: (1) teacher as manager (vendor, entertainer, communication controller), (2) teacher as acculturator (socializer, social worker, careprovider), (3) teacher as professional (collaborator, learner, knowledgeable). He observed that some of those identities were ready- made and assigned to the teachers in their teaching context like vendor, entertainer, careprovider, and acculturator and some were constructed by ESL teachers themselves, like collaborator, knowledgeable, and learner. Then, he posed the question of whether or not teachers’ identities were assigned to them by others or negotiated and crafted by themselves, so he offered a spectrum of teacher identities which situates ready-made identities on one end and individually created identities on the other. Farrell (2011) made a contribution to our understanding of L2 teacher identities through the taxonomy and the spectrum that he drew upon his data. This taxonomy is an important attempt to chart the underexplored territory of L2 teacher identity by giving a list of identities L2 teachers create or are assigned. Taking his discussion one step further, Farrell argued that teachers’ reflection on their teaching practice from an identity perspective can make them more cognizant of their identity construction, that is, how it “has been shaped over time and by whom,” and how it needs “to be nurtured during a teacher’s career” (p. 60). Although he did not provide implications for teacher education, I should note that Farrell’s findings suggest SLTE 93   practices should encourage L2 TCs to engage in reflection on their self-images as emerging teachers, that is, the kind of teacher they are and the kind of teacher they aspire to become. Farrell’s (2011) study could have yielded a much more comprehensive investigation of established ESL teachers’ identities if he had included observational data that could give insights regarding how teachers enacted the set of identities narrated in the discussions. Observational data could have also enhanced the reflective discussions by providing more questions for the facilitator to pose and deliberate during the meetings. Additionally, Farrell’s investigation could have provided much more interesting findings if it had recruited novice or beginning teachers as participants in the discussions, too. Beginning teachers’ participation could have brought a completely different perspective to the matters revolving around their assigned and self-crafted teacher identities. Moreover, as a benefit of their participation, having both experienced and inexperienced teachers could have nurtured a collaborative learning community for both groups as an extension of their professional setting. The studies reviewed in this section (Duff & Uchida, 1997; Varghese, 2006; Tsui, 2007; Urzúa & Vàsquez, 2008; Farrell, 2011) explored practicing L2 teachers’ identity construction in their teaching context. Along with the contributions they made to our understanding of L2 teacher identity, their critical review indicated certain gaps that represent the areas needing further research. Those gaps include (a) the connection between practicing teachers’ current self- images as teachers with their formal teacher preparation (Duff & Uchida, 1997; Varghese, 2006), (b) complementing narrative and interview data with observations of the experienced teacher’s classroom practice (Tsui, 2007; Urzúa & Vàsquez, 2008; Farrell, 2011), and (c) having both experienced and novice teachers in the same participant pool and comparing the divergences and convergences of their identity (re)construction experiences (Urzúa & Vàsquez, 2008; Farrell, 94   2011). Having noted these gaps, my study considers the three ESOL TCs’ prior learning and teaching in their teacher identity formation and gathers observational data as well as individual interviews to enrich the data set and the dimensions of research findings. 2.2.3. Summary of Review As the studies reviewed above demonstrate (See Appendix E for the summary), L2 teacher identity has been developing as a new area of interest in SLTE research. Researchers highlight the paucity of research devoted to the investigation of L2 teacher identity formation (Johnson, 2003; Johnston, 1997, 2005; Miller, 2009; Morgan, 2004; Varghese, 2001; Varghese, et al., 2005; Tsui, 2007; 2011). The review of the previous work in this study also indicates the need for more research into exploring the ways in which L2 teachers negotiate and construct their identities. In other words, there exist gaps in the current literature, which should be addressed by further research endeavors. I can locate three gaps which are addressed in my study: (1) exploration of the interaction between identity and practice, (2) influence of preservice teacher education (coursework and practicum collectively) upon L2 TCs’ identity construction processes, and (3) a well-designed case study providing a thorough scrutiny of the ways in which initial teacher preparation activities are conducive to L2 teacher identity construction processes. First, how L2 teacher identity and teaching practice influence one another has not been sufficiently examined in the previous relevant inquiries. Duff and Uchida (1997) (with focus on practicing teachers) and Trent (2010) (with focus on TCs doing their practicum) investigated the way practice shapes L2 teacher identity in an international context, and Kanno and Stuart (2011) research the mutual constitution between TCs’ identity formation and their practice in U.S. ESL contexts. My study addresses this gap by incorporating one more dimension into the picture. That is, it builds on Kanno and Stuart’s inquiry because it conceives identity and practice as two mutually constitutive phenomena, and it studies L2 teacher candidates’ (TCs) identity 95   development in a U.S. ESL setting. However, my study also examines how ESOL teacher candidates’ identity work interacts with their teaching practices, their coursework, and their relevant university and K-12 classroom experiences, which requires conducting classroom observations, both in TCs’ practicum settings and in their teacher education program settings. To be more specific, the additional facet in my study is the examination of the constant interplay between university and K-12 classroom experiences and teacher identity development, that is, how university-based coursework and K-12 teaching experiences shape teacher identity. Second, there is a need for more studies on how L2 teacher identities emerge and evolve throughout TCs’ experiences as they navigate across the activities of preservice teacher education. Existing studies on L2 TCs’ identity construction during the program do not include in their scope both of the main programmatic components, namely, university-based teacher education coursework and field-based teaching practica. For instance, Pavlenko (2003) looks only at the impact of the SLA course on ESOL TCs’ identity construction. Liu and Fisher (2006) examine the patterns of change in L2 TCs’ conceptions, only one dimension of which is teacher identity. Ilieva (2010) explores NNES TCs’ identity as reflected in their end-of-semester portfolios. Johnson (2001) also delimits her scope to the influence of NNES membership on teacher identity. When these examples are taken into consideration, it becomes apparent that there is a need for an inquiry which shines brighter light upon L2 TCs’ identity construction, taking into account as many experiences they have throughout the program as possible. Third, there is no single case study which explores the process of L2 TCs’ identity formation during their experiences in their preservice teacher education program, including both coursework and practicum components. Yin (2003) comments that case study research is the best fit for the examination of process, so I think the process of teacher identity construction should 96   be put under scrutiny using case study methodology, which would yield an in-depth and thorough analysis of the process. Among the studies reviewed in this paper, Duff and Uchida (1997), Liu and Fisher (2006), and Kanno and Stuart (2011) explicitly mention that they employed case study methodology. However, they do not attempt to explore the transitional process of identity formation in its entirety. That is, the transition from being a student to being a teacher has not been sufficiently addressed so far. For the purpose of addressing this underexplored issue, my study utilizes case study methods with the intention to longitudinally observe and explore various aspects of the process of the three ESOL TCs’ transitioning from identifying themselves as students to identifying themselves as teachers. 2.3. Theoretical Framework This section presents an outline of the theoretical framework for this study. If research design is viewed as the roadmap to orient my inquiry throughout the journey that I have embarked upon as an apprentice researcher, then the theoretical framework I utilize functions as the legend which provides an explanation of the relevant constructs and premises so that I can make sense of the phenomenon of interest under scrutiny. The review of the preceding scholarship and discussions on L2 teacher identity highlights that Wenger’s (1998) theorization of identity formation as part of his broader model of social learning has been quite effective in understanding how L2 teachers forge their professional identities (Kanno & Stuart, 2011; Singh & Richards, 2006; Trent, 2010; Tsui, 2007, 2011; Varghese, 2006; Varghese, et al., 2005). Tsui (2007, 2011) particularly emphasizes the instrumentality and power of Wenger’s framework for conceiving identity construction as the dual process of identification and negotiation. The discussion in this section commences with the delineation of Wenger’s (1998) social theory of learning so as to prepare the backdrop for the conceptualization of identity in relation 97   to learning and other constituents, namely, community, practice, and meaning. Then, this section discusses the central constructs of participation, nonparticipation, and reification as they relate to identity formation along with such relevant notions as conflict, competence and trajectory. Next, it capitalizes on how Wenger approaches and postulates the interrelation and parallels between identity and practice. Finally, this section delves into the modes of identity, namely, engagement, imagination, and alignment, which are followed by the description of the crux of the matter, that is, the dual process of identity formation, which is composed of identification and negotiation. 2.3.1. Social Theory of Learning Wenger (1998) builds his social theory of learning upon four interlocked and reciprocally determining conceptual pillars, which are meaning, practice, community, and identity. Accordingly, his theory posits that learning has the complementary dimensions of experience, doing, belonging, and becoming, which “characterize social participation as a process of learning and of knowing” (p. 4). To better illustrate this process, Wenger describes the four constructs without which we cannot conceive learning: Meaning refers to “our (changing) ability – individually and collectively – to experience our life and the world as meaningful” (p. 5). Practice represents “the shared historical and social resources, frameworks, and perspectives that can sustain mutual engagement in action” (p. 5). Community denotes “the social configurations in which our enterprises are defined as worth pursuing and our participation is recognizable as competence” (p. 5). Identity refers to “how learning changes who we are and creates personal histories of becoming in the context of our communities” (p. 5). Embodying all these four components, learning, as a social phenomenon, occurs when we engage in practice in a community to which we (want to) belong and we negotiate the meaning of our experiences in this practice, which has a determining impact on who we are and who we (aspire) become within the dynamics of this community. 98   2.3.1.1. Introductory Caveats Prior to beginning to explicate how the social theory of learning views identity, Wenger (1998) cautions about the relation between the social and the individual as it pertains to the conception of identity. The notion of identity shuns a simplistic individual-social polarity, but acknowledges that they are distinct from each other. Identity functions “as a pivot between the social and the individual,” which makes it possible that “each can be talked about in terms of the other” (p. 145). The consequent standpoint foregrounds the interplay between individual and social aspects of identity. This standpoint “is neither individualistic nor abstractly institutional or societal” because it appreciates the lived nature and “experience of identity” and simultaneously recognizes “its social character” (p. 145). Briefly, identity is considered “the social, the cultural, the historical with a human face” (p. 145). Furthermore, Wenger (1998) clarifies that his argumentation of identity formation includes an assumption of neither agreement nor conflict. When he argues that the individual and the social are not inherently divergent, he does not mean that there exists no “tension or conflict between the resources and demands of groups and the aspirations of individuals” (p. 147). It is probable that tensions, conflicts, or concessions emerge in any specific case. However, “for every case there is a conflict, you can find a case where individual and social” forces and dynamics enrich one another (p. 147). Lastly, neither community nor individual are idealized or condemned in general terms in Wenger’s (1998) conception. Yet, this does not mean that both of them “are not sources of problems and solutions” (p. 147). When we observe individuals and communities in their actualities, it becomes apparent that “for each case in which an individual’s creativity is squelched by a conformist community, there is another case in which a social activity is a source of insight” (p. 147). By the same token, “each case in which individual conflicts create discord” 99   can be counterbalanced by another one “in which social peace depends on some individuals’ willingness to take a stand against the pettiness of their own communities” (p. 147). 2.3.2. Participation, Non‐participation, and Reification Through the means of engagement in the practices of our communities, we are afforded “certain experiences of participation.” Concurrently what is attended to and valued in our communities “reifies us as participants” (Wenger, 1998, p. 150), that is, gives “form to our experience by producing objects that congeal this experience into ‘thingness’” (p. 58). Participation and reification collectively contribute to the formation of identity; neither one can suffice on its own. Talking and thinking about ourselves and each other in words, we often think about our identities as self-images and categories reflected in these words. These words indubitably hold great significance, yet do not represent the entire, “lived experience of engagement in practice” (p. 151). Such reifications as “categories, self-images, and narratives of the self” are borne out of our thoughts, and written or oral remarks about ourselves are crucial “as constitutive of identity,” but identity is not the sum of those reifications (p. 151). In brief, there are two basic factors jointly shaping the definition of identity in practice: its reification “in a social discourse of the self and of social categories” and its production “as a lived experience of participation in specific communities” (p. 151). Wenger (1998) also highlights in a separate chapter the prominence of non-participation in the production of identities, equal to that of participation. We define and produce our identities through both the practices we engage in, and those we do not. Thus, the constitution of our identities occurs “not only by what we are but also by what we are not” (p. 164). It is highly likely that “what we are not” turns out to be a great “part of how we define ourselves,” depending on the degree of our contact with other means of being (p. 164). The ways we relate to communities of practice embrace both participation and non-participation, combinations of 100   which shape our identities. It is ineluctable that “a mixture of being in and being out” constitutes “a coherent identity” in territory marked and determined by “boundaries and peripheries” (p. 165). When Wenger (1998) regards non-participation as equally significant as participation in making sense of persons’ relations to their communities, peripherality and marginality arise as two vital notions in understanding identity in practice. Demarcated by a subtle line, both of them are composed of a commixture of participation, and non-participation and “produce qualitatively different experiences and identities” (p. 166). Yet, whether or not non-participation turns into peripherality or marginality hinges “on relations of participation that render non-participation either enabling or problematic” (p. 167). This brings about four major categories of participation as displayed in Figure 2 below: (1) full participation, which refers to an insider position; (2) full- non participation, which refers to an outsider position; (3) peripherality, which denotes “participation enabled by non-participation, whether it leads to full participation or remains on a peripheral trajectory”; (4) and marginality, which denotes “participation restricted by non- participation, whether it leads to non-membership or to a marginal position” (p. 167). Figure 2. Four Major Categories of Participation Wenger (1998) 101   2.3.3. Identity in Practice As can be understood from the discussion thus far, our identities mainly reside in our practices of the communities in which we (want to) hold membership and have access to resources, frameworks, and perspectives to maintain our engagement. We produce fairly rich and complex identities since they are molded “within the rich and complex set of relations of practice” produced and sustained amidst the community dynamics (Wenger, 1998, p. 163). Presuming a parallel between practice and identity, Wenger (1998) proposes an approach to identity which “inherits the texture of practice,” (p. 162) and yields the following characteristics for identity in practice: 1. Lived. Identity is not merely a category, a personality trait, a role, or a label; it is more fundamentally an experience that involves both participation and reification. Hence it is more diverse and more complex than categories, traits, roles, or labels would suggest. 2. Negotiated. Identity is becoming. The work of identity is ongoing and pervasive. It is not confined to specific periods of life, like adolescence, or to specific settings, like the family. 3. Social. Community membership gives the formation of identity a fundamentally social character. Our membership manifests itself in the familiarity we experience with certain social contexts. 4. A learning process. An identity is a trajectory in time that incorporates both past and future into the meaning of the present. 5. A nexus. Identity combines multiple forms of membership through a process of reconciliation across boundaries of practice. 6. A global – local interplay. An identity is neither narrowly local to activities nor abstractly global. Like practice, it is an interplay of both. (p. 163) 102   Bearing those attributes, identities are developed only in situ just as persons participate in the practices of their communities, which influences their learning of “the ways of being and doing in the community” (Kanno & Stuart, 2011, p. 240). In this case, the intricate and intimate link between identity and practice needs to be further explained, referring to other dimensions of identity such as modes of belonging. 2.3.4. Modes of Belonging Wenger (1998) suggests three modes of belonging to make sense of the processes of identity formation and learning in communities through participation or non-participation in the practices and reification performed by the communities. These distinct modes are engagement, imagination, and alignment, and all are conducive to the formation of persons’ identities in communities of practice. 2.3.4.1. Engagement Engagement plays a pivotal role in communities of practice basically for two reasons: (1) communities emerge and evolve owing to individuals’ mutual engagement in actions and (2) the existence of practice hinges upon people’s engaging “in actions whose meanings they negotiate with one another” (Wenger, 1998, p. 73). Holding this prominence, engagement transpires in a threefold process that encapsulates the conjunction of (a) the ongoing negotiation of meaning, (b) the formation of trajectories, and (c) the unfolding of histories of practice (p. 174). When these three processes become actualized through one another, engagement develops as a mode of belonging, thereby, a powerful source of identity. Wenger (1998) deems engagement a vital source for allowing and supporting the “delicate process of negotiating viable identities” (p. 175). It has the dual function of determining the interrelationship between persons and their community. That is, members’ engagement contributes to the definition of actions and practices through which they frame and define their 103   identities. Relations of accountability which define the participants’ competence levels are espoused and shaped by the participants’ engagement in the activities and practices of the community. From this engagement emerges an intriguing dimension of power: engagement gives us “the power to negotiate our enterprises and thus to shape the context in which we can construct and experience an identity of competence” (p. 175). On the other hand, engagement can be restricted by the understanding that inheres in shared practice. This understanding does not necessarily afford members with extensive “access to the histories or relations with other practices that shape their own practice” (p. 175). Therefore, Wenger (1998) underscores the probability that “through engagement, competence can become so transparent, locally ingrained, and socially efficacious that it becomes insular: nothing else, no other viewpoint, can even register” (p. 175). What is more, this insularity brings about “a disturbance or a discontinuity that would spur the history of practice onward” (p. 175). Thus, a community of practice can turn into an impediment to its members’ learning by entangling them in its very power to maintain their identity. 2.3.4.2. Imagination As Pavlenko (2003) observes, Wenger (1998) extends Anderson’s (1991) notion of imagined communities, which explains national identity building processes to any community of practice a person might want to acquire membership to. In Wenger’s rendition, imagination signifies a process through which individuals expand their self by reaching beyond their time and space and generating novel images of the world and themselves. In this regard, Wenger illustrates his view of imagination through following examples: “looking at an apple seed and seeing a tree” “playing the piano, and envisioning a concert hall,” “visiting your mother’s home farm and watching her as a little girl learning to love nature, the way she taught you to” (p. 176). 104   The notion of imagination brings to the forth the remarkably resourceful process which yields the production of new images, and generation of “new relations through time and space that become constitutive of self” (p. 177). It gives rise to the aspects of identity that transcend engagement. To illustrate, through imagination we locate ourselves in the world and in history, and include in our identities other meanings, other possibilities, other perspectives, … recognize our own experience as reflecting broader patterns, connections, and configurations, … see our practices as continuing histories that reach far into the past, and … conceive of new developments, explore alternatives, and envision possible futures. (p. 178) In short, journeying into the past as well as reaching into the future, imagination is able to reorganize and reform the present and exhibit it “as holding unsuspected possibilities” (p. 178). However, imagination may become a detached and unproductive process, too. It is likely that imagination relies on stereotypes, which restrict the projections of the world to the assumptions of specific practices, or on the contrary, imagination might turn so distant “from any lived form of membership that it detaches our identity and leaves us in a state of uprootedness” (p. 178). This likelihood emphasizes the delicacy of imagination as an act of identity since it concerns “participation and non-participation, inside and outside, the actual and the possible, the doable and reachable, the meaningful and the meaningless” (p. 178).  2.3.4.3. Alignment As another mode of belonging in Wenger’s (1998) conceptual frame, alignment refers to the process in which participants become associated with the community by coordinating their energies, actions, and practices in line with broader enterprises. Alignment makes participants part of a coordinated enterprise on a large scale because they perform as their part requires them to. Wenger’s juxtaposition of alignment with the other two modes of belonging (engagement and 105   imagination) can help us to better understand the instrumentality of alignment as a separate mode of belonging:  We may engage with others in a community of practice without managing or caring to align this practice with a broader enterprise, such as the demands of an institution in the context in which we live. We may be connected with others through imagination, and yet not care or know what to do with it. (p. 179) Above, Wenger attends to the fact that the process of alignment transcends both engagement and imagination as sources of identity. Power emerges as a crucial matter in relation to alignment, because alignment relates to the control of participants’ energy and actions. Wenger (1998) underscores two aspects of power: “the power over one’s own energy to exercise alignment and the power to inspire or demand alignment” (p. 180). However, in this regard, power represents neither evil nor conflict, although we can come across specific cases in which it is both. Rather, it is a condition for the possibility of socially organized action (p. 180). Alignment strengthens the consequences of actions and practices through the coordination of “multiple localities, competencies, and viewpoints” (p. 180). Participants can witness how effective their actions can become, so alignment enhances their power and sense of possibilities. What is more, they are able to control “levels of scale and complexity” which afford new facets to their sense of belonging (p. 180).   On the other hand, Wenger (1998) cautions, the process of alignment “can become an unquestioning allegiance that makes us vulnerable to all kinds of delusion and abuse” (p. 181). It can divide the participants when pressured through threat or violence. It can be a process of coordination prescribed upon them, which leaves “no vista into the perspectives it connects” (p. 106   181). Thereby, the communities are stripped off the capability to perform “on their own understanding and to negotiate their place” at larger scale (p. 181). 2.3.5. Dual Processes of Identity Formation: Identification and Negotiation In Wenger’s (1998) conceptualization, participants develop their identities in communities of practice through a two-layered process. It is because identities emerge and evolve “in tension between investment in various forms of belonging and ability to negotiate the meanings that matter in those contexts” (p. 188), that is, they form through a combined enterprise of identification and negotiation of meanings which are closely interrelated with their recognition in the community. As one half of the process, identification provides “experiences and materials for building identities through an investment of the self in relations of association and differentiation” and, as the other half, negotiability defines the extent to which participants “have control over the meanings in which they are invested” (p. 188). 2.3.5.1. Identification As part of identity construction, Wenger (1998) states that identification refers to the process through which engagement, imagination, and alignment, also known as modes of belonging, constitute participants’ identities “by creating bonds or distinctions in which they become invested” (p. 191). Wenger defines the process of identification by referring to the attributes below: a. Identification reifies pertinent meanings on the one hand because it involves participants’ identifying themselves and being identified as something or someone, including a category, a description, or other kinds of reificative characterization. It is participative, on the other hand, because participants identify themselves with something or someone, that is, they develop “an association whose experience is constitutive of who [they] are” (p. 191). 107   b. Identification involves relational, experiential, subjective, and collective processes because participants identify themselves with a community, and simultaneously they “are recognized as a member of a community” (p. 191). c. Identification can be a both positive and negative process because it involves participants’ relations in the community “that shape what [they] are and what [they] are not.” In other words, it brings about “identities of both participation and non- participation” (p. 191). Wenger (1998) suggests exploring various dimensions of identification in the context of modes of belonging, which serve as sources of identification. Engagement functions as a double source of identification. First, participants invest themselves in what they do, and second, they concurrently invest themselves in their relations with other people, which in conjunction lead them to “gain a lived sense of who they are” (p. 192). Furthermore, imagination provides the process of identification with the sort of image(s) of the world and of participants, which they can build, as well as “the connections [they] can envision across history and across the social landscape” (p. 194). Moreover, it is through alignment that “the identity and enterprise of large groups can become part of the identities of participants” (p. 195) which reinforces their identification as participants of a specific community. 2.3.5.2. Negotiability Identification does not constitute the entire process of identity construction. Although identification determines the meanings that are significant for participants, it does not regulate the “ability to negotiate these meanings” (Wenger, 1998, p. 197). Therefore, another fundamental process constituting identity formation is negotiation of meanings. Wenger defines negotiability as “the ability, facility, and legitimacy to contribute to, take responsibility for, and shape the meanings that matter within a social configuration” (p. 197). It makes several key 108   actions possible: generating meanings germane to novel conditions and situations, calling others to cooperate, explaining surrounding events, or claiming membership. These are all significant components of identity negotiation and construction process. Wenger (1998) discusses ownership of meaning as a prominent concept for negotiability. He defines this concept as the extent “to which [participants] can make use of, affect, control, modify, or in general, assert as [theirs] the meanings that [they] negotiate” (p. 200). Through the integration of ownership of meaning into his discussion, Wenger highlights: (a) the varying degrees of currency that meanings hold, (b) the varying degrees of control that participants can have over the meanings produced by a community, thereby, “differential abilities to make use of and modify [meanings],” (c) the bids for ownership involved in negotiation of meaning, hence, “its contestable character as an inherent feature” included in “the social nature of meaning” (p. 200). Wenger’s (1998) social theory of identity formation, as summarized in this section, provides a compelling theoretical basis for the purpose of my study. The conceptual premises (borrowed from the research into teacher learning, teacher cognitions, teacher biographies, contextual factors, and participation in communities of practice) undergirding my inquiry view teacher identity formation as an essential part of teachers’ learning to teach processes. This view has a parallel with Wenger’s theory in which identity is one of the constructs (along with community, meaning, and practice) upon which learning is built. Therefore, the conceptual basis of my study is congruent with its theoretical basis, both of which served as the analytic lens throughout the inquiry process. Kanno and Stuart (2011), Tsui (2007, 2011), and Varghese et al. (2005) emphasize the instrumentality of Wenger’s (1998) theory of identity in explaining teachers’ identity formation 109   processes. When this theory is applied to my study, the following are important factors in identity formation: in the process of identifying themselves as ESOL teachers and with the community of ESOL teaching practice, ESOL TCs (are expected to) (a) engage in actions which lead them to negotiate the meanings nested in the practices of the ESOL communities of which they are a part, (b) connect themselves with the other members of ESOL communities through their participation in imagined communities which goes beyond time and space, and (c) align their energy and actions with those of the communities in which they claim membership. The actions in question occur through class discussions, readings, and assignments, as well as the teaching practicum activities like micro-teaching, tutoring, assisting mentor teachers, and engaging in various school duties. In this process, the ESOL community in which the TCs are members seeking full membership to can be signified differently in varying micro and macro levels, which can be linked through imagination. That is, the ESOL community in the teacher education program which I studied might differ from the one constructed in the school context and from the broader ESOL community in the US and internationally. This identification process supported by engagement, imagination, and alignment should be complemented by the extent to which ESOL TCs have or are afforded with “the ability, facility and legitimacy to contribute to, take responsibility for, and shape the meanings that matter” (p. 197) in ESOL communities. If they cannot negotiate meanings through their peripheral participation, they cannot become (reified as) full members or participants in ESOL communities, that is, identify themselves as ESOL teachers. 2.3.6. Wenger’s Theoretical Framework Problematized Wenger’s (1998) ‘social ecology of identity’ presents researchers with a means to understand the way identity, modes of belonging, and structural relations are interrelated and how the meaning of each one can be negotiated and reified during individuals’ engagement in 110   communities of practice. It has been employed by a wide range of researchers in sociology, education, and management. Many scholars (e.g., Kanno & Stuart, 2011; Pavlenko, 2003; Tsui, 2007, 2011; Trent, 2010; Varghese, et al., 2005) who investigate the issues concerning second language (L2) teacher identity find Wenger’s theory of identity construction useful in relation to communities of practice, one of the most articulated concepts in social theories of learning. However, there exists a consensus among these scholars that Wenger’s theoretical framework overlooks the issues emerging around discursive processes in the communities of practice and it appears to leave out the significance of power relations in conceptualizing identity. Firstly, although Wenger places great emphasis on such notions as engagement, negotiation, (non)participation and reification, he appears not to incorporate into his conceptualization the primary role of language and discursive dynamics, processes, and activities in understanding identity. For example, Creese (2005), Keating (2005), Rock (2005), and Tusting (2005) demonstrate how the negotiations that occur in the course of participation in the communities of practice are predominantly discursive, semiotic and language-based and how individuals accomplish membership of these communities through talking, which renders significant the consideration of language processes in exploring their identity. Therefore, Wenger’s theory is critiqued for not having a theory of language-in-use. Secondly, although the construct of community is crucially important in Wenger’s theory of identity construction, he seems to overlook the significance of the issues of power and conflict which are inescapable realities of communities. For instance, in their studies, Harris and Shelswell (2005), Haneda (2006), and Myers (2005) find static and benign the model of communities in Wenger’s rendition which does not include the issues revolving around the power, conflict, resistance, inclusion, exclusion, contradictions, and tensions. 111   What is more, Harris and Shelswell (2005) present the notions of “illegitimate peripheral participation” and “legitimation conflicts,” in which a participant’s legitimacy is overtly called into question by surrounding members of the community in which he or she is endeavoring to take part. Moreover, in her research, Keating (2005) indicates evidence for both of these limitations in Wenger’s theory. Her interview data demonstrate that discursive activities represent sites of tensions and contradictions among the individuals in the communities of practice. Finally, Varghese et al. (2005) accept the abovementioned limitations of Wenger’s theoretical approach to identity and suggest that researchers should exploit multiple theoretical approaches to understand L2 teacher identity. They maintain that identity-in-practice (identity that is enacted and ratified through practice) can be sufficiently analyzed through Wenger’s theory of communities of practice, but identity-in-discourse (identity that is discursively constructed) requires additional theoretical support.  2.4. Conclusion This section provides a snapshot of the literature review and summarizes what I learned through the process of reviewing the literature on (1) current reconceptualization in the field of SLTE, (2) growing interest in L2 teacher identity, (3) such relevant domains of research as teacher learning, teacher cognition, participation in communities of practice, contextual factors, teacher biographies, and teachers’ emotions as well as reviewing (4) the empirical studies on L2 teacher identity and (5) Wegner’s (1998) social theory of identity formation that I utilize as a theoretical framework in my study. In other words, it will be a combination of wrap-up and implications of the current review. The field of SLTE has witnessed a fundamental shift in its conceptualization of and epistemology related to L2 teacher learning and the L2 teacher knowledge base. Thanks to this shift, L2 teachers have been brought to the center as the primary actors in L2 instruction, hence, 112   they have become the primary focus of SLTE research. The rising interest in L2 teacher identity has followed the shift of L2 teachers to the center of the investigation in SLTE. This study demonstrates that the investigation of L2 teacher identity can conceptually derive from the relevant research domains in SLTE, such as teacher learning, teacher cognition, teacher biographies, contextual factors, and participation in communities of practice. Furthermore, the review of the previous empirical studies on L2 teacher identity construction reveals a picture of the current research territory, that is, what has been already explored and what is still underexplored or unexplored. It also points out that while previous research endeavors have made important contributions to the theorization and conceptualization of L2 teacher identity formation, there are also at least three gaps in the literature on L2 teacher identity formation that need to be addressed in future research, namely, (1) the exploration of the interaction between L2 teacher identity and practice, (2) the influence of preservice teacher education (coursework and practicum collectively) upon L2 TCs’ identity construction processes, and (3) a well-designed case study providing thorough scrutiny of L2 teacher identity construction processes during initial teacher preparation. This review also indicates that Wenger’s (1998) theory of identity formation, which has been utilized in preceding inquiries as well, is a good fit to employ in the exploration of ESOL TCs’ identity construction processes. This decision is made not only because several scholars have used this theory as a guide and find it functional, but also because the conceptual framework of my study proves consistent with Wenger’s (1998) social theory of identity formation. However, at the same time, my study aims to serve as an evaluation of the instrumentality of Wenger’s theoretical framework. Thus, I also acknowledge that Wenger’s theory does not capture the discursive construction of identity. In my study, discourse is not the 113   central focus in understanding the three TCs’ teacher identity development. Thus, the discursive construction of identity for the participants in this study is beyond the scope of my study. Instead, I conceive of their identity development as their seeking for access and membership to the community of practice and I focus on their self-identification and negotiation during their participation in the activities of the community and interaction with its members. 114   CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 3.1. Introduction This chapter presents the research methods and procedures that have been utilized in this study. Therefore, it comprises sections on (a) the research questions that direct and drive this research, (b) the selection and description of the research design to be implemented in this study, (c) a thorough description of research settings and participants, (d) data collection instruments and data analysis strategies employed, and (e) the way the issues of validity and reliability are addressed in this study. This chapter closes with a summary of methodological considerations orienting the current inquiry. 3.2. Research Questions This dissertation research is a case study of an intensive MATESOL program with a focus on the processes of identity formation of three individual ESOL TCs. This case study investigates how three ESOL TCs constructed their teacher identities in the context of the teacher education program in which they were enrolled. More specifically, it examines the contributions of the teacher education program manifested through coursework and practica to three ESOL TCs’ teacher identity construction. Conceptually, it views teacher identity formation process as an integral component of the learning to teach process (Peercy, 2012; Singh & Richards, 2006; Tsui, 2011) since teachers’ identity provides a basis and framework for how they understand and execute their practice as well as conceptualize the theory and practice and make decisions (Bullough, 1997; Sachs, 2005). Relying on this premise which justifies the necessity to scrutinize teacher identity development, the current dissertation project explores the following research questions: 1. How does university-based teacher education coursework in an intensive MATESOL program contribute to ESOL TCs’ teacher identity construction? 115   2. How do field-based teaching practicum experiences in an intensive MATESOL program contribute to ESOL TCs’ teacher identity construction? 3.3. Research Design In order to address the abovementioned questions, the current study utilizes qualitative case study methodology which helps researchers “understand and explain the meaning of social phenomena with as little disruption of the natural setting as possible” (Merriam, 1998, p. 5). More specifically, this study makes use of qualitative case study methods so as to understand and explain how ESOL teacher candidates (TCs) construct their teacher identity while taking teacher education classes and participating in practicum experiences in public schools. Benefitting from this research design, this study can investigate “multiple bounded systems (cases) over time, through detailed, in-depth data collection involving multiple sources of information (e.g., observations, interviews, audiovisual material, and documents and reports), and report a case description and case-based themes” (Creswell, 2007, p. 73). 3.3.1. Case Study Design As one of the research methodologies used by social scientists, case study design has been significantly used in educational research recently. Yin (2003) restricts this design to neither quantitative nor qualitative research traditions, but differentiates it from other research strategies (such as surveys, experiments, histories) in the social sciences. He defines case study as “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (p.13). On the other hand, Merriam (1998) views case study as an exclusively qualitative research strategy like Stake (1995) and Creswell (2007). She conceives qualitative case study as “an intensive, holistic description and analysis of a bounded phenomenon such as a program, an institution, a person, a process, or a social unit” (p. xiii). Furthermore, in order to 116   further differentiate case study method from casework, case method, and case history (case records), she stresses the following unique distinctive attributes of case study: Particularistic (it focuses on particular situation, event, program, or phenomenon); Descriptive (it yields a rich, thick description of the phenomenon under study); Heuristic (it illuminates the reader’s understanding of phenomenon under study). Researchers employ case study design in order to gain or expand their “knowledge of individual, group, organizational, social political, and related phenomena” (Yin, 2003, p. 1), which is more concrete and contextual knowledge (Stake, 1981). In case study research, the focal case is put under scrutiny for the purpose of revealing “the interaction of significant factors characteristic of the phenomenon” (Merriam, 1998, p. 29) which encapsulates “many more variables of interest than data points” (Yin, 2003, p. 13). For this purpose, case study draws from manifold lines of evidence for triangulation purposes and avails itself of “prior development of theoretical propositions to guide data collection and analysis” (p. 14). Drawing from multiple data sources, case study must determine and define the existing theoretical propositions concerning the phenomenon of interest under study in order to drive the strategies and procedures employed in data gathering and analyzing (Yin, 2003). Many researchers (e.g., Creswell, 1998, 2009; Merriam, 1998; Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003) have contributed to the theorization of case study so that it holds a legitimate status as a research strategy with well- defined and well-structured techniques. 3.3.2. Rationale for Case Study Design The nature of the phenomenon of interest and the circumstances surrounding an inquiry should determine the methodology which can be most instrumental to answer the research questions (Flyvbjerg, 2006), or briefly the choice of research method should “depend on what the 117   researcher wants to know” (Merriam, 1998, p. 32). Therefore, this subsection will include justification of the selection of case study as a research design for the current project. Case study is an appropriate research methodology to investigate the phenomenon of interest in this inquiry, that is, the examination of how an intensive MATESOL program (IMP) contributes to three ESOL TCs’ teacher identity construction process through coursework and the teaching practica. Yin (2003) quite clearly describes the research conditions which require researchers to utilize case study as a methodology. He mentions four conditions: (1) “when the inquirer seeks answers to how or why questions,” (2) “when the inquirer has little control over events being studied,” (3) “when the object of study is a contemporary phenomenon in a real-life context,” (4) “when boundaries between the phenomenon and the context are not clear, and” (5) “when it is desirable to use multiple sources of evidence” (p. 28). This dissertation study includes all of these five conditions. First, this study addresses the following “how” questions: (1) How does university-based teacher education coursework contribute to ESOL TCs’ teacher identity construction? (2) How do field-based teaching practicum experiences contribute to ESOL TCs’ teacher identity construction? Second, as the researcher, I have not had any control over the events under scrutiny, that is, TCs’ experiences in the teacher education program that contribute to their identity development process. Third, the object of study, that is, ESOL TCs’ identity construction, is a contemporary phenomenon that I can examine in real-life contexts by gleaning data from multiple sources. Fourth, I cannot draw clear cut boundaries between ESOL TCs’ identity construction and the contexts in which this construction occurs, that is, university- based contexts where they attend graduate teacher education classes and public school contexts where they have their practicum experiences. Fifth, this study builds an evidentiary base which 118   comprises multiple data sources such as in-depth individual interviews, observations, and document analysis. Qualifying for Yin’s (2003) conditions, the present study is an “interpretive case study” (Merriam, 1998, p. 38) of an intensive MATESOL program. Interpretive case studies generate descriptive data which are “used to develop conceptual categories or to illustrate, support, or challenge theoretical assumptions held prior to the data gathering” (p. 38). One of the ultimate intents of the researcher employing interpretive case study is analysis, interpretation, or theorization about the phenomenon in light of the information gathered about the research problem (Merriam, 1998). The previous chapter presents the theoretical assumptions referring to the conceptualization of teacher identity and the factors (teacher learning, teacher cognition, participation in communities of practice, micro and macro contexts, biographical trajectories, and teachers’ emotions) that interact with teachers’ identity formation process. Therefore, along with addressing the research questions, this inquiry examines the extent to which these assumptions about teacher learning and identity construction hold true in the three cases that are examined in this inquiry. 3.3.3. Case Selection In case study design, determining the unit of analysis or sampling occurs through the selection of the case, the bounded system, which is one of the most crucial phases of case study research design. The researchers start with the identification of a general question, an issue, or a problem appealing to them, then they realize that an in-depth examination of a particular case can provide rich insights into this question, issue or problem. In order to find this particular case, qualitative researchers utilize nonprobabilistic sampling which is acknowledged as the most appropriate strategy in qualitative research designs (Merriam, 1998). Purposeful sampling, as a form of nonprobabilistic sampling, is recommended by Patton (1990) so as to select information- 119   rich cases “from which one can learn a great deal about issues of central importance to the purpose of the research” (p. 169). Selection of information-rich cases needs to follow two level sampling in qualitative case studies: first, the researchers choose the particular case to be researched, then they “need to do some sampling within the case” unless they “plan to interview, observe, or analyze all the people, activities or documents within the case” (Merriam, 1998, p. 65). The present inquiry utilizes a two level sampling process following the one suggested by Merriam (1998). It addresses the question of how ESOL TCs construct their teacher identities throughout their experiences in a teacher education program. More specifically, it explores the contribution of teacher education coursework and the teaching practica to three ESOL TCs’ teacher identity building. It zeroes in on TCs’ identity construction since it investigates how they transition from being a graduate student to being an ESOL teacher, which represents the process of becoming an ESOL teacher. The first decision about the sampling is driven by the convenience to access the individual ESOL TCs, that is, I, as an emerging researcher, have access to three different ESOL teacher education programs housed in the department where I work as a graduate teaching assistant as well as pursue my doctoral degree: (1) Masters of Education in TESOL with K-12 Certification, (2) Masters of Education in TESOL without K-12 Certification, and (3) IMP (Intensive MATESOL Program) with K-12 Certification. Since I am interested in exploring how university-based graduate coursework and public school based practicum experiences concurrently contribute to ESOL TCs’ identity construction, I purposefully selected the third option, the IMP with K-12 Certification which provides simultaneous coursework and practicum experiences for TCs within 13-month period. Having worked with the TCs in this program in varying capacities for about 5 years, I believe that 120   examination of the individual TCs in this program would help me address my research problem. I decided not to select ESOL TCs in M.Ed. in TESOL with K-12 Certification because they have a much shorter internship experience (in their last semester) compared to the one in the IMP. I excluded ESOL TCs in M.Ed. in TESOL without K-12 Certification since they are not provided with practicum experiences during their teacher education, which is one of my primary foci. After doing “purposeful sampling” (Patton, 1990) and selecting one teacher education program out of the three to serve for the purpose of my research, I have done further sampling by selecting three ESOL TCs from whom I could glean much richer insights concerning their teacher identity construction. There were six TCs enrolled in the IMP. They all graciously agreed to take part in my project and I could gather data from all but one who dropped before the second individual interview. I have chosen three individual ESOL TCs as my focal participants because those ESOL TCs were available to participate throughout the research, afforded more elaboration on their responses, provided deeper data, and completed their practicum in different schools. This selection was for the purpose of gaining much ‘thicker’ data and much richer insights in this research endeavor. In order to orient the data collection and analysis phases of my study, I have charted the relationship between the individual TCs and the relevant contexts. In the present study, each participant is located in two different contexts (see Figure 3), that is, teacher education courses and public schools. All three focal participants shared the context of teacher education classes which they took with the TCs from the other M.Ed. in TESOL programs and World Language programs, while their practicum venues were different. These two contexts, which can be conceptualized as two main contexts of teacher education practices in the program, interact or interrelate through ESOL TCs’ learning to teach experiences. That is, shuttling between these 121   two main contexts and having various roles, responsibilities, and tasks during the program, ESOL TCs bring what they learn in public school context into their teacher education classes and vice versa. Then, I present Figure 3 as the visual representation of the design that charts the relationship between the focal participants and the two contexts. Figure 3 –Two Contexts of the Case Study    In Figure 3, which demonstrates the shared (teacher education courses) and unshared (public schools) contexts of the participants, I included all six individual ESOL TCs. The two arrows represent the fact that TCs shuttle between the two contexts and bring what they learn in one into the other one, so their teacher learning and identity crafting dynamically encompass their making sense of their experiences in both contexts. Because I made my decision about focal participants towards the end of data collection phase and beginning of data analysis phase, I collected data from all of them except for the one who dropped just before the second individual interview which was conducted when they completed the IMP.             Focal TC 1  Focal TC 2  Focal TC 3  Non‐focal TC 1  Non‐focal TC 2  Non‐focal TC 3              Focal TC 1  Focal TC 2  Focal TC 3  Non‐focal TC 1  Non‐focal TC 2  Non‐focal TC 3  Teacher Education Courses  Public Schools 122   Specifying the design that fits for the idiosyncrasies of the participants and pertinent contexts in this study guides the further steps of the research process towards addressing the research questions, that is, data collection and analysis. For example, I certainly take into account the fact that there are two possible contexts in which I need to observe the ESOL TCs to deepen my data regarding their teacher identities. What is more, while analyzing the data, I consider differing dynamics and factors in each context which impact upon ESOL TCs’ multifaceted processes of identity construction. 3.4. Research Settings This research study was conducted in two different types of settings, namely, a university-based teacher education program and public schools across three different counties. The intensive MATESOL program (IMP) is offered by The TESOL Division, which is part of The Department of Teaching in the College of Education in a large, research-intensive state university located in a bustling metropolitan area in the mid-Atlantic United States. The Department of Teaching is the largest department of the college in terms of its student enrollment, academic programs offered, and faculty members. As the largest division in the department, the TESOL Division offers nine academic programs in total, three of which are TESOL teacher education programs. All nine programs are fully accredited by National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), State Department of Education, American Psychological Association (APA), Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), Council on Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Professions (CACREP), and Council on Rehabilitation Education (CRE). The three TESOL teacher education options are as follows: (1) M.Ed. in TESOL with K-12 Certification, (2) M.Ed. in TESOL without K-12 Certification, and (3) IMP with K-12 Certification. The one that constitutes the research setting was IMP with K-12 Certification in 123   which the three focal participants were currently enrolled as graduate students. Table 2 below summarizes the specific features of the program (its entry requirements, program duration, existence and duration of the practicum, exit requirements). Table 2. Intensive MATESOL Program (IMP) with K-12 Certification Entry requirements  3.0 (or B) GPA (Undergraduate)  Relevant experience  TOEFL 100 (International students)  Admission interviews  Praxis I (Reading 177, Math 177, Writing 173)  3 letters of recommendation  Personal statement Course credits 42 credit hours / 13 months Start / End of program Starts in Summer I semester and ends in Summer I semester of the following year Duration of practicum 2 semesters Exit requirements  Coursework  Teaching portfolio  Internship  Praxis II  edTPA The IMP with K-12 Certification is a 13-month intensive full-time program that leads to a Master’s of Education (M.Ed.) in TESOL as well as eligibility for state certification to teach in elementary or secondary schools. It is an alternative teacher education program for individuals who have completed a baccalaureate degree and intend to teach at the K-12 levels. The ESOL TCs in this program have two semester-long practicum courses: one at the elementary level and one at the secondary level. The teacher candidates need to complete 42 credits: 36 credit hours of coursework and 6 credit hours of field experience (see Table 3 below). Upon completion of the program, they are granted a Master’s in Education (M.Ed.) degree and are eligible for 124   certification to teach ESL in elementary and secondary schools in the State in which the program is offered. The program has been offered for five years by the TESOL Division, and historically, the student enrollment rate in this program is much lower than the other two TESOL teacher education options probably because it is an intensive full-time program. However, this low enrollment rate coupled with institutionalized practices and structures (such as the seminar class, having common beginning and graduating times, taking the same classes as a cohort) facilitate the formation and maintenance of sense of community and cohort in this program. Table 3. Required Coursework for the Intensive MATESOL Program (IMP) Semester Course name Practicum 2012 Summer I  Secondary ESOL Literacy  ELL Teaching Methodology, No teaching practicum 2012 Summer II  Intercultural Communication  Adolescent Development No teaching practicum 2012 Fall  Language Assessment  Elementary ESOL Literacy  Conducting Research on Teaching  Practicum Seminar With teaching practicum 2013 Winter  Issues in Second Language Education With teaching practicum 2013 Spring  Second Language Acquisition  Special Education and TESOL  Teacher Research  Practicum Seminar With teaching practicum 2013 Summer I  Teaching Grammar to ELLs  Teaching Profession No teaching practicum 125   The second setting in the research study is public schools where ESOL TCs have their practicum experiences during two semesters. Since they are granted a state-wide K-12 certification to teach in public schools upon graduation, ESOL TCs enrolled in the IMP are placed in an elementary school in their first semester and in a secondary school (middle school or high school) in their second semester. They are matched with a mentor teacher in the school they are placed in and they are in charge of the fifty percent of their mentor’s teaching load. They observe their mentors’ classes and other teachers’ classes, co-teach classes with their mentors, teach classes on their own which are observed by their mentors and university supervisor, attend school and district meetings with their mentor teachers, and do various school duties. University supervisor is the person who is supposed to coordinate the ESOL TCs’ practicum, observe them four times per semester and give them feedback about their teaching, and handle the issues arising in the public school context by playing the role of a liaison between university-based program and public school. The IMP has the reputation in the area having concurrent year-long teaching practicum and coursework for ESOL TCs and all three participants underlined the fact this particular practicum experience was one of the main reasons why they chose to apply for this program to earn ESOL teaching certification and become teachers. Thanks to their mentors and university supervisor, the ESOL TCs were provided a structured, controlled, and supported way of experimenting with their teaching skills and knowledge they were constructing through the courses they were taking. During the time I observed their classes (solo teaching), all three focal participants were placed in three different neighboring school systems in the State. 3.5. Research Participants This study investigates how three ESOL TCs develop their professional identities throughout their experiences in the program. The primary focus is on the exploration of the 126   contribution of university-based teacher education courses and field-based teaching practica to ESOL TCs’ teacher identity construction. Therefore, for the purpose of addressing this question, I recruited the current ESOL TCs in the IMP as the main research participants. There were six ESOL TCs in the 2013-2014 cohort in the program who constituted the participant pool in this study. All six were invited to take part in the study and they all agreed to be participants in this study. I collected data from all six ESOL TCs from the 2013-2014 cohort, except for the one who dropped just prior to the second individual interview. Then, as I delineated earlier in this chapter, I purposefully selected three ESOL TCs as the focal participants of my study whose data contributed rich insights to address the questions that guide this research project. Those three focal ESOL TCs were chosen based upon their availability to participate throughout the research, elaboration on their responses, depth of data they provided, and maximizing variation of school context. In the remainder of this section, I provide some biographical information about those three ESOL TCs, namely Zoe, Leslie, and Elizabeth, in terms of their own language learning experiences and their decisions to become an ESOL professional which impact their teacher learning and identity formation (Freeman & Johnson, 1998; Varghese, 2006). 3.5.1. Focal Participant One: Zoe Zoe, a White female in her early twenties and newly out of college, did not have any formal teaching experience before she entered the IMP for her graduate degree and state certification for K-12 teaching. She had tutored athletes at a large research university in the mid- Atlantic US and she had worked with high need students such as those with learning disabilities and academic probations in K-12 public schools. She did not think about teaching ESOL until she decided to apply for the IMP. She believed that her tutoring experience with student populations with learning disabilities could transfer to ESOL, especially in terms of students’ need for specialized individual attention. Another experience that she could translate to some 127   degree to her practice as an ESOL professional were her own experiences as a French learner, although she noted that her foreign language learning was not similar to what her students experience in the US schools as English language learners (ELLs). She had French learning experiences in two different contexts, namely, Canadian and American public schools. Zoe started being exposed to formal French instruction when she was 10 years old and living in Alberta, Canada. Every day, she had 30-40 minutes of French language education in elementary school as a foreign language class. She remembers the excitement she had when starting to learn a new language and making plans to go to a French immersion high school. However, her family moved back to the US before she began sixth grade. She continued taking French classes during her middle and high school years in the US, yet she lost the excitement and learning French became very hard and frustrating for Zoe. She “stopped understanding, and became very discouraged with the language” because “the learning seemed more skill and drill and not very contextualized … I tried to memorize how to use the language, but I was never able to understand the rules and apply them correctly” (Second Language Acquisition, Language Learning Autobiography). Her discouragement largely stemmed from her teacher’s comment whenever she volunteered to speak: “You speak like a French Canadian!” The teacher did some sort of accent “policing” (Blommaert, 2009) and told Zoe to use exclusively French accents that sounded more like accents from France than those from Canada. Her teacher singled out and invalidated her Canadian French accent which she had acquired during her French learning experiences in Canadian classrooms. This teacher comment, with no genuine instructional purpose, made Zoe think that speaking French like a Canadian was not acceptable in her classes. By the time she graduated from high school, she lost her speaking 128   fluency which she acquired in Canada, and she kept her oral receptive skills. That is, she cannot speak French now, but she “kind of understand[s] it, orally” (Interview 1). Additionally, when Zoe reflected back on her formal language learning experiences during her middle and high school years, what stood out was her strong preconception about the inherent difficulty of learning languages. She noted that she thought she had “a block” in her brain when it came to learning languages, although she felt herself so successful in other subjects. Overall, although she had successful French learning experience briefly in Canada, Zoe evaluated her attempts of language learning as a failure largely depending on the French classes she took in middle and high school. She remarked that “I used to think it was because I was younger when I started French, and I picked up a lot then and I got older, but I’ve since learned that that’s not really a true factor [thanks to the courses in the IMP]” (Interview 1). When she reflected on the reason why she was unsuccessful at learning French during middle and high school, she concluded that I think I had the preconceived notion that languages were really difficult. And so I think I went into that, like, in high school I could get A in physics, no problem, but I would struggle to get a B in French… but it is definitely not lack of trying. (Zoe, Interview 1) She believed that she was “not actually very good at learning the languages” (Interview 1) and referring to her experiences in high school, she added that “I personally haven’t had success, I think, in learning a second language myself” (Interview 1). However, she highlighted that this was certainly not due to her lack of efforts and trying. The French courses she took in the US public schools led her to develop a preconception that language learning is an inherently difficult process, although she had successful French learning experiences in primary school in Canada for a relatively short while. 129   3.5.2. Focal Participant Two: Elizabeth Elizabeth, a White female in her late-twenties, had already entered the profession of English language teaching when she decided to apply for the IMP. Along with her internship in the public health sector, she did some substitute teaching right after completing college. After working in public health for three years, she “wasn’t excited to go to work every day” (Interview 1) and she made her mind to change her career and quit her job to move to Costa Rica where she attended a one-month program to receive a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate. She found that particular program beneficial because they “seemed to know what they were doing” and “it help[ed her] start the process of like how to put a lesson together, how to model for students, kind of just some of the particulars of the language that I wasn’t really familiar with” (Interview 2, Elizabeth). Just after the program, she was hired to teach in this TEFL institute in Costa Rica where she received her certificate to teach English as a foreign language and taught English to small groups of adults from basic to advance levels for about five months. Then, she landed a job at a private bilingual high school in Costa Rica because she really wanted to work with younger language learners. For more than a year, she taught English to seventh graders which she found challenging particularly in regards to lesson development and planning, and classroom management. She remarked that her language teaching at that time was guided by her own Spanish learning experiences and the TEFL program’s emphasis on grammar and constant error correction. Teacher education courses in the IMP made her think that she did a disservice to her students in Costa Rica because, as she was taught in the certificate program, she placed too much emphasis on the accuracy of her students’ language production and little to no emphasis on their needs for communication in the target language. For instance, when her students asked her questions because they were curious about something, or they needed a clarification about 130   something or they just needed to communicate, she first of all made sure that their questions were grammatically correct before she actually responded to their questions. If their questions included a grammar mistake, what she concentrated first was the correction of this mistake in lieu of answering them. However, she was fairly glad that she had this teaching experience which she believed constructed a basis for her teacher learning before she entered the IMP. She was able to reflect back upon her teaching English as a foreign language experiences in Costa Rica and apply her revised personal theories of action to her teaching practica during the program. Concerning Elizabeth’s journey of learning a foreign language as an important prior experience influential upon her beliefs about language teaching and learning, she began taking Spanish classes in the seventh grade and continued throughout her high school years. She highlighted that those classes mostly focused on learning grammar structures and memorizing lists of vocabulary. As she took more classes, she was exposed to more intricate grammar rules and advanced vocabulary which helped her read difficult Spanish texts in literature and history. However, once Elizabeth majored in Spanish at the university, she had to attend 200 level classes despite six years of Spanish in public school system, which was quite disheartening and frustrating for her. As she recounted in her language learner autobiography that she composed for one of her IMP teacher education courses, even in these basic level classes, she “was unable to truly follow everything [her] professor and classmates said. Each class was a challenge and a struggle for [her]” (Second Language Acquisition, Language learner autobiography). She attributed her struggles with comprehension to the fact that her Spanish teachers in middle and high school used English when they explained rules of the Spanish language and their classes 131   were not completely in Spanish and did not require her to actively participate using the target language. In addition to her experiences teaching abroad in Costa Rica, Elizabeth also had studied abroad in Chile during her junior year in college. She believed that experiences abroad were incredibly conducive to her current Spanish proficiency, particularly in terms of using the language in an authentic context and immersing herself into a Spanish-speaking cultural environment. She stressed the importance of communicating with native speakers of the target language in her language learning: “Interacting with native Spanish speakers on a daily basis was the best thing I could have done for my language skills. I came back to the United States with a broader vocabulary and better listening skills” (Second Language Acquisition, Language learning autobiography). 3.5.3. Focal Participant Three: Leslie Prior to applying for the IMP, Leslie, a white female in her mid-twenties, was engaged in tutoring and teaching both in the US and in international settings. She had the opportunity to teach and volunteer in various preschool settings. She lived in Israel for a gap-year program after graduating from high school and volunteered in a middle school and informally taught English as a foreign language classes to seventh and eighth grade students. Furthermore, through a weekly tutoring group, she tutored fifth and sixth grade ELLs in a predominantly Latino community in the US. She also taught Hebrew to seventh and eighth graders at a local Jewish congregation, for six years during and after college. Coupled with her grandparents’ and aunt’s immigration to the US from Hungary, her stay in Israel after she graduated from high school was quite influential on why she decided to become a second language teacher, specifically an ESOL specialist. When asked what influenced her decision to become an ESOL teacher, she first shared what she thought about being a teacher 132   when she was a high school senior: “I remember thinking my senior year in high school, looking at my history teacher, why would anyone ever wanna be a teacher? They must all be crazy. The kids don't care. They're rude. What are they thinking?” (Interview 1, Leslie). Then, she described how her opinion had changed: Then I went to Israel for the year and I taught in the school and something clicked. I woke up one night, in the middle of the night, I decided that I wanted to do something with teaching in Spanish and I wanted to learn Hebrew and I knew I didn’t wanna be a Spanish teacher in that I didn’t think I would ever do it justice but I knew I wanted to put those things together and then between that and my grandparents immigrated to the United States from Hungary with my aunt. Once I found out that ESOL existed, it became what I wanted to do. (Leslie, Interview 1) Her close relationships with her grandparents and aunt gave her the opportunity to observe the English language learning experiences of those who moved to the US and concretized her decision to enter the field of ESOL: Growing up around Hungarian and hearing about [my grandparents’ and my aunt’s] language learning experience, . . . knowing how much learning English changed their lives, it really made me wanna be a teacher. Between my program and my family's experience, I’ve felt that my best way to improve the world that I live in is through teaching and that’s what I wanna do. That’s what I’m passionate about and that – I don’t know, the best way to help people. (Leslie, Interview 1) Leslie also noted that her own experiences learning language had an impact on the way she thought about language and how to teach it. Hebrew and Spanish were the languages that Leslie started working on at an early age, and she felt she became proficient in both several years 133   later, during college. As a child, she went to a Hebrew school where she noted she learned only some simple words and how to read the prayers slowly in Hebrew because the objective was to learn prayers and religious aspects of Judaism. When she lived in Israel for a year after high school, she took some informal classes there, but still did not gain advanced fluency in Hebrew because she lived with an American there, and spoke mainly English both at home and at school. Then, Leslie came back to the US for college and she was motivated to continue learning Hebrew and took classes throughout her college years. Her experiences in the Hebrew Language House at the university (one semester in her junior year and the two semesters in her senior year) bolstered the improvement of her conversational skills in Hebrew. She remarked “I feel very confident in conversing [in Hebrew]. I’m not as confident in reading and writing” (Interview 1, Leslie). The other foreign language Leslie studied was Spanish. Leslie took Spanish classes from the seventh grade through twelfth grade, culminating her high school study with AP (Advanced Placement) courses in Spanish. She continued taking Spanish classes throughout college and she went to Argentina for study abroad, where she gained some knowledge about the literature and culture in Argentina and other southern cone countries, and enhanced her language skills. When comparing her proficiency in both languages, she felt more confident engaging in conversations in Hebrew than Spanish, but on the other hand, she added “in Spanish I can read a novel, but in Hebrew I couldn't read a novel” (Interview 1). In other words, she viewed herself more competent at conversational skills in Hebrew, whereas she felt she had stronger literacy skills in Spanish. Also, she envisioned herself speaking in Spanish in her high school placement: “my new internship has a lot of Spanish speakers, and it started to come back to me” (Interview 1). She called herself as “a perpetual language learner,” yet she knew that she had been tough on 134   herself about her efforts and success in learning languages and judgmental about her language abilities. Lastly, what she observed about her language use might give us some idea about her beliefs regarding language learners’ attitudes: “I was shy when speaking, however I have become comfortable speaking faster than I did before because I realized everyone makes mistakes when speaking even in their native language” (Second Language Acquisition, Language learner autobiography). 3.6. Data Collection Case study research should rest upon multiple sources of evidence, with data needing to converge in a triangulating fashion (Yin, 2003). Case study researchers should draw their data from multiple resources to capture the case under study in its complexity and entirety (Merriam, 1998; Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003). Qualitative case studies rely on the data gathered through interviews, observations, and document analysis. Thus, case study data include “direct quotations from people about their experiences, opinions, feelings, and knowledge” from interviews; “detailed descriptions of people’s activities, behaviors, actions” from observations; and “excerpts, quotations, or entire passages” from various types of documents (Patton, 1990, p. 10). I employed qualitative case study methodology in my dissertation research, so I gathered data utilizing the following three methods: (1) individual interviews, (2) classroom observations, and (3) document analysis. Table 4 below summarizes the data collection instruments utilized in this research study: 135   Table 4. Data Collection Instruments Individual interviews As soon as focal participants were recruited (January 2013). When the ESOL TCs completed the IMP (July 2013). Observations Three classroom observations in three teacher education courses (Special Education and TESOL, Elementary ESOL Literacy, Practicum Seminar). Public school classes delivered by participants: four times throughout their practicum. Document analysis  Syllabi of the graduate courses  Participants’ assignments  Lesson plans  edTPA submissions  Action research papers 3.6.1. Individual Interviews Interviews are a critical instrument in qualitative data collection when researchers want to learn about the things which they cannot observe such as behavior, thoughts, feelings, intentions, people’s interpretations about the world around them, and past events that are impossible to replicate (Merriam, 1998). Interviewing allows researchers “to enter into other person’s perspective” (Patton, 1990, p. 196). In this study, interviewing plays a crucial role in the creation of the data base. Through one-on-one interviews I learned about the three ESOL TCs’ feelings, thoughts, perceptions, and intentions about their coursework and practicum experiences, which contributed to the depth and richness of the data. Besides, as mentioned in the conceptual framework, socioculturally informed SLTE considers the following features as powerful factors in teacher learning: “prior experiences, personal values, and beliefs that inform their knowledge 136   about teaching and shape what they do in their classrooms” (Freeman & Johnson, 1998, p. 401). Therefore, in order to capture L2 teacher identity building and teacher learning processes in their complexity and entirety, I used interviews to learn from the participants about their previous language learning and teaching experiences, their personal beliefs and values which contribute to the formation of their fledgling teacher identity. I conducted two sets of in-depth individual interviews with all five of the ESOL TCs who agreed to take part in this study, except for the one who dropped just before the second interview. As soon as I recruited all six participants for this study, I spent 55-80 minutes interviewing each TC in the first individual interview, which was about their prior language learning and teaching experiences and their initial experiences regarding teacher education coursework and the teaching practica in the program thus far, (See Appendix B for questions). The second individual interview was conducted when they completed the IMP, in June 2013 and it was about their experiences in the program as a whole and the questions were largely guided by my ongoing analysis from the first interviews and field notes from my classroom observations. In both of these interviews, I learned about their interactions and relationships with their students, mentors, other collaborating teachers, administrators, supervisors, peers, and teacher educators as well as the tasks, roles, and responsibilities they were assigned to in their public school contexts. Each of the individual interviews was audiotaped and transcribed for analysis purposes with participants’ permission. Then, I included the voice of my participants in the presentation of my research findings in this report by using direct quotes from the transcription of these interviews. 3.6.2. Classroom Observations Observations generate a different set of data than interviews to substantiate the findings. This method of data gathering is based on the assumption that “behavior is purposive and 137   expressive of deeper values and beliefs” (Marshall & Rossman, 1995, p. 79). Researchers do observations in “the natural field setting instead of a location designated for the purpose of interviewing, [and] observational data represent a firsthand encounter with the phenomenon of interest rather than a secondhand account of the world obtained in an interview” (Merriam, 1998, p. 94). Doing observations in the contexts of the cases, the researcher is able to “discover the complex interactions in natural social settings” (Marshall & Rossman, 1995, p. 81). Observation, as a data collection technique, is most suitable when it is possible to observe an activity, event or situation firsthand, when researchers want to obtain a fresh perspective or “when participants are not able or willing to discuss the topic under study” (p. 96). However, it has some dire challenges for the researchers such as discomfort, uncomfortable unethical dilemmas, the difficulty of managing unobtrusive role and the challenge to identify the ‘big picture’ while finely observing huge amounts of complex behavior (Marshall & Rossman, 1995). In this study, I conducted two types of observations: observing the participants’ teaching in their practicum settings and observing the participants in their teacher education classes. In the observation of the ESOL TCs’ teaching in their practicum schools, I gathered data about how they interacted with their students and positioned themselves in relation to their students, as well as how they executed their teacher roles (presenting the content, handling student questions, managing classroom etc.), in other words, how they took on and represented their emerging teacher identities in the classroom. This observation provided me with data concerning (1) the ways in which they enacted their identities in actual teaching practice, which depends on the idea that identity and practice mutually constitute one another, (2) the ways in which they negotiated their relationships with ELLs while engaging in classroom teaching, (3) the ways in which they implemented classroom rules and established classroom routines which were conducive to 138   classroom management, and (4) the ways in which they justified their teacher authority to manage the classroom. Then, this observational data provided a base for me to create and customize my second interview questions to better understand the contribution of TCs’ teaching practicum experiences on their emerging teacher identities. My observations in the TCs’ teacher education courses provided insights about their interactions with their peers and teacher educators and the self-conceptions which they reflected in class discussions, activities and micro-teaching practices as well as their use of TESOL discourse. This sort of observation yielded data about (1) ESOL teacher-learners’ (non)participation in and navigation across the new discourses they were acquiring in TESOL profession, (2) their negotiation of identities as ESOL teachers as they took and developed teachers perspectives, (3) their identification and recognition as ESOL teachers when participating in class discussions, activities, and micro-teaching practices. I also used this observational data when preparing and customizing my second individual interview questions to capture a better picture of the TCs’ teacher education experiences. Both of the two abovementioned observations provided me with firsthand data about the participants’ experiences regarding their teacher identity development in the two contexts in which they were involved and a fresh perspective about what I did (not) learn in the interviews. Thereby, I was able to obtain rich and “thick description” (Geertz, 1973, p. 6) about the contexts of the individual participants, which had a crucial role in understanding L2 teacher identity formation (e.g., Flores, 2001). Finally, as the researcher, I held the role of “observer as non- participant,” which meant that the group was aware of my observer activities and my “participation in the group [was] definitely secondary to the role of information gatherer” (Merriam, 1998, p. 101). According to Adler and Adler (1994), this role allows the researcher to 139   “observe and interact closely enough with members to establish an insider’s identity without participating in those activities constituting the core of group membership” (cited in Merriam, 1998, p. 101). However, because I shadowed the university supervisor and conducted my classroom observations with him in the public schools, the ESOL TCs and the supervisor requested that I provide comments and suggestions about the TCs’ teaching during the post- observation feedback sessions. This additional role helped me establish a very good rapport with the TCs and the university supervisor who indicated appreciation for my feedback. 3.6.3. Document Analysis Documents, as an essential data source for case study research, are considered “a ready- made source of data easily accessible to the imaginative and resourceful investigator” (Merriam, 1998, p. 112). Reviewing or mining documents for data is another method of gathering data in an unobtrusive fashion and it is “rich in portraying the values and beliefs of participants in the setting” (Marshall & Rossman, 1995, p. 85). Different from interviews and observations, documents are not especially prepared for research purposes, they do not intrude upon the setting, and they do not depend on the whims of the persons involved (Merriam, 1998). Document analysis may provide data which can support the lines of data coming from interviews and observations or introduce new issues to be focused on in the investigation. In this study, I reviewed the Statement of Purpose essay that TCs wrote while applying for the program, the syllabi of the graduate courses they took, the assignments that participants prepared for these courses, the lesson plans that participants prepared and implemented in the classroom setting, and the reflective responses to edTPA prompts. The review of these documents yielded data about (1) the ways in which ESOL teacher candidates appropriated and used the notions and language of TESOL while expounding and reflecting on the cases of language learning/teaching, (2) the ways in which they (re)presented, imagined, and 140   (re)positioned themselves as ESOL teachers in these assignments, and (3) the ways they relied on their previous language learning experiences when discussing educational theories and deliberating their practice teaching. 3.7. Data Analysis Merriam (1998) defines data analysis as “the process of making sense out of the data. And making sense out of data involves consolidating, reducing, and interpreting what people have said and what the researcher has seen and read – it is the process of making meaning” (p. 178). Qualitative case study data analysis starts as soon as researchers begin gathering data from the case under study (Merriam, 1998; Miles & Huberman, 1994; Stake, 1995). This simultaneity of the two processes of data collection and analysis is one of the quintessential attributes of qualitative research design which distinguishes it from the quantitative research tradition. Additionally, Merriam (1998) makes a caveat: advocating for a recursive and dynamic data collection and analysis “is not to say that the analysis is finished when all the data have been collected. Quite the opposite. Analysis becomes more intensive as the study progresses, and once all the data are in” (p. 155). This concurrent and iterative process stems from the fact that qualitative methodologists advocate for an emerging design. The preliminary analysis of the data during its collection may lead to alterations in the ensuing phases of the research. As soon as I started collecting data through individual interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis, I started immersing myself into the preliminary data and acquainting myself with the data through listening to the recorded interviews and taking notes, transcribing the interviews verbatim, reading the documents (e.g., assignments, lesson plans), and field notes coming from my classroom observations (Riessman, 1993). Merriam (1998) describes this step as “having a conversation with the data, asking questions of it, making comments to it” (p. 181). This preliminary review of the data enabled me to have emergent 141   insights and “to pursue specific leads” in the subsequent steps of my data collection (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007, p. 163). In the iterative process of data collection, I kept research logs including “observer’s comments” and memos (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007) which included my “thoughts, musings, speculations, and hunches” as I engaged in data collection and analysis. The information in these logs constituted “a rudimentary analysis” and I relied upon them as the analysis went on (Merriam, 1998, p. 165). These logs or memos were drawn from my classroom observations proved instrumental for me to construct and customize individual interview questions and focus on certain things in my subsequent observations. This helped me to “try out ideas and themes on informants” (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007, p. 165), that is, to see how they reacted to my interpretations of what I observed in their classrooms. I could learn whether they agreed or disagreed with the way I was thinking and ask them to explain why (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007). As groundwork for my study, I based my analysis initially on the conceptual framework that I constructed relying upon the existing literature on teacher identity (e.g. teacher learning, teacher biographies, teachers’ emotions) and the premises of Wenger’s (1998) theory of identity construction (e.g., identification, negotiation). However, my analysis was not closed to other significant themes that the data from the three ESOL TCs yielded, which enabled me to contribute findings to the existing literature. My data analysis was guided by the procedures of grounded theory, so I sought “naturally occurring classes of things, persons, and events” and looked “for similarities and dissimilarities—patterns in the data” (Berg, 2009, p. 103) which could lead my analysis to yield well-rounded findings. Doing a careful read of the transcripts of individual interviews, and reviewing my field notes, documents, and my memos, I had to do some interpretations or draw inferences from my 142   participants’ comments, the experiences they shared upon my questions, my observations in their classes, and their reflections. Those interpretations reflected my understanding of what their “implicit theories” (Peercy, 2012) or “interpretive frame” under construction (Olsen, 2010) were and how they were supported or challenged by their experiences in teacher education courses and the teaching practica. Therefore, in order to make sure that those interpretations were valid and reflective of the truth in my participants’ situations, I shared the transcriptions and emerging themes with my participants. I first shared the transcribed version of the individual interviews and asked them about the accuracy of the transcribed texts. Secondly, I shared the initial PowerPoint presentations which included the discussion of the themes emerging from their data. To describe more specifically how my data analysis proceeded, I started with open coding. I scanned, read, and re-read what my participants shared in the two individual interviews, their course assignments, discussion board conversations, my field notes, and memos I had written after each observation. While doing this reading, my main goal was to “assign some sort of shorthand designation to various aspects of data so that [the researcher] can easily retrieve specific pieces of data” (Merriam, 1998, p. 164). For example, some of those codes were “internship duties,” “interaction with mentor,” “interaction with students,” “interaction with supervisor,” “challenge in practicum,” “knowing students,” “decision to become teacher,” “own language learning,” “change in beliefs,” “applying theory,” “opinions about courses,” “opinions about the program,” “roles taken,” “roles assigned,” “feeling like a teacher,” “seen as a teacher,” and “aspirations.” Then, second round of analysis included axial coding in which I made clusters of codes, that is, I placed coded data into categories. My categories were (a) ESOL teacher perspective, (b) professional interaction, (c) highlighting teaching experience, (d) ownership of students, (e) work space in practicum schools, (f) emotional development, (g) reflection, (h) 143   ESOL discourse, (i) identifying priorities. I also matched those categories with my research questions. I grouped categories (a) (b) (c) into one cluster because they pertained to my first research question, that is, “How does university-based teacher education coursework in an intensive MATESOL program contribute to ESOL TCs’ teacher identity construction?” I also grouped categories (d) (e) (f) into another cluster because they addressed my second research question, that is, How do field-based teaching practicum experiences in an intensive MATESOL program contribute to ESOL TCs’ teacher identity construction? The other codes, namely, (g) (h) (i), were pertinent to both research questions, so they were clustered in a separate group. Because the data collection was a lengthy process which resulted in a large amount of qualitative data, it was important to start with a system to organize the data from the first day of the data collection. Therefore, throughout the process, codes assigned to the data helped me to remember the earlier data and to organize the data in a systematic manner, which made both the collection and the analysis of the data smoother in terms of data management. Also, coding the data “according to whatever scheme is relevant” to the inquiry (Merriam, 1998, p. 165) helped me to link the data to my conceptual and theoretical frameworks and facilitated the analysis phase when I talked back to the relevant concepts and the theory that supported or challenged the propositions made prior to this research endeavor. Once I had categories of codes, in order to develop tentative themes, I used the constant comparative method (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) by “identifying incidents, events, and activities and constantly comparing them to an emerging category to develop and saturate the category” (Creswell, 2007, p. 238). Drawing from those sharpened and saturated categories that I built upon my coding, I started formulating findings statements to construct the “story line” (Creswell, 2007, p. 67) that explicated the contribution of ESOL TCs’ teacher education courses and the 144   teaching practicum to their teacher identity construction. For instance, I constructed the following finding statement for the category of “ESOL teacher perspective”: the class discussions, activities, and assignments in the IMP teacher education courses promoted the process of TCs’ taking on an ESOL teacher perspective in the IMP. Then, using my categories which included coded data, I identified the significant quotes from all three participants and from different data sources that I shared when presenting and discussing my findings. I had my critical friends read these statements with the supporting significant quotes so as to make sure these findings were answering my research questions, logically classified, and not overlapping. 3.8. Researcher’s Position The researcher plays a crucial role in the phases of selecting the phenomenon of interest, conceptualizing the research study, collecting the data, and analyzing the data in qualitative research. Stake (1995) asserts that, “of all the roles, the role of interpreter and gatherer of interpretations, is central” for qualitative researchers (p. 99). Therefore, elucidating and contextualizing the researcher’s role in the research process is important not only for the researcher to intentionally reflect on his identity, but it also “helps readers to understand the researcher’s personal investment in the case, or perhaps intimate familiarity with the context or participants” (Duff, 2007, p. 131). This concept of “intimate familiarity with the context or participants” was also captured by Goetz and LeCompte (1984) who approach the issue from an ethnographic standpoint and argued that “the special relationships that ethnographers develop in their research sites are critical to the depth and breadth of the information they acquire... must be addressed and discussed clearly and openly for the study to be credible” (p. 238). Therefore, in this section of the paper, I talk about myself as a teacher, teacher educator, and emerging researcher.   145   I moved to the United States to pursue my doctoral degree in education in 2009 after teaching English as a foreign language at pre-undergraduate level for five years in Turkey. During my professional preparation and my teaching career, I constantly problematized the contribution of the university-based courses and the field-based teaching practicum on my learning to teach, growing, and developing as a teacher which influence my teaching effectiveness. When I started teaching, I realized that most of the courses I had had to take in the teacher education program did not prepare me for the real classroom setting and that the teaching practicum experiences which were really limited made very little contribution to my learning to teach process. Therefore, since I moved to the States to pursue my doctoral degree, one of my main research interests has been focused on how SLTE programs educate and prepare the L2 TCs to teach language learners for language classrooms. My interest in how teachers learn to teach and transition from being a student to being a teacher after receiving the degree or certification has led me to inquire into the ways in which TCs construct their teacher identities during their experiences in the teacher education program. I have been working in the TESOL division at the Department of Teaching as a graduate teaching assistant for about five years, so I am cognizant of the dynamics of the certification and master programs offered in the program, which helped me to do purposive sampling (selecting one TESOL teacher education program out of the three options) as mentioned earlier in this chapter. I have had the distinct opportunity to meet many ESOL TCs who were receiving their preparation in the TESOL programs and discussed with them about their experiences before and during their initial teacher preparation. Also, I have had opportunities to learn about operations of the TESOL teacher education programs and public schools. I conducted two small scale inquiries in the scope of my doctoral courses and beyond, one on ESOL teachers’ practicum 146   experiences and the other on ESOL teachers’ perceptions of their knowledge base construction. In both studies, TCs were enrolled in the IMP. Epistemologically, my approach to the data is influenced by the assumption that knowledge and learning is socially, culturally, and historically co-constructed and re-constructed in the context. My theoretical orientation is informed by sociocultural understanding of L2 learning and L2 teacher learning. I believe that both L2 learning and L2 teacher learning are impacted by social and cultural dynamics in the contexts of learning and learners contribute to those dynamics as they participate in the activities of learning. Not only synchronic (i.e. locating learning experiences in present time and space) but also diachronic (i.e. observing learning through time, depending on its formative nature) examination contributes to the thorough understanding of L2 learning and L2 teacher learning. Thus, I believe that an examination which does not take into consideration the prior experiences and future aspirations of learners proves an incomplete perspective to grasp a nuanced understanding of their contours of learning.   3.9. Internal Validity Although reality is presented as a single, fixed, objective phenomenon waiting to be discovered, observed and measured in quantitative research, qualitative traditions assume reality to be holistic, multi-dimensional and ever-changing because it is a “multiple set of mental constructions … made by humans” (Guba & Lincoln, 1994, p. 295). Hence, internal validity as a standard of quality in qualitative tradition refers to the extent to which participants’ account and researchers’ interpretations and findings are credible. The current literature includes six strategies to maximize the internal validity of a qualitative inquiry which Merriam (1998) discusses in her comprehensive guide on qualitative research. They are as follows: triangulation, member checks, long-term observation, peer examination (review), participatory (collaborative) modes of research, and acknowledgment of researcher’s biases. 147   Triangulation refers to a strategy that researchers are supposed to make use of in order “to increase credence in the interpretation, to demonstrate commonality of an assertion and to gain the needed confirmation” (Stake, 1995, p. 112) for the emerging findings by “using multiple investigators, multiple sources of evidence, or multiple methods” (Merriam, 1998, p. 204). In this study, I was the only investigator working on the inquiry because it is my dissertation thesis. As mentioned in the data collection section of this chapter, I utilized three different sources and methods (individual interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis) to triangulate the data. Member checks are effective procedures through which researchers double (or triple) check with the informants to make sure that their interpretations truly reflect the perspectives of these informants. In member checks, researchers share the collected data, emerging interpretations, and rough drafts of writing with the participants and ask them to “review the material for accuracy and palatability” (Stake, 1995, p. 115). They expect their informants to “provide critical observations and interpretations sometimes making suggestions as to sources of data” (p. 115). Researchers do not usually implement this strategy until after they gather all the data from these participants. In this study, I did member checks at two points in the course of the study. First, I shared the transcribed interview data with the interviewees and asked them to check if the data were accurate and palatable and if they wanted to make any additions. Second, I shared the findings emerging from the data with the participants and asked them to provide their critical interpretations and to check whether or not their experiences are correctly and completely captured in these findings. Long-term observation denotes recurrent observations of the phenomenon of interest at various points during the research process. These recurrent observations over a long period of 148   time would “facilitate a thorough search for informants who can augment, disconfirm, or corroborate information already gathered” (Goetz & LeCompte, 1984, p. 224). Furthermore, during this long term, researchers become to know a lot more about both the phenomenon and the research site and become “less visible” and “non-reactive” in the research site so that they can have the opportunity to observe “the normal flow of activities” (p. 224). I observed the three ESOL TCs in their practicum placement and in their graduate teacher education classes from January through June 2013. This long term observation afforded me to become “less visible” in these settings and do a comprehensive observation of the phenomenon of interest, namely, the contribution of their experiences in these settings to their teacher identity construction. Peer examination (review) is another strategy that contributes to the internal validity of a qualitative research study. It involves researchers’ “discussions with colleagues regarding the process of study, the congruency of emerging findings with the raw data, and tentative interpretations” (Merriam, 2005, p. 229). Through this collegial review, researchers can learn whether or not the gathered data lead to alternative interpretations which could reflect convergences or divergences. I have three colleagues who are also interested in the issues regarding SLTE and I have been discussing with them since I started getting interested in this area of study. I have been part of a dissertation support group who had regular weekly meetings in order to discuss the progress and questions of each member. I shared my progress in this study with those critical friends and they provided their opinions about the significant themes and findings emerging from the data. I made sure that the findings my data analysis yielded made sense to them as well. Another strategy suggested in the current literature to promote internal validity in qualitative inquiry is participatory (collaborative) modes of research. This strategy refers to the 149   active involvement of participants throughout the entire research process from conceptualization of inquiry to composition of ultimate report (Merriam, 1998). In this study, I did not have a chance to make use of the participants’ collaboration in the conceptualization of the study since I did not know them while I was working on the conceptualization of my study, because they were not in the program at that time. However, at the two points of member checking, I asked my participants for ideas about the presentation of the findings and the composition of the ultimate report of the case study. Articulation of researcher’s biases is the last strategy which helps a qualitative inquiry to become internally valid. At the beginning of the study, researchers are supposed to clarify their “assumptions, worldview, and theoretical orientation” (Merriam, 1998, p. 205) which would influence their relationship to the phenomenon under investigation, their approach to the study, and their interpretations of the data (Merriam, 1998). In this paper, in the section above entitled “researcher’s position,” I described my previous experiences as a preservice and serving teacher (my teacher learning experiences vis-à-vis the practicum course I was required to complete as a TC myself) to explain my position in relationship to the phenomenon of interest, namely, the contribution of teacher education courses and the teaching practicum to ESOL TCs’ teacher identity formation. This is because these experiences have definitely influenced the way I approach the phenomenon of interest and the focal participants in the inquiry. In that “researcher’s position” section, I also explain the epistemological and theoretical orientations which influence the way I understand and interpret the data. 3.10. External Validity The designs and tools employed by qualitative researchers do not yield findings which can be generalizable in the classic view held in a quantitative research tradition, because such inquiries always conduct site specific investigations and researchers select these sites more on 150   the basis of their accessibility and uniqueness rather than representativeness (Cusick, 1983). In other words, the traditional view of external validity “is of little help to qualitative researchers interested in finding ways of enhancing the likelihood that their work will speak to situations beyond the one immediately studied” (Schofield, 1990, p. 206). Literature on qualitative research has witnessed a huge discussion to answer the following question plaguing the researchers: “Is generalization from a small, nonrandom sample possible?” (Merriam, 1998, p. 208) or “How can you generalize from a single case?” (Yin, 2003, p. 10). Cusick (1983) explains: field study endeavors “to unravel and explain a human event giving particular attention to the collective understanding of those who created the event,” (p. 135) thus, its generalizability hinges “not on proposition-like laws, but on the general sociological assumption that since behavior is bound up with structure, then behavior that occurs in a particular setting may also occur in a similar setting” (p. 134). In order to foster an inquiry more generalizable in this retheorized sense, Merriam (1998) suggests three strategies: rich, thick description; typicality or modal category; and multisite designs. The notion of “thick description” which was first coined by Geertz (1973) has become one of the established strategies to support generalizability in qualitative research. It basically refers to the presentation of sufficient amount of description of context and cases in order that readers can “determine how closely their situations match the research situation, and hence, whether findings can be transferred” (Merriam, 1998, p. 211). In this study, I provide a detailed description of each individual ESOL TC (what L2 learning and teaching experiences they have had, why they have chosen to become an ESOL professional), university teacher education course context (description of the program including the admission requirements, course 151   requirements, exit requirements), public school context where they are having their practicum experiences (their tasks, roles and responsibilities in these schools, their mentors). The incorporation of typicality or modal category in the inquiry is another strategy which can enhance external validity of a qualitative study. The purpose of this strategy is to help users or consumers of research to determine “how typical the program, event, or individual is compared with others in the same class” so that they can make accurate decisions regarding the transferability of the findings of the inquiry into their own situations (Merriam, 1998, p. 211). In the current study, I indicate the typicality of individual preservice ESOL TCs (all White females in their twenties) as participants in the case of the IMP, and of what goes on in the program and in the schools where the participants completed their teaching practicum. For example, I describe the required courses of the IMP and the practicum requirement so that the readers can decide the extent to which the contexts they want to transfer the findings to are similar to the contexts in this inquiry. I also provide a portrait of each participant, especially their prior experiences and the reason why they wanted to become ESOL teachers. The final strategy to foster generalizability of the findings of qualitative research is the utilization of multisite designs. It aims at allowing readers to be able to apply the results into a greater array of other situations through the use of “several sites, cases, situations, especially those that maximize diversity in the phenomenon of interest” (Merriam, 1998, p. 212). Multisite designs bolster the ability of qualitative research “to generalize while preserving in-depth description” since they allow “cross-site comparison without necessarily sacrificing within-site understanding” (Herriott & Firestone, 1983, p. 14). In this inquiry, I concentrated on an intensive MATESOL program, focusing on data from three ESOL TCs, which increased the diversity of the voices and interpretations in the data in terms of understanding the contribution of teacher 152   education coursework and the teaching practicum to their teacher identity formation. The multiplicity of the focal participants in the case increased the depth and stability of the findings this study yielded. I conducted an analysis including the comparison of categories emerging from the three ESOL TCs which informed the theoretical propositions in the conceptual framework. 3.11. Reliability In traditional sense, namely, in the sense that it is conceived in quantitative research, the notion of reliability is concerned with whether or not the inquiry will produce the same results if it is conducted again. However, because of the fundamental disparities in the epistemological dimensions, qualitative research suggests the concepts of “dependability” or “consistency” of the results in lieu of the traditional understanding of reliability (Guba & Lincoln, 1985, p. 288). Therefore, “rather than demanding that outsiders get the same results, a researcher wishes outsiders to concur that, given the data collected, the results make sense – … they are consistent with the data collected” (Merriam, 1998, p. 206). Researchers can make use of three strategies to ensure the dependability and consistency of the results that their inquiries yield: explanation of an investigator's position vis-à-vis his or her study, triangulation (that is explained earlier in this paper), and the use of an audit trail. Merriam (1998) notes that while reporting the study, the researcher should explicitly mention “the assumptions and theory behind the study, and his or her position” in relation to the participants of the inquiry (p. 206). Goetz & LeCompte (1984) propose five techniques through which the researchers can explain their assumptions to the reader: “researcher status position, informant choices, social situations and conditions, analytic constructs and premises, and methods of data collection and analysis” (p. 214). In Chapters 2 and 3, I explained my position to the study and the participants, the reasons I selected the IMP students as the participants of the inquiry, the theoretical constructs and premises underlying this study, and the methods I used in 153   data collection and analysis. Also, this chapter provides a description of the university and school contexts in which the participants were participating during the course of this research study. The assumption that underlies the strategy of audit trail is that “if we cannot expect others to replicate our account, the best we can do is explain how we arrived at our results” (Dey, 1993, p. 251). The reader should be presented with the detailed description of “how data were collected, how categories were derived, and how decisions were made throughout the inquiry” (Merriam, 1998, p. 207). In this study, I have kept a log of the entire research process which helped me tell the reader about the decisions made throughout the inquiry process. Also, this chapter includes a description of how the phases of data collection and analysis were carried out, making this inquiry as transparent as possible for its readers. 3.12. Conclusion This chapter discusses methodological matters in this research study. Utilizing an interpretive case study design, it concentrated on the IMP with three focal individual ESOL TCs enrolled in this program. The study attained an evidentiary data base by using the methods of in- depth individual interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis. For the purpose of conducting a robust study, this project employed various techniques to increase its validity and reliability, such member checks, triangulation, audit trail, typicality, and multisite design. 154   CHAPTER 4: Three Fledgling ESOL Teachers’ Winding Journey into the Profession     When they arrive in my classes, however, these students are not yet teachers. They have expressed the desire to become teachers by enrolling in a teacher education program, and I have undertaken the job of helping them get there. But what does this goal entail? … what educational experiences will foster the transition from student to teacher? … this involves the transformation of their identities over time (Danielewicz, 2001, pp. 8-9) 4.1. Introduction This study examines how preservice university coursework and practicum experiences of three ESOL teacher candidates (TCs) contributed to their identity formation processes. More specifically, it addresses the following research questions: 1. How does university-based teacher education coursework in an intensive MATESOL program contribute to ESOL TCs’ teacher identity construction? 2. How do field-based teaching practicum experiences in an intensive MATESOL program contribute to ESOL TCs’ teacher identity construction? Considerable interest has recently emerged in the examination of teacher identity in general teacher education research which has examined the impact of specific factors on teacher identity. Such factors included reflection (Cattley, 2007; Freese, 2006; MacLean & White, 2007), professional interaction (Cohen, 2010; Kardos & Johnson, 2007; Mantei & Kervin, 2011), emotions (Cross & Hong, 2012; Kelchtermans, 2005; van Veen Sleegers, van de Ven, 2005; Zembylas, 2004), discourse (Alsup, 2006; Gomez, Black, & Allen, 2007; Marsh, 2002), theory and practice (Dotger & Smith, 2009), contextual, cultural and biographical factors(Flores & Day, 2006), and teacher retention (Freedman & Appleman, 2008, 2009; Hong, 2010). Some studies also investigated teachers’ identity development in varying phases of their career, i.e., preservice teacher education (Sexton 2008; Smagorinsky, Cook, Moore, Jackson, & Fry, 2004; Timoštšuk 155   & Ugaste, 2010; Walshaw, 2009), early career (Hsieh, 2010;Merseth, Sommer, & Dickstein, 2008; Olsen, 2008b), longitudinally including preservice and beginning years (Avraamidou, 2014; Danielewicz, 2001; Horn, Nolen, Ward, & Campbell, 2008; Malderez, Hobson, Tracey, & Kerr, 2007), and experienced teachers (Battey & Franke, 2008; Beijaard, Verloop, & Vermunt, 2000; Day, Kington, Stobart, & Sammons, 2006). More specifically, research in general teacher education has shed some light on the aspects of teacher education programs (TEPs) which are conducive to TCs’ identity formation. Some studies found that TCs’ identity construction is bolstered through various reflective activities (e.g., reflective writing, video reflections) in TEPs (e.g., Cattley, 2007; Dotger & Smith, 2009; McLean & White, 2007). Other studies have revealed that TCs understand and negotiate changes in their identities through their immersion in and interaction with TEP discourses (e.g., Alsup, 2006; Danielewicz, 2001; Marsh, 2002) and are afforded a repertoire of possible identities through their engagement in the activities of teacher education (e.g., Ronfeldt & Grossman, 2008). Moreover, several other studies have pointed out the significance of the mentor teacher’s role in TC identity development (e.g., Ottesen, 2007) in terms of whether or not mentors share authority (e.g., Smagorinsky, et al., 2004), provide support (e.g., Avraamidou, 2014) and help TCs immerse themselves in the professional community (e.g., Walshaw, 2009). Other studies have illustrated the influence of tensions and opportunities in TEPs upon TCs’ identity formation (e.g., Horn, et al., 2008). In addition, several researchers found that preservice TEPs facilitate TCs’ integration into the professional community (van Huizen, 2000; ten Dam & Blom, 2006) and temper, deepen, and challenge their teacher identities (Merseth, et al., 2008). In short, the prior work has placed their focus on one or two aspects (e.g., reflection, mentoring, and discourse) of TEPs’ contribution to TCs’ identity development, but to my best knowledge, a 156   holistic examination of a TEP’s contributions to TCs is still missing in the literature. Therefore, the current inquiry builds upon and extends those prior studies by exploring the holistic contributions of teacher education coursework and teaching practicum experiences to ESOL TCs’ identity formation of the three focal participants in the intensive MATESOL program (henceforth, IMP). Conceiving the programmatic offerings holistically, this study intends to scrutinize as many contributors to TCs’ identity formation as possible in relation to their experiences in the TEPs. The field of second language teacher education (SLTE) has also witnessed a growing interest in teacher identity, as evidenced by a burgeoning body of research studies investigating both preservice and inservice second language (L2) teachers’ identities (Duff & Uchida, 1997; Dang, 2012; Farrell, 2011; Ilieva, 2010; Johnson, 2001; Kanno & Stuart, 2011; Liu & Fisher, 2006; Pavlenko, 2003; Peercy, 2012; Trent, 2010; Tsui, 2007; Varghese, 2006). Despite a recently growing body of research on L2 teacher identity, researchers have highlighted the fact that L2 teacher identity has been an underexplored (e.g., Tsui, 2007) and undertheorized (e.g., Morgan, 2004; Varghese, et al., 2005) sub-field in the SLTE literature. Teacher identity represents a particularly unique matter of research in the case of ESOL teachers because they work with ELLs who are also continually engaged in the process of identity work as they learn English in addition to their mother tongue that they use in their home setting. Language and identity are intricately and intimately interconnected, so teacher education research needs to pay distinct attention to the identity development of ESOL teachers who are one of the main actors in ELLs’ language education and cultural and academic acclimation. In other words, ESOL teachers’ identity development stands out as a distinct research area because of the particularities of their subject matter, namely, English as a second language they teach and use as medium of 157   instruction, and the particularities of their students’ cultural and linguistic experiences. ESOL teachers (re)construct their identities as they teach English to speakers of other languages and this (re)construction transpires at the nexus of their stories of becoming a teacher and their students’ stories of immigrating to the US or having a different home language and culture, becoming an English user, and adjusting to the US school culture. Additionally, the SLTE literature has so far paid distinct attention to the teacher identity development of non-native English speaking teachers (Kamhi-Stein, 2013) who constituted approximately 80% of the English teachers in the world (Canagarajah, 2005) because their teacher identities closely interacted with their idiosyncratic cultural and linguistic identities. However, little attention was paid to the question: how native English speaking teachers, representative of the US context, develop their identities as they (learn to) teach their students who have idiosyncratic language learning experiences. Therefore, SLTE research needs more research on ESOL TCs’ teacher identity development during their teacher learning experiences in TEPs which constitute an important locus representing the transitioning of TCs from being a graduate student to a teacher. More specifically, the SLTE literature requires more investigation about the ways in which TEPs holistically shape, facilitate, and contribute to ESOL TCs’ development of their identity as teachers. Building upon the findings in general teacher education and SLTE, the present study sheds important light on the influence of teacher education coursework and the teaching practicum upon the way ESOL TCs conceive and imagine themselves as teachers as they traverse their program. A deeper understanding of this phenomenon contributes to the teacher education literature and practice by shedding brighter light on: (1) what aspects of initial teacher preparation facilitate ESOL TCs’ identity construction as capable teachers and (2) what 158   amendments and additions TEPs should make with the primary intent of promoting TCs’ identity development during preservice teacher education This study conceptualizes teacher identity construction as an integral part of teacher learning processes, because identity, as a crucial component of teacher development, constitutes a foundation that forms and informs how teachers make sense of their theoretical and practical encounters and make instructional decisions (Bullough, 1997). That is, teacher identity construction is intimately interconnected with teacher cognition, as well as their biographies, emotions, contextual factors, and participation in communities of practice, and these interconnected components all contribute to what and how teachers learn. Theoretically, this study draws upon Wenger’s (1998) notions of engagement, imagination, and alignment, and constructs identity as driving “how learning changes who we are and creates personal histories of becoming in the context of our communities” (p. 5). Grounded in this theoretical construction of identity, the current study examined the identity development of the three focal TCs as they participated in the process of becoming and growing as ESOL teachers in the context of a teacher education program. Findings from this study demonstrate that as these fledgling teachers participated in the community of teaching practice as TCs, they had opportunities to construct and reconstruct their beliefs, thoughts, and knowledge about working with ELL students. Their past trajectories as language learners and teachers and their future aspirations as ESOL professionals played a significant role in the way they imagined and identified themselves as ESOL teachers. Known and treated as “newcomers” of the professional community (Wenger, 1998) in their university- based courses and school-based practicum, these TCs negotiated their emergent teacher identities as they engaged in ESOL teacher activities and interacted with their mentors, other colleagues, 159   and their students, as well as their university supervisor, professors, and fellow TCs. The following part of this chapter discusses the research findings that emerged from the analysis of multiple sources of data, namely, individual in-depth interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis. Through discussing these findings, this chapter specifically delineates how the coursework and practicum in the IMP contributed to teacher identity construction of three focal particpants of Zoe, Elizabeth, and Leslie. In alignment with the research questions, the findings are clustered in three main sections. The first section discusses the findings concerning the contributions of university-based teacher education courses to the TCs’ identity development as ESOL teachers. The second section explains the findings that pertain to the contributions of their school-based teaching practicum experiences to the TCs’ identity development. The third section discusses the findings that indicate how the combination of coursework and practicum were jointly involved in and conducive to the TCs’ identity development. 4.2. University-based Coursework TEPs that certify TCs to teach in K-12 schools typically comprise two primary components. One is the university-based teacher education courses that are intended to equip TCs with a theoretical basis for their future instruction through research-based methods and techniques. The other building block in teacher education curricula is the school-based field experience (often called student teaching, practice teaching, teaching internship or practicum) where TCs observe, teach, and learn from experienced teachers in teaching environments. The current study is putting under scrutiny how these two constituents are conducive, separately as well as jointly, to three TCs’ growing identities as ESOL professionals. This section of the current chapter discusses the findings that pertain particularly to the contribution of coursework, as one of the two major programmatic components, to the three TCs’ identity development as 160   ESOL specialists. Thereby, it addresses the first part of the main research question, that is, how does teacher education coursework contribute to the way three preservice ESOL teachers develop their identities during their preparation in the IMP? The impact or outcomes of initial formal teacher education have been a controversial issue in the research on TEPs. There has long been a critique and questioning about how much difference teacher education makes in TCs’ growth. Some work has shown that TEPs actually manage to change or calibrate TCs’ beliefs towards research-based progressive pedagogies, but their effects are “washed out” when TCs are socialized into K-12 school settings where traditional understandings of instruction preclude the implementation of research-based teaching and learning methods (Tabachnick & Zeichner, 1984; Zeichner & Tabachnick, 1981). Other work has found that the contributions of TEPs are “washed out” because TCs’ teaching is driven by their preconceptions about teaching, which were shaped through their “apprenticeship of observation” throughout their education biographies (Lortie, 1975; Tabachnick & Zeichner, 1984; Zeichner & Tabachnick, 1981). In the same vein, a highly criticized recent review by NCTQ (National Council on Teacher Quality) points out that TEPs do not succeed in adequately preparing teachers for their profession. It claims that TEPs “have become an industry of mediocrity, churning out first-year teachers with classroom management skills and content knowledge inadequate to thrive in classrooms with ever-increasing ethnic and socioeconomic student diversity” (NCTQ, 2013, p. 1). Despite the questionable methods utilized in this report (Fuller, 2014), such public discourse causes both preservice programs and school systems, which often offer inservice professional development, to carefully examine and consider what teachers need to know to bridge their experience from the university to the K-12 classroom. 161   Although there are studies empirically supporting the arguments revolving around the notion of the “washout” effect, other work has pointed out that “the quality and extent of teacher education” have an impact on teachers’ effectiveness (Darling-Hammond, 2000, p. 166), and teacher qualifications substantially affect student learning (Darling-Hammond, 2000, p. 168; see also Rowan, Correnti, & Miller, 2002; Firestone, 2014). TEPs hold “the power to shape teachers’ beliefs and practices” (Cochran-Smith, Cannady, McEachern, Mitchell, Piazza, Power & Ryan, 2012, p. 26) and make a difference. Despite inconsistency between innovative pedagogies and schools’ traditional instructional patterns, TEPs can influence teachers’ inservice instructional competence (Brouwer & Korthagen, 2005). Moreover, there is general agreement that teacher educators play major roles in affecting the quality of teachers (Liston, Borko, & Whitcomb, 2008) which is a critical “role in the educational chain” (Lunenberg, Dengerink, & Korthagen, 2014, p. 1). Regarding the effects of TEPs on teacher identity formation as part of teacher growth, researchers have mainly directed attention to examining the impact of practicum and workplace experiences (e.g., Dang, 2012; Kanno & Stuart, 2011; Sexton, 2008; Smagorinsky, et al., 2004) on TCs’ identity building processes. Despite the salience of teacher education coursework in gaining a nuanced understanding of teacher identity, there is little research in this area (for exceptions see Abednia, 2012; Danielewicz, 2001; Pavlenko, 2003; Peercy, 2012). The following section attempts to address this gap in the literature by illustrating how ESOL teacher education coursework contributed to the construction of teacher identity in the cases of Zoe, Elizabeth, and Leslie. It is likely that all the teacher education courses these three focal participants took contributed to their identity construction as emerging ESOL teachers, but this section addresses 162   this contribution by highlighting examples from the four courses: Language Assessment, ELL Teaching Methodology, Intercultural Communication, and Elementary ESOL Literacy. 4.2.1. Building an ESOL Teacher’s Perspective Teacher education coursework in the IMP facilitated Zoe, Elizabeth, and Leslie’s (re)construction of an ESOL teacher perspective through class assignments and activities which included interaction with their professors and other fellow TCs in the IMP and the other two TESOL teacher programs housed in the department. These interactions afforded the TCs dialogic spaces wherein they could externalize, share, and (re)mold their beliefs and opinions about teaching ELLs, and encounter, negotiate, and experiment with “a repertoire” of possible identities (Horn, et al., 2008, p. 48). What brought those TCs to the IMP was their decision to enter the teaching profession which would impact their professional growth and identity development (Olsen, 2008b) throughout the program. Therefore, the class discussions, activities, and assignments in the teachers’ IMP program were all underpinned with the assumption that these preservice teachers would ultimately become part of the ESOL teaching community. The curriculum and individual courses are all geared towards that ultimate goal. This approach encouraged the TCs to try on an ESOL teacher’s perspective, which kept them cognizant of the fact that they would be serving certain types of learners with certain characteristics. For instance, Zoe emphasized how preparing a lesson plan for her Language Assessment class led her to think about language differently: when I’m writing directions and language objectives, I’m like ‘be aware of the language you’re using, be aware of how you’re phrasing them, are you giving the students appropriate options, are you phrasing things the right way,’ I started asking ‘how would someone who has English as an L2 [second language] feel about the instruction I give?’ It just made me look at language in a different way, in terms of like the academic 163   language. Are you telling your students what you want them to do, are you actually telling them, because you know directions are so important, they are there to tell them what to do, and if you phrase them in a way that’s ambiguous, or you have to look at it almost as a student, as well, as a 6 year old. Am I gonna know what is expected of me from this? (Zoe, Interview 1) Zoe’s description illustrates how a lesson plan assignment required her to think about her work from a different perspective as she took on the position of an ESOL teacher. In that course along with teaching experiences in her practicum schools (which comprised 50% of her mentor’s teaching load), she learned about the potential needs of ELLs and envisioned herself taking their needs into consideration as their teacher. Zoe highlighted that through this class she was able to put herself into her ELL students’ shoes to see her instruction through their eyes. Coursework was not the only influential factor for this envisioning since her everyday experiences in the practicum school definitely had a role as well. Yet, coursework offered a scaffolded ecological platform (Singh & Richards, 2006) or space that supported and oriented her in better studying and knowing her target student population and considering their needs. Zoe also brought in her preexisting way of “looking at language” which had been predominantly influenced by her experiences in learning French in Canadian and American contexts. When she was ten years old, she had successful French language learning experiences for one year when living in Alberta, Canada. After living there for about four years, her family moved back to the US when she was eleven. Then, she continued taking French in her US middle and high school settings, during which she lost her excitement. Contrary to her language learning of French primarily as a foreign language, her coursework and practicum created awareness that she needed to conceive of the English language as an indispensable tool for her 164   students to gain access to the content instruction and succeed in their academic life in the US schools. While describing her language learning experiences, Zoe compared her experiences with her students’ English learning experiences. She remarked that “learning a foreign language is so much different than learning and having an L2, being fluent, and being expected to succeed in that language because you have to … L2 learning is so much of a priority” (Zoe, Interview 1). In other words, she went back to her own language learning experiences to use as a basis or “interpretive frame” (Olsen, 2010) to understand her students’ needs. Moreover, Zoe’s teacher learning experiences in her Intercultural Communication course were influential on her building a perspective and identity as an ESOL teacher who would be working with culturally and linguistically diverse ELLs. In her Reflective Paper assignment for this course, she made explicit her growing awareness about her future role as an ESOL teacher to help her ELLs preserve their L1 linguistic capacities to maintain their cultural connections. Ensuring that my students feel that their L1 is important, valuable, and a central part of their identity is a major component in how they can be successful in learning English. Knowing that their native language is appreciated can foster a positive reception to learning Standard American English as their L2. Stockman’s main argument is that speaking African American English, or any other language, is not some sort of deficit that the students come into the classroom with. Their language is different than the language used to instruct them, but it does not mean that one is better than the other. Making sure my students know that I respect and value their language is important to me because it is a way to show them that I care about their individual stories. I can show my students the value I place in them by letting them teach me about their culture and language. By 165   taking the time to show them that they can teach me as well, a mutual respect of communication can occur. (Zoe, Reflective Paper, Intercultural Communication) This course, which Zoe took the summer before starting her teaching practicum contributed to her awareness about how an ESOL teacher should acknowledge and respect ELLs’ cultures and languages in order to promote their L2 learning endeavors in the US classrooms. She incorporated this awareness and sensitivity in her image of an effective ESOL teacher she imagined herself becoming. In her conceptualization, a successful member of the ESOL teaching community should make her students feel recognized and accepted in her classes by stripping herself of the deficit model and approaching and valuing all languages equally. By laying out this conceptualization in her class paper, she actually shared an emerging aspect of her fledgling ESOL teacher identity. Zoe and other members of the IMP cohort also took ELL Teaching Methodology the summer before they began their teaching practicum in Fall 2012. In this class, an online discussion revolving around second language learning theories encouraged Zoe to start thinking more specifically about her future ELLs’ language learning processes. Relying primarily on her own language learning experiences, she took on the position of an ESOL teacher who attempted to theorize about these processes. In doing so, she externalized her emerging “implicit theories” (Peercy, 2012) about how second languages are learned, which molded the “interpretive frame” (Olsen, 2010) she brought into the IMP. One of the aspects of language learning that Zoe tentatively found significant was the age of learner: I believe that age is an important component with language acquisition. Not that there is a certain age where language has to be learned or the window of opportunity has closed for the individual. It has more to do with laying the foundation and framework for 166   acquisition abilities. When young children are learning the basics in reading, math, writing, etc. this forms the basis of what they will learn in the future. They build on that early knowledge. If learning the basics in specific content areas correlates to higher proficiency in those areas in the child’s future, it seems like this could apply to learning an L2. If teachers and parents are able to give the child L2 exposure and support at an early age, I would assume it would lead to fluency in the L2. (Zoe, Online Discussion, ELL Teaching Methodology) This online discussion prompted and stimulated Zoe to begin deliberating on the ways in which her future ELLs would go through L2 learning processes. This particular comment focused on one of the controversial issues in L2 learning: age of acquisition. While making this comment, she considered her potential students who would be learning English at various ages with varying degrees of exposure to their home languages. Her prevailing “lay theory” (Sugrue, 1997) in this comment centered on the importance or positive contribution of early L2 exposure and support, which would form and inform her pedagogical lens to understand her students’ language learning. Through her participation in this discussion by actively providing this comment, she made this “lay theory” (Sugrue, 1997) explicit to herself and started crafting a more nuanced self-knowledge (Hamachek, 1999) of a budding teacher. Through her participation in the ELL Teaching Methodology class and potentially others, Zoe started engaging in the construction of her “practically-oriented personalized” knowledge (Borg, 2003, p. 81) on which she drew when assessing her ELLs. This example illustrates how Zoe’s emergent teacher “identity manifests as a tendency to come up with certain interpretations, to engage in certain actions, to make certain choices, to value certain experiences” (Wenger, 1998, p. 153). 167   As another focal participant in this study, Elizabeth’s participation in an online discussion also illustrates how she took on an ESOL professional’s perspective. She took the Intercultural Communication course, a required IMP course, in July 2012. As part of the requirements in this course, TCs engaged in many online discussion board conversations in which they shared their responses to prompts or questions about the weekly readings. In one of those conversations which was about parental involvement in ELLs’ education, Elizabeth imagined herself in the position of an ELL teacher, and took into account not only ELLs’ parents’ expectations but also the students’ own goals when it came to presenting the content to ELLs. It is important to understand the expectations parents place on their children, and as ELL teachers we must strive to make content accessible, dependent on their previous education, so that these expectations are reached. It is also important to understand what the students themselves hope to achieve in school and beyond. (Elizabeth, Online Discussion, Intercultural Communication) In this example, Elizabeth highlighted the significance of parents’ academic expectations for their children, ELLs’ prior educational background, and ELLs’ own academic goals, and she related those to her teaching responsibility, namely, “making content accessible” to ELLs. The online class discussion seemed to lead her to externalize her feelings and thoughts about parental involvement and what she believed ELL teachers “must” do. Thereby, she reaffirmed her critical role as an ESOL teacher in helping ELLs reach their parents’ expectations. She approached the matter from an ESOL teacher’s perspective as is evident from her evaluation of parents’ expectations and ELLs’ goals in relationship to her teacher role. This externalization allowed her to see what she prioritized or valued in her instruction which emerged from her beliefs and feelings about teaching ELLs. 168   In another discussion in the same course, Elizabeth talked about grappling with how to become the sort of teacher she envisioned or aspired to: As a perfectionist, I constantly have to assess my standards for myself and those I place on others, particularly my students, with whom I want to develop warm and encouraging relationships, not strict, unyielding ones. (Elizabeth, Online Discussion, Intercultural Communication) In this reflection, Elizabeth was cognizant of the impact of a personal trait, being a perfectionist in this case, upon her approach as an ESOL teacher. It is quite interesting to see in this comment that her approach to standards is inseparable from what kind of a teacher she wants to become. This echoes Peercy’s (2012) main finding that preservice teachers’ identity plays a determining role in the ways they make sense of their coursework. Online class discussions provided one forum for Elizabeth to negotiate her identity as a teacher and externalize her vision of herself as an ESOL professional. Moreover, Elizabeth conceived language learning and teaching theories she learned in her coursework as a buttress for her self-image as a “strategic” and “reflective” ESOL teacher. In a graduate program, I’m reflecting on theory and how you teach and how you learn a language … The theory is so useful in terms of supporting how I’m gonna do something and being more strategic or reflective about how I’m gonna do it but I think the classes, some of them have been excellent, … in a way that we could take what we were doing in class directly to what we were doing in our student teaching (Elizabeth, Interview 1). In the IMP, Elizabeth was afforded opportunities to “reflect on theory” by taking on her ESOL teacher perspective, that is, by bringing to bear her perspective as an ESOL teacher to questions about teaching that arose in her coursework and practicum settings. Her teacher education 169   coursework was conducive to her growth as an ESOL teacher because it introduced her to theories that allowed her to “strategize” her teaching behavior (Hoffman-Kipp, 2003, p. 251) by relying on her growing theoretical knowledge. In other words, as she learned more about second language teaching and learning theory, reflected on it, and used it to inform her practice, she approached instructional situations from an ESOL teacher perspective and felt more like a strategic and reflective ESOL teacher. This coheres with Urzúa & Vàsquez’s (2008) finding that teachers’ “perspective taking” when reflecting on their future teaching practice is an instance of teacher identity formation (p. 1943). In another instance, when Elizabeth was comparing her approach to teaching before she entered the IMP to her teaching during her time in the IMP, she underscored the contribution of pedagogical knowledge presented in the IMP coursework to her confidence as an ESOL teacher. I was very critical of myself. I think now I’m getting, I feel much more confident about what the theory is so that I feel like I’m doing more of the right thing in terms of pedagogically speaking like I’m doing the right things in class. (Elizabeth, Interview 1) Due to her growing pedagogical knowledge from her coursework, Elizabeth could negotiate her teaching identity in light of knowledge gained from her coursework. She could use this knowledge to reevaluate her teaching and feel like an ESOL teacher “doing the right things” in her teaching setting. In turn, this process of self-examination boosted her confidence level and bolstered her budding teacher identity. Additionally, Elizabeth’s ESOL teacher perspective was promoted in one of the coursework assignments for Intercultural Communication. When she was required to critically discuss how she could incorporate intercultural communication into her teaching, she found a space to articulate and project her prospective ESOL teacher identity. 170   As an ESOL teacher I will probably take on many different roles within the school environment. I will act as a resource for content-area teachers and may even be called on to serve as a liaison to bridge the gap between monolingual Spanish-speaking parents/guardians and monolingual English-speaking teachers. Primarily I see my future role as a welcoming guide for newcomer immigrants as well as a support system for students whose home language or native language is not English. In all of these roles I will need to be cognizant of my own cultural patterns and how they may or may not conflict with the cultural patterns and expectations of my culturally diverse students and their families. (Elizabeth, Intercultural Communication in the Classroom, Intercultural Communication) Pertinent to the course content, she portrayed her teaching identity as including close relationships with content area teachers and parents, guiding and supporting ELLs in the academic environment, and being aware of the impact of her own cultural identity on her teaching. Through this assignment, she had the opportunity to depict the characteristics of her imagined identity (Fettes, 2005) as an ESOL teacher equipped with intercultural competence. There were also similar instances of perspective building in Leslie’s case. Her comments in an online discussion board conversation exhibit how teacher education courses helped her to take on and build an ESOL teacher perspective. The IMP cohort took the ELL Teaching Methodology course in an online format, and one of the online discussion threads was lesson plan modification. Teacher candidates were asked to share a lesson plan and make modifications to it based upon their peers’ comments. Leslie prepared an ESOL social studies lesson on the workings of the US government for an intermediate to advanced group of 11th and 12th grade ELL students. Comments and questions from other TCs on her lesson plan led her to reconsider 171   and revise her lesson. In this reconsideration and revision process, she positioned herself as an ESOL teacher as she responded to comments and questions. For instance, as a response to a question about her grouping method, she remarked: I was hoping to have at least “one expert” per group that would know about a countries [sic] specific election cycle. However as you pointed out it might be limiting to the conversation only compare the US and one other country. Maybe a more evolved thought organizer would be a better match. (Leslie, Online Discussion, ELL Teaching Methodology) Leslie first shared the assumption she made as an ESOL teacher about the expected members of each group in her lesson. Then, she reflected on her activity and reevaluated the appropriateness of her grouping. Thanks to her peer’s comment (“I was just wondering if there was a particular reason for choosing a Venn diagram to organize the information. I think that might be limiting in terms of the number of countries that the students would compare”), she could put more thought into challenges she might encounter in the implementation of the lesson plan through a teacher’s lens. She finally came up with an alternative to address the issue: “a more evolved thought organizer,” so this brief professional interaction with a peer in this online platform afforded her an opportunity to try out or road test a teacher’s perspective and negotiate her teacher identity. Furthermore, Leslie’s response to another question about her lesson plan draft illustrates how the discussion board component of the ELL Teaching Methodology course led her to externalize an ESOL teacher’s perspective which reflected her imagination of herself as an ESOL teacher. She responded to another TC’s question about her lesson plan (“What kind of scaffolding would you provide to help the students with the mock debates and the writing assignment?”) by commenting: 172   I was hoping to introduce the writing assignment at the beginning and encourage students to take notes throughout the lessons. Maybe some prompting questions in each lesson to brainstorm and build ideas for the later essay would help too. As for the debates, you are so right that it is very culturally embedded to debate one another. I would need to scaffold debating beyond just showing the videos of presidential debates. I would like to model the debate with another teacher and slowly introduce the concept over the year in advance of this lesson. I believe this would have to be a lesson later on in the year due to the high expectation for participation and mutual respect required to debate one another. (Leslie, Online Discussion, ELL Teaching Methodology) The question from Leslie’s peer led her to reflect on her planned lesson from an ESOL teacher’s framework. She put herself in the position of an ESOL teacher and addressed the question imagining herself actually executing the lesson plan and considering her students’ specific needs. Her reflection reveals certain priorities she has as an ESOL teacher, namely, scaffolding, modeling and respect among students. These priorities demonstrate what sort of teacher identity Leslie was constructing, because identity drives our interpretations, actions, choices, and experiences (Wenger, 1998). In addition, one of the assignments in the Intercultural Communication course, an assignment called a Grounded Theories Paper, encouraged Leslie to delineate her vision of an effective ESOL teacher. Through this delineation, she externalized her beliefs about teaching ESOL and negotiated the teaching identity that she envisioned for herself. Being a good teacher is not only about method, it is about the human component, the language and culture in the classroom. For teachers there is much to consider when teaching English language learners. One of the most important adjustments a teacher can 173   make to support her students is to encourage her students’ first culture (C1) and first language (L1) … In the past, teachers taught to the idea of a United States mainstream assimilationist culture. I believe that this type of teaching does not benefit students as it can hurt the students’ C1 identities … Teachers should also encourage a strong command over L1 to enhance students L2 literacy. (Leslie, Grounded Theories Paper, Intercultural Communication) Leslie explicated her conception of effective ESOL teaching which must include supporting students’ identities associated with home culture and first language and utilizing their background as a base for their new learning experiences. This assignment functioned as an effective instrument for Leslie to make her beliefs explicit to herself by examining her teaching practice, taking on the position and perspective of an ESOL teacher, and reaffirming her emerging identity. In an assignment for another course, the ELL Teaching Methodology course, Leslie was required to express her personalized theories about second language learning. These theories were the outcome of the interaction between what she brought to the IMP and what she was introduced there. For instance, she felt that fluency is hard to acquire, language learners’ background and motivation determine their success, and teaching English through content is the best approach. Becoming truly fluent in a language, unable to be distinguished from a native speaker is very difficult to acquire. There are so many nuances in a language including idioms, irregular verbs and sentence structure that it is for many an unreachable standard … Some people seem to have an easier time learning languages and some individuals find certain languages easier to learn than others. If the language learner has a strong 174   background, including reading and writing skills in their native language(s), a supportive home life, emotionally and linguistically, desire to learn the language and take part in the culture will all help the student learn L2 … I would argue that content-based teaching is a great way to teach language in a classroom. Integrating materials from other classes or aspects of the students’ lives is helpful. Focusing entirely on any one method, such as audio recordings or drills, does not help students learn a new language. (Leslie, Informal Theories, ELL Teaching Methodology) These informal theories constituted Leslie’s “interpretive frame” and explicitly discussing these theories was important in supporting her “in the act of becoming” an ESOL professional (Olsen, 2010, p. 47) and developing different dimensions of this identity (Ronfeldt & Grossman, 2008). Leslie noted in the introduction to this assignment: “I am excited to learn more and deepen my TESOL knowledge and experience.” This note implies that she described these theories as a teacher in the making who was eager to have more knowledge and experience in TESOL. Then, she expounded on how second languages are learned by taking on the position and perspective of an ESOL teacher. Lastly, evidence that Zoe, Elizabeth, and Leslie’s ESOL teacher perspectives were bolstered in the Elementary ESOL Literacy course that all members of the IMP cohort took when they were placed in elementary school settings for the first phase of their teaching practicum. As part of the course assignments, they selected a multicultural children’s book which could be one that they already used or they were planning to use with their elementary students in the practicum. Then they demonstrated at least one reading strategy while reading aloud their children’s books in the class and they had a brief discussion with their peers afterwards regarding 175   how they utilized the reading strategies. They paused to zero in on certain target vocabulary items and ask questions about the pictures. In the class I observed, Zoe was presenting her children’s book (The Skin You Live in by Michael Tyler), which she had read with ESOL level 1 and 2 students the previous week. Yet she noted that this book would be more appropriate for higher levels, because she read it with ESOL level 3 and 4 students who understood it fairly well. She also evaluated the book in terms of its instructional features vocabulary, punctuation, and illustrations. Then, she read it aloud and showed the pictures to her peers as though they were her elementary students. She had selected a focus on particular vocabulary words (e.g., beam, frightening, cringe) while reading, so she paused, tried to elicit the meaning from the students, and then provided an explanation. In addition to reading aloud, she also used questioning as a technique to keep students engaged: Zoe: Look at the family picture, what are the differences? Ss: Different hair. Different skin. Different eyes. Zoe continues reading Zoe: (for a picture with a pumpkin) What season do you think this is? Ss: Fall Zoe: How do you know? Ss: Pumpkin. Zoe: Yes. Zoe continues reading Zoe: (for a picture with kids) What are they doing? Ss: Smiling. Zoe continues reading. 176   Zoe: (after reading the text on a page) What did you think about the words on this page? Ss: they are rhymed. Opposites. Zoe continues reading Zoe: (For other two pages) What do you see on those pages? Ss: Violin. Painting tools. Zoe: What else do you see? Ss: Having fun together. Zoe: (She points to a wheel chair.) Do you know what this is? Ss: A wheel chair. Zoe: A wheel chair. Why do you think people have a wheel chair? S: She has a disability. Zoe: She could have broken leg for short time or long time, we’re not sure.” Zoe continues reading Zoe: This is the end of the story. I just wanna ask you guys a question. The author says we are special, different and just the same, too. What do you think he means when he says that? It is kind of confusing because he is using opposite words. He says we’re different and the same. What do you think he means when he says that? (Zoe, Micro Teaching, Elementary ESOL Literacy) Zoe shared the answers she highlighted in her class when reading this children book with two first graders: “One child spoke Vietnamese, one child spoke Arabic, one was a boy, one was a girl, but they are in the same class, they had the same teacher.” Then, she shared an answer that came from a student: “a student who is Vietnamese, she said, they are the same because they are 177   both learning English. It melted my heart, [Zoe smiling], because it is not what I was using it for.” This read-aloud activity afforded Zoe with a venue not only to practice reading strategies introduced in the Elementary ESOL Literacy course and receive feedback, but also to share her teaching experiences reading a book with her students at different ages and proficiency levels. Both practicing the read-aloud and sharing her experiences encouraged her to take on the position of an ESOL teacher who actively engaged in reasoning, justifying, decision making, and theorizing (Johnson, 1999; Golombek, 2000) regarding her students’ English comprehension and learning through reading aloud. Moreover, the remarkable response she received from her Vietnamese student evoked her emotions and gave her an experience with the “emotional contours” (Little, 1996) she, as an ESOL teacher, would be experiencing when she had such unexpected responses from her students. This activity gave her a space to evaluate this response from an ESOL teacher’s perspective and experiment with the “emotional rule3” (Zembylas, 2002, 2003) for this perspective. 4.2.2. Professional Interaction in Coursework Except for their Teacher Research and Capstone courses, ESOL TCs who are enrolled in the IMP take all their classes together as a cohort for 13 months. Some TCs also are placed in the same schools for their teaching practica. Their shared experiences contributed to a collective identity as a cohort, and as part of their professional interaction, they frequently shared ideas and resources and assisted one another when needed (e.g., arranging observations for their peers in their schools). In an interview Leslie described this close-knit group of teacher-learners who were cognizant of the need for supportive relationships. She articulated that their group identity                                                              3 “Emotional rules delineate a zone within which certain emotions are permitted and others are not permitted, and these rules can be obeyed or broken, at varying costs.” (Zembylas, 2002, p. 200)   178   as a cohort also contributed to their individual identity formation because she felt comfortable and confident relying on her cohort’s support in the classroom community throughout the coursework. we had a team, … we had been in classes together, worked together, knew each other really well, we're less shy about sharing our opinion, and ... we've been in so many classes together, … I mean, sometimes in a class you need to get to know people and then share your opinion, but for us having that cohort really gives you that confidence, ‘cause you know that half the class is gonna like you anyway no matter what you say. (Leslie, Interview 2) Thanks to team spirit in her cohort, Leslie was very comfortable expressing her opinions and sharing her ideas and experiences in the context of her teacher education courses. In return, when she actively participated in the activities or engaged in the practices of the teacher education classroom community, she was able to contribute to the professional interaction that was created and sustained in the social space of the classroom. In this respect, coursework played a significant role in creating a social setting for TCs to engage in professional exchanges. This finding echoes Singh and Richards (2006) who emphasized that “one of the most obvious benefits of attending an LTE [language teacher education] course is not what the instructors say, but conversations and networking with other teachers, an opportunity that many teachers say they have little time for in their professional lives” (p. 164). Through those professional conversations, ESOL TCs’ existing and evolving beliefs and feelings about serving ELLs that undergirded their self-identification interacted with others’ beliefs and feelings, as well as theories presented through course content. This interaction was one of the primary spaces for their identity negotiation. Furthermore, their professional conversations provided them with 179   opportunities to negotiate and experiment with possible identity options opened up in their teacher education classroom settings. This negotiation and experimentation bolstered their developing self-images as ESOL teachers who could take part in professional conversations with their colleagues. That is, as they participate in course discussions about the topics pertaining to teaching ELLs in their teacher education classes, they reflect beliefs, values, and interpretations of an ESOL teacher they envision becoming and thus, take on and road-test their emerging teacher identities. Teacher education coursework supplied TCs with certain content to discuss, question, and build upon. ESOL TCs were expected to bring in their experiences as a learner or teacher, or their questions to contribute to discussion or initiate new ones. These discussions usually turned out to be venues for TCs to externalize their own beliefs about teaching, challenge and internalize the theoretical course content, make meaning out of it, and benefit from their peers as resources. Through their participation in such venues, teacher learners not only started engaging in collaborative professional learning activities, but were also socialized into a professional community. This contributed to the focal participants’ construction of their identities as teachers by giving them the opportunity to become “apprenticed” into ESOL community membership (Morita, 2000) by externalizing, negotiating, experimenting, and framing their vision of themselves as ESOL teachers. For instance, Zoe explicated how she was exposed to other teacher learners’ professional knowledge when she took part in the class discussions in which she felt and called herself as a teacher. She pointed out that: the discussions are more about your experiences as a teacher, like ‘oh here is an example of what I've seen or what I did in my internship and how that connects to what we're learning, oh I could have really done this better, I wish I'd done this, this and this, now 180   that I know this information,’ ... They help me feel more like a teacher, and you learn a lot hearing other people talk about their experience, ‘oh I need to take this idea down and that’s a really good idea for science plan for 4th graders,’ or interaction helps you, almost everyone else in the class is a teacher or in teacher preparation as well so it does help me feel more prepared and more like a teacher. (Zoe, Interview 1) Zoe’s comments illustrate that she assumed the position of a teacher during these class discussions and continually renegotiated and reconstructed her identity as an ESOL teacher when she was introduced to a new teaching idea in the professional interactions with other TCs. She made use of the collaborative professional interactions which were constructed and maintained in her teacher education courses through whole class and small group discussions and team assignments as well as online discussion opportunities. Through her participation in conversations revolving around the issues of teaching ELLs, Zoe came “to validate [her] own knowledge and beliefs or reshape them through dialog with others” (Singh & Richards, 2006, p. 165). Therefore, relying on Lave and Wenger’s (1991) notions of “community of practice” and “legitimate peripheral participation,” the teacher education courses were conducive to TCs’ identity formation by providing an environment for their professional exchanges. Their membership as apprentices or “legitimate peripheral participants” in the ESOL community was bolstered through their professional interactions with other TCs in their coursework. In the “social space” of teacher education course rooms, they took on and road-tested varying visions of themselves as teachers (Singh & Richards, 2009). Through discursive interactions in their teacher education course discussions, TCs also acquired the discursive tools (Hedgcock, 2009) which were required for their engagement in the activities or practices of the ESOL community (Wenger, 1998). During such discussions, as Zoe explicitly noted, she conceived herself more as 181   a teacher rather than a graduate student who was taking classes to complete the degree and become a teacher. However, as is evident in Zoe’s remarks below, she was also aware of the clash or confrontation between her inner self-image as a teacher and her institutionally designated label as TC. Although Zoe conceived herself as an ESOL teacher when interacting with other TCs in teacher education classes, she remembered the fact that in technical terms, she was still an intern. She remarked: “I call myself a teacher even though part of me feels guilty about saying that because I’m interning and I’m not technically a teacher yet, but I feel it, I feel like I am” (Zoe, Interview 1). Her self-identification, feeling herself like a teacher, needed to be complemented by the recognition of others in the professional community, “being seen as a teacher” (Coldron & Smith, 1999). She was aware of the fact that she had not yet been granted formal and social legitimation in the professional community since she was still a TC in the IMP. Zoe’s transition from being a graduate student to being an ESOL teacher was in progress, not yet completed (Danielewicz, 2001), which meant that she was actively engaging in a process of identity construction through and thanks to her experiences in the IMP. 4.2.3. Value of Practicum in Coursework In addition to the benefits afforded by the faster completion of the degree, ESOL TCs are attracted to the IMP because it provides TCs with the opportunity to complete their Masters in Education degree and K-12 ESOL certification requirements in conjunction with a yearlong practicum in elementary and secondary settings. This simultaneous coursework and teaching internship experience is intended to create opportunities for TCs to foster and sustain a symbiotic, “dialogical, ongoing, cyclical, catalytic relationship” between the theoretical and practical sides of teaching (Sharkey, 2009), which mutually inform each other. This simultaneity is expected to provide more opportunities for TCs to carefully examine their teaching practice 182   which entails continuous reflection (Golombek, 2000). TCs are offered spaces to reflect on their daily teaching, assisting or co-teaching with their mentor teachers and observing experienced teachers’ lessons. Their reflective processes are facilitated through their concurrent access to school settings through their practicum, and educational theories through their teacher education coursework. As TCs theorize their teaching practice, they construct their “practically-oriented personalized” knowledge (Borg, 2003, p. 81) about working with ELL students. Building upon this knowledge, they negotiate and frame their teacher identities by making certain interpretations, making certain decisions, taking certain actions, and valuing certain experiences (Wenger, 1998). In other words, as they make sense of theories that inform their practice, they also actually engage in identity negotiation and construction. Zoe, Elizabeth, and Leslie’s engagement in the practice of teaching through their practicum experiences afforded them with “certain experiences of participation” and what their “communities pay attention to” molded them as participants (Wenger, 1998, p. 150). The professors, TCs in the other two MATESOL tracks, and world language TCs paid attention to the public school experiences of the TCs in the IMP because of their yearlong simultaneous teaching practicum. Teacher education classrooms constituted an arena for the TCs (Mantero, 2004) or a social space (Singh & Richards, 2006) in which they gained knowledge of and for the teaching profession and took on the identities made available in the course room context. Their evolving self-conception as prospective ESOL teachers was partially shaped by the way they participated in the activities in this arena considering its particular rules and their participation is warranted, allowed, encouraged, or restricted by the other occupants of the arena. In one of the sessions of the course entitled Special Education and TESOL that I observed, the professor explicitly ensured that every discussion group in her classes had at least 183   one TC from the IMP so that they could provide other classmates with relevant input based on their school experiences. The task was to examine an IEP (individualized education program4) protocol and answer a set of questions. For instance, while completing this task, the IMP TCs served in the role of resource to other MATESOL students and world language TCs who were not yet in school placements, and had limited or no previous US classroom experience. In this example from the data, as soon as Elizabeth’s group started discussing and asking questions about the IEP, Elizabeth was positioned as the expert. She responded to most of the questions raised by her peers, and shared relevant examples and incidents from her practicum school to better address their questions (Field notes, Teacher Ed. course, Observation 2). This instance illustrated how Elizabeth’s knowledge and experience through her teaching practicum were acknowledged and valued in the group work and she served as a resource for her peers. Elizabeth’s experience and expertise as an intern who worked with ELLs on a daily basis was known and highlighted by the members of her teacher education classroom community, which represented validation of her teaching experience from her professor and peers. This provided an atmosphere conducive to the “external definition” (Jenkins, 2008, p. 41) or social legitimation of her identity as an ESOL teacher (Coldron & Smith, 1999). That is, others’ appraisal and acknowledgement of her self-image as an ESOL teacher facilitated and complemented her self-identification because “being a teacher is a matter of being seen as a teacher by himself or herself and by others” (Coldron & Smith, 1999, p. 712). Leslie corroborated that IMP cohort members were often treated as experts in their university courses, due to their field-based learning and experiential knowledge about working with ELLs in public school contexts. She noted that thanks to their internship, she and others in                                                              4 IEP (individualized education program) refers to a program that is used to provide specific accommodations for an individual student identified as having a learning disability.  184   her cohort were treated as knowledgeable when it came to the school context, a “familiar territory” for them (Wenger, 1998, p. 152). Being positioned as an expert boosted her confidence, “I personally feel more confident when I'm in the position as an expert, I'm much shier when I'm not, when I'm not so confident ... I think being an expert in the [teacher education] class gives me confidence ... being the teacher within a classroom of teachers is very cool and rewarding. (Leslie, Interview 2) When her experience and expertise were highly valued in the teacher education classroom context, she was able to conceive herself more confidently as a teacher in a class of teachers. In the classroom as a social space, she received “validation of her [teaching and knowing] self from an external source” (Danielewicz, 2001, p. 74), in this case her peers and professor. Because of this contextual endorsement, she confidently assumed the identity of a teacher who was capable of providing necessary information about the public school context, which was going to be the workplace environment for many of her peers in the class. Through this contextual endorsement, teacher education coursework experiences contributed to Leslie’s apprenticeship into taking on the identity of an acknowledged member of ESOL professional community (Singh & Richards, 2006). Moreover, in response to a question in the second individual interview about her classroom interactions with the TCs in other language teacher education programs run by the same department as the IMP, Zoe remarked that being positioned as an expert in teacher education classes because of her experiential knowledge, bolstered her confidence as a fledgling teacher. Yet, she thought she was not able to give the most informed answers to the questions coming from her peers. 185   I was placed in a group with some of those students [the Chinese teacher program], and that helped me articulate my own experiences; therefore, helping teach other people helps you reflect and conceptualize your own experiences. … I would say that’s really good … when others would view us as these experts, “how is like in high school or how is it like in the elementary and what do they do? What are the strategies that you use?” It was nice because you get this confidence about yourself as being a teacher even though we were still in our internships, but you also feel a little ridiculous because you feel like an impostor. At least I did. I was like ‘I’m not a full teacher yet, I’ve only taken over 50 percent of the load, and clearly that’s not 100 percent. That is drastically different than taking over everything’. … Sometimes I felt like I shouldn’t be the one giving advice. People were always really sweet about it, and it was nice to feel like they wanted your opinion and that they were asking for your knowledge. … but sometimes I would walk away feeling a little guilty, like I probably gave them some really – not naïve, but I don’t have all the knowledge to give that answer. I didn’t feel like I was giving very informed answers a lot of the time. It was cool, but it was also kind of strange. (Zoe, Interview 2) Thanks to her practicum experiences, like the other TCs in the IMP, Zoe was treated like an expert of elementary and secondary school settings in her teacher education classes. This was evident in the fact that she was consulted about teaching in public schools through questions from other TCs who were not yet in school practicum placements. Being consulted and positioned as an expert in the coursework bolstered her reflective processes and self-esteem. Through this classroom experience, Zoe received social “legitimacy” (Wenger, 1998) for her identity as an ESOL teacher. However, it is also intriguing that although she found this positioning conducive to conceptualizing her teaching, she felt “guilty” or “ridiculous” or “like 186   an impostor” in those instances. This is because she was mindful of the fact that she was still a TC who did not have “all the knowledge” and her answers would not be so informed. Receiving recognition from the other TCs led her to reconsider her self-identification and renegotiate her emergent identity as an ESOL teacher. Her comments illustrate that she was in “a limbic stage of becoming” (Gaudelli & Ousley, 2009, p. 931), or in a transition phase during her IMP experiences from being a TC to “a full teacher.” Furthermore, Zoe’s further comments reveal that her personal view regarding the age difference between her and other TCs had been influential in this case, as well. Zoe felt “strange” when she was treated as an expert by somebody who was much older than herself. This is just for me, but some of the people asking me would be a lot older than I would be, maybe 20 years or so, and it felt strange being the younger one teaching or imparting knowledge. That’s a personal thing that I need to just get over, but that was also something I felt like you should be telling me what to do. That’s just an age thing for me. (Zoe, Interview 2) As professional spaces sustained by teacher educators and TCs, teacher education classrooms in the IMP offered opportunities for TCs to negotiate their teacher identities as they were socially positioned through professional dialogs. However, Zoe’s comment illustrates that the extent to which these dialogs impact the TCs’ identity development is somewhat contingent on their personal beliefs (Merseth, et al., 2008). Social and individual dimensions of her teacher identity both are at play in her teacher education classes by making identity development concurrently “autonomous” and “dependent” (Johnson, 2003). 187   4.3. The School-based Teaching Practicum This section of the chapter describes Zoe, Elizabeth, and Leslie’s experiences in the required school-based teaching practicum that they completed concurrently with their university- based coursework. Then, it addresses the second research question regarding the ways in which the school-based teaching practicum contributed to their identity development. Zoe, Elizabeth, and Leslie had a yearlong teaching practicum experience which was comprised of two different placements, one semester in an elementary setting, and one semester in a secondary setting. When the three participants were recruited for the current research project, they had completed their elementary internship and had just started their secondary school teaching internship. Therefore, in their first interviews they referred to their memories about their experiences in elementary settings. In their second interviews, the participants drew upon experiences from both their elementary and secondary placements. Study participants completed their teaching practicum in an elementary setting during Fall 2012 and in a secondary setting in Spring 2013. This variety of practicum sites gave them the opportunity to experience classroom and school dynamics in different educational milieus (Beck & Kosnik, 2002; Butt, 1994; Darling-Hammond, Wise, & Klein, 1995). In both settings, teacher candidates were required to be present in the school full time, and work under their mentor’s supervision. Once the teachers felt comfortable teaching in that setting, the university supervisor arranged at least four class observations with each of the teacher candidates. After each observation, the supervisor provided the interns with his feedback and comments about their teaching in the observed lessons, occasionally in the presence of their mentors. In these post-lesson debriefings, he and the TCs discussed their internship experiences in the school. Building upon findings from previous research about teacher identity which show the importance of field experiences in TEPs for TCs’ identity development through sustained 188   learning-in-practice (Kanno & Stuart, 2011), resolution of contradictions (Dang, 2012), responses to conflicts and discrepancies between perceptions and realities (Gaudelli & Ousley, 2009), taking on, resisting or rejecting identity positions (Trent, 2010), the findings from this study demonstrate that the following three factors had a significant impact on the teacher identity development of Zoe, Elizabeth, and Leslie: (a) their mentors’ sharing power and ownership of the class helped the TCs see themselves as teachers, (b) having a work space legitimized the TCs’ presence as teachers in the school setting, and (c) the TCs emotional experiences during teaching practicum led them to negotiate and road-test their emerging teacher identities. 4.3.1. Sharing Power and Ownership As indispensable and highly crucial actors in preservice teachers’ practicum experiences, mentors are known to exert one of the strongest influences on the growth of preservice teachers during their field-based experiences (Calderhead, 1996; Farrell, 2009; Furlong & Maynard, 1995; O’Brian, Stoner, Appel, & House, 2007; Roberts, Benedict, & Thomas, 2013). They are expected to provide support for preservice teachers while they are going through their transformation into a professional and being accepted into the new professional community (Malderez, 2009), although there is significant variance in how they carry out their roles (Wang & Odell, 2002) and no guarantee that mentors facilitate TCs’ apprenticeship and socialization. The IMP formally appointed Zoe, Elizabeth, and Leslie to mentors in elementary and secondary public school teaching settings who worked in coordination with the university supervisor. All three TCs asserted that their mentors played a vital role in their learning-in- practice while working with ELL students, as well as in their immersion into the school community. A key factor in the importance of the mentor’s role was related to the extent to which mentors shared authority or power in and ownership of their classes. For example, Zoe noted how her mentors in her elementary and secondary placements shared their teacher power 189   and authority. Her elementary mentor assured her that she had absolute power in terms of setting up her rules and her high school mentor stated to the class that Zoe was the holder of half the instructional power in the classes. My elementary [mentor] teacher said ‘your class, your rules’ … I had total freedom with I was doing with the kids. I could do my own units, my own lessons, themes, I would ask her for advice, like ‘what did you think of that? Can you tell me what I could’ve done better,’ but I mean, I really had absolute freedom for what I wanted to implement in the class. (Zoe, Interview 1) Similarly, in Zoe’s high school placement, her mentor introduced her to the class as another teacher in charge, and shared her power and authority with Zoe in front of the students. When my mentor introduced me to the class formally [in the high school], ‘Ms. Zoe is here and she is now 50% of your grade, she’s gonna be, she has just as much as power as I do, so be nice to her, make sure you’re doing good work, coz while I’m in the front, she may be over here or in the back, so there is two pairs of eyes in here now,’ and she gives me that power right away, ‘she’ll be grading, she’ll be watching, she’ll be helping’ … I feel like I get to take more ownership of the class. (Zoe, Interview 1) Zoe’s remarks illustrate that she received recognition from her mentor teachers, which facilitated her being acknowledged as a teacher by the students. Her mentors in both settings endorsed and validated her presence in the classroom as an authority figure who was capable of establishing and enforcing rules. Through that introduction, her mentor affirmed Zoe’s identity as an ESOL teacher in an actual teaching context. Zoe felt empowered through having her mentors’ validation at the outset of her teaching placements. This experience proved particularly important for her subsequent learning-in-practice experiences (Kanno & Stuart, 2011) throughout the 190   internship as well as her self-identification as an ESOL teacher. She had the space to negotiate and enact her teacher identity in her teaching practice. Since she had the freedom, power and ownership of the class, she appeared to feel more comfortable making instructional decisions, and experimenting with new teaching ideas when executing her lessons, which in turn supported and reinforced her self-image as an ESOL teacher successfully working with ELLs. Elizabeth shared a very similar experience that she had in her high school student teaching placement. As the power figure in the classroom, her mentor explicitly conveyed the message to the classroom community that Elizabeth should be recognized as someone who was in charge as a teacher. Elizabeth recounted:   . . . making sure that students saw me as an authority figure, she really helped me in that respect … making sure that students know that I’m in charge here, that your actions do have consequences when you're not paying attention, if you’re acting out, I’m here to set limits, I’m not just here as an assistant, I’m here as a teacher, and I will enforce things, I guess, behavioral issues, I mean she definitely gave me the kids. (Elizabeth, Interview 2) Elizabeth remarked that she was granted the status and authority by the mentor to be able to set the limits and enforce the rules in the classroom. Her mentor overtly emphasized Elizabeth’s legitimate position as a teacher who could make her own instructional decisions and implement them in her classes. This bolstered and encouraged her to envision herself as a teacher in charge in the class. Also, Elizabeth’s comment that her mentor “gave [her] the kids” exhibited that the collaborating teacher with whom she worked shared her ownership of the class and students with Elizabeth. This located and legitimized Elizabeth’s presence and participation as a teacher in this classroom community and in the broader school culture (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Sfard, 1998; Wenger, 1998). Elizabeth was thus regarded by the mentor and presented to students as an actual 191   participant of the practice of teaching executed in the classroom. Genuinely “owning” her students corroborated her vision, self-conception, and imagination of herself as a teacher, which facilitated her aspiration and adoption of a teaching identity. In these two examples, Zoe’s and Elizabeth’s mentor teachers relinquished their solely vested position in their classrooms, which facilitated preservice teachers’ development of their own classroom personas (Anderson, 2007) so that they did not see themselves in a subordinate position, as less than a real teacher due to their lack of classroom experience or institutionally endorsed teaching position. Thereby, their mentors did not allow the students to see any hierarchical relationship between them and their interns (Beck & Kosnik, 2002). The interns were also assigned as bearers of authority and power in the classroom. In their investigation of the components of a successful practicum for prospective teachers, Beck and Kosnik (2002) found that aspiring teachers desire to be viewed, respected, and treated as teachers or colleagues in their practicum sites because being “in the role of a real teacher” can help their professional growth (p. 88). This positioning is essential for TCs’ “normal functioning in the classroom” (p. 88) as part of the classroom community. The TCs could thus have “the freedom to put [their] own stamp on the class, to develop [their] own style when they are viewed as “an equal with the teacher” and “considered to be a teacher by the class” (Beck & Kosnik, 2002, p. 88). They had the space to “feel, act and think like a teacher” (Roberts, et al., 2013) because their mentors legitimized their presence in the classroom and in the eyes of students (Boz & Boz, 2007). The fact that mentors shared their classroom power and ownership of their students with their interns is conducive to the latter’s identity building. Identity emerges as a collection of “what we think or say about ourselves,….what others think or say about us,…and a lived experience of participation in specific communities” (Wenger, 1998, p. 151). Therefore, 192   preservice teachers’ identities start forming as they see themselves as teachers and are viewed in that way by others (Coldron & Smith, 1999; Cohen, 2010) in a school context “where possibilities and constraints of the teacher’s identity in the classroom are first confronted – where relationships are directly implicated and where multiple meanings are made” (Walshaw, 2009, p. 555). The preservice teachers in this study could identify themselves as teachers and build their teaching persona when they were regarded, treated and respected as “real” teachers by their mentor and students. On the other hand, in Leslie’s case, the issue of student ownership took on a different face in her elementary placement. Ideological differences between Leslie and her mentor teacher surfaced regarding the use of new curriculum in the first and second grades and ELLs’ education in general. Although Leslie felt that her mentor completely trusted her in terms of teaching responsibilities in the classroom, allowed her to “take over the classes” and “left the room and let [her] do [her] thing,” she commented that an ideological disagreement was “a big part” of her relationship with her mentor. She explicated the disagreement which, she believed, did not “get in the way of [her] teaching:” I think my biggest challenges were using the, what I found outdated and irrelevant curriculum because I didn't find that it fulfills what I have learned about ESL. It wasn't – it was like a dissonance between what I have learned in this program and what I was being asked to practice. … We were not using the WiDA5 standards to improve on the first and second grade curriculum because for [my mentor teacher] it was harder because                                                              5 WiDA stands for World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment which is “a consortium of states dedicated to the design and implementation of high standards and equitable educational opportunities for English language learners.” WiDA standards refer to the English language development standards designed by the consortium to assess K-12 ELLs’ English proficiency. For more information, refer to: http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/projects/projects.php?project_num=309     193   she was new to the curriculum and for me it wasn't harder because I didn't know any difference … though I think my mentor is great and I care about her a lot, I think we had like ideological differences but I didn't let that get in the way of my teaching… I think ideological differences between me and my mentor I think were my biggest struggle but I – she was great and my biggest advocate but yeah. (Leslie, Interview 1) When she encountered the discrepancy between learning to teach in the IMP and what was emphasized in the school setting, Leslie’s response was part of her identity negotiation. She argued that the old curriculum narrowly conceptualized the integration of ELLs’ home culture because it neglected the Spanish speaking American culture: “It was like overly simplified culture kind of and it was like worldwide culture but that didn't apply to my students … [who] haven't or don't have any real memory of being outside of the United States.” Relying on her learning in the IMP, she made an interpretation and reasoning about the importance of integrating students’ home cultures in her classes and valued the kinds of experiences ELLs could have through the new curriculum. Through this interpretation, she enacted her teaching identity when she encountered this conflict (Smagorinsky, et al., 2004; Gaudelli & Ousley, 2009) and contradiction (Dang, 2013). Whereas Leslie thought that she strategically precluded this ideological difference from getting in the way of her teaching, her further comment illustrated that her ownership of classes was closely related to her ownership (or lack thereof) of the curriculum. She noted: I feel like I would’ve had more ownership had I been able to use the WiDA with the first or second grade curriculum and teach them that way because it would’ve been a positive ownership role instead of like an – ownership role which is kind of like I was fighting 194   with the curriculum and fighting to take ownership of it when it just didn’t feel right and it wasn’t super helpful. (Leslie, Interview 1) Because of her ideology of educating ELLs, Leslie did not have the ownership of “the outdated and irrelevant” curriculum which “didn’t feel right” to her. Leslie’s “fighting with the curriculum” impeded her from being able to claim ownership of her classes. Handling this contradiction, she was negotiating her teacher identity in relation to the curriculum and her mentor’s ideology. This negotiation manifested itself when she was responding to the feedback from her supervisor who “said that [she] should bring in more culture but [she] found that hard sticking to the curriculum.” Apart from the curriculum, Leslie had an ideological divergence from her mentor about her approach to the education of ELLs in general. In her growing conceptualization regarding ELLs’ learning, Leslie placed a lot of stress on the “funds of knowledge” (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzales, 1992) that ELLs bring into the US public schools. every once in a while she would say, I think it was just to make me feel better but that the students know nothing, whatever you're doing is helping them but I don't like that perspective on students because of my beliefs about background knowledge that students bring so much to the table in all aspects of their lives and they have knowledge, whether it's something that we appreciate, whether the teachers appreciate it, whether they don't. They come with … lots of values and things, all those good things. (Leslie, Interview 1) The comments of Leslie’s mentor teacher reflect an image of an ESOL teacher who does not recognize her students’ rich background knowledge. Those comments were ideologically in conflict with the budding teacher identity that Leslie embodied at that time. This conflict constituted an incident when Leslie “mediated her [teacher] position” through her agency 195   (Sexton, 2008, p. 86) and enacted her identity “in ways that align[ed] with [her] own self- understandings” (p. 75). More specifically, encountering a different perspective contradicting her view on ELLs’ learning, Leslie enacted herself as a teacher focused on what ELLs bring to ESOL classes. 4.3.2. Having a Work Space Another important feature of Zoe, Elizabeth and Leslie’s identity formation related to the space available to them in their teaching placement settings, specifically whether they were given an office space or a designated work station in the classroom. When they had their own designated physical space as a teacher, they felt more concrete recognition and acknowledgement in the professional community, which impacted their belonging and membership to that community (Sfard, 1998; Wenger, 1998). The issue of space has not been the focus of the previous inquiries into teacher identity building during their practicum experiences. Other examinations of L2 teacher identity development during practicum experiences have focused on how TCs’ identity was impacted by learning in practice (Kanno & Stuart, 2011), conceptions of their self (Liu & Fisher, 2006), oppositional discourses (Trent, 2010), encounters with contradictions (Dang, 2013), and conflicts (Gaudelli & Ousley, 2009). Therefore, the current inquiry addresses a gap in the relevant body of literature which refers to the role of physical space in TCs’ identity formation. The issue of space emerged in the individual interviews with all three TCs. For instance, Leslie identified this issue in the school when she started her high school internship, which was mainly because of the inconsistency or disparity between her two internship placements. She became very frustrated when she did not have her own work space or when she was not treated the same as she had been in her elementary placement. She said: “having a room in elementary school made me feel like a regular staff member of that school. I had my own space. The school 196   I’m at now, I had to ask for a drawer” (Leslie, Interview 1). Not having a work station in the high school, she could not imagine herself as a regular member of the school community. This hindered her “imaginative development” as a prospective teacher because “students come to imagine teaching, and themselves as teachers, in new ways” (Fettes, 2005, p. 3) as they engage in professional activities in actual school contexts (Flores, 2001; Flores & Day, 2006). When I visited Leslie’s high school for my classroom observations, we had our post-observation meetings in different rooms, and I also realized that while planning her lessons, she was using a desk that was not her designated work station. The issue of space emerged in the second interview, as well. Leslie elucidated the problem in relation to her students. Because she was not provided a specified work space in the ESOL office, her students were not able to locate her when they needed to meet with her. Leslie did not exist in her students’ school navigation “device” and her location could be found. It was hard to get work done when you didn’t, when I didn’t have my own designated space and computer. High school, switching between two classrooms sometimes made things confusing, and hard moving with the kids through the hallways, but it was fine, I didn’t have my own computer there, either. But it also made it harder for the kids to find me, like if I’m meeting with some of them over lunch, I was sometimes worried they wouldn’t know where I would be. (Leslie, Interview 2) Leslie believed that she did not have a physical reference point and she needed a particular location in the school which was known to her students and anybody else working with her in the school community, so that she could function well in the school context. She needed people to know where she “belonged” in terms of space which would facilitate her identity as a teacher in that particular school setting. Leslie felt this would give her and others “an infrastructure for 197   imagination” of her membership to the ESOL department and to the school community (Wenger, 1998, p. 238). Thus, she would be able to imagine herself belonging to and identify with the ESOL department and school community, as a contribution of teaching practicum experiences to her self-identification as an ESOL specialist. As another illustration of the impact of work space on teacher identity, Zoe contrasted her experience with having designated work spaces in her practicum placements with what she experienced in her first full-time teaching position the fall after she completed the IMP. She noted: Having my own space at [the name of the high school] was really nice, and I didn't realize how nice it was until I don’t have it now. It’s a power symbol to the students and that’s something I don’t have right now [in the school in which I started working full time after completing the IMP], I’m a floater, so I go from classroom to classroom to classroom, I don’t have a space in each classroom, because I’m just borrowing space, and I have a cart, that’s my thing … I think [my mentor] definitely deserves a lot of credit there for giving me that power and that space in that classroom … it definitely showed the students that I had a spot in that classroom, even when I was new … I had a strong presence there, ... my name was on the desk. (Zoe, Interview 2) In these comments, Zoe appears to equate not having her own designated space as one of the crucial determinants of having less power in the school where she was employed as full-time teacher after graduating from the IMP. She underscored that having her own work station in both of her internship placements positively affected the way her students perceived and acknowledged her status and power in the classroom (Coldron & Smith, 1999; Zembylas, 2003). She “had a strong presence” in the classroom thanks to this status and power, and this helped her 198   status and relationships with students. Therefore, she attributed the increasing number of classroom management problems in her present full time job to the fact that she was a “floater” teacher (not for example to the increased number of students and no institutionalized assistance or support), which indicated the interrelation between teachers’ identity and their teaching practice. In her explanation, Zoe ascribed classroom management issues to not having her own classroom or space: The space isn’t mine. It doesn’t feel like it’s mine. I do wonder how that affects the power dynamic in the classroom because I have had more management issues than I expected. The kids respond to them, but I’m raising my voice way more than I was at [name of her high school placement]. It would happen every so often at [name of her high school placement]. This is at least once a class every single day [in my current full time teaching job]. It’s happening all the time. It could just be the beginning of the year, but I think the space really matters. … Not having a space is really hard because you’re not thinking about making the students comfortable in the classroom. All you’re thinking about is your prep time. (Zoe, Interview 2) Classroom management was one of the attributes Zoe valued as part of her implicit theories as an ESOL teacher (Peercy, 2012), so she interpreted the classroom management problems as the main consequences of her being a “floater” teacher. In other words, floating around the school was a principal constraint that restricted her self-identification as a teacher in that school, and in her interpretation, she attributed the classroom management problems she experienced. Additionally, in Elizabeth’s case, having an office space facilitated her building collegial relationships with other teachers. In her high school placement, she was given a work space or a “table” in the planning area just adjacent to her mentor’s desk and this gave her access to 199   working with other teachers in the area. In response to an interview question which queried about her work space in the practicum school, she commented: I didn’t have a spot in the classroom. I always had a spot away from the classroom. So it was just a planning area … the school has instructional rooms where teachers have their own desks. They don’t have to stay in their classroom. They can get a desk as well. So my mentor has a desk and she has a table next to her that I’m using … It was good to have my own space, for sure … in terms of working with other teachers it was helpful because I was always able to talk with the other teachers in the room. (Elizabeth, Interview 1) Her designated space was away from the classroom where she taught her ELLs. She spent most of her planning time in the instructional room because she “needed to have a lot of things prepared and all the lesson plans were always in place either one or two days in advance or a week in advance” (Interview 2). Because she had a space of her own in the planning area where other teachers were located, during her planning time, she had the opportunity to exchange ideas with the other teachers along with her mentor teacher, which helped her immerse and situate herself as a member in the professional community. Thereby, Elizabeth was able to establish and maintain her interaction with the other members of the school community, which was a significant part of her own “evolving membership” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 53). Physically this planning area and dialogically her interaction with the other teachers constituted the loci where participants of the community “share understandings concerning what they are doing and what that means in their lives and for their communities” (p. 98). Additionally, her collegial interaction could be considered as one of the contributive impacts on her membership since “Participation at multiple levels is entailed in membership in a community of practice” (p. 98). 200   Therefore, space was centrally important in the identity formation of the TCs in this study. As was evident in Zoe’s, Leslie’s, and Elizabeth’s cases, having a work space designated for them solidified their presence in the school and promoted their belonging and membership to the school community. In Zoe’s case, not having her own space directed attention to the importance of a teacher work space in reference to her students’ perception and thus the classroom dynamics. This is also pertinent to the extent to which the mentors are willing to share their power in the classroom and support the preservice teachers’ growth. Leslie’s case above indicated the importance of a work space of her own for the legitimization of her presence and her sense of belonging in the school community. Lastly, Elizabeth’s case illustrated the role of her designated work space in the instructional room in terms of working with the other teachers and immersing herself into the school community. Leslie’s, Zoe’s, and Elizabeth’s cases collectively reveal that contextual factors played a significant role in their identity formation during their teaching practicum (Flores, 2001; Flores & Day, 2006; Freeman, 2002). Whether or not they had a designated work space in the school impacted the TCs’ self-image as regular members of the professional community, with respect to their “orientation” in the school (Wenger, 1998) and their students’ perception and recognition (Coldron & Smith, 1999). The importance of space was evident in the contrast between Zoe’s experience in her practicum and in her first year teaching. Thanks to her mentors’ support, Zoe did not experience challenges or constraints with regards to having work station in both practicum contexts, but she had to grapple with this challenge in the teaching position she took after she graduated from the IMP. 4.3.3. Teacher Candidates’ Emotions and Identity In spite of the growth in the literature on factors that affect both preservice and practicing language teachers’ learning to teach, very little emphasis has been placed on the role of their emotions in the ways they learn to work with language learners. Even in the general teacher 201   education research, teachers’ emotional experiences have been neglected. The breakthrough research by Nias (1996) and Hargreaves (1998, 2001) has spearheaded the investigation of the reciprocal relationship between teachers’ emotions and their teaching practices. This research has been expanded by others with a specific emphasis on the role of emotions in teachers’ lives and identities (Benesch, 2012; Day, 2004; Hayes, 2003; Kelchtermans, 2005; Lasky, 2005; van Veen & Lasky, 2005; O’Connor, 2008; Olsen, 2010; Reio, 2005; Shapiro, 2010; Zembylas, 2003, 2005). The current study makes a contribution to the understanding of TCs’ emotions vis-à vis their teaching practice during their internship. This is an underexplored aspect of teachers’ experiences of learning to teach a second language as they develop a growing sense of who they are as teaching professionals (Hayes, 2003). Having been interns in both elementary and secondary school settings within a year, the participants in this study had opportunities to experience various emotional states and to learn how to interpret, deal with and regulate these states. For instance, Zoe was able to recognize how the variability of students’ behavior impacted her teaching, independent from her lesson preparation. She shared how her teaching experience coupled with some external assistance led her to that realization: The internship was definitely stressful because of all that was required of it … I can remember a couple of days at the elementary school where I was driving home and I was just like I can’t ever imagine doing this ever. I didn’t know if it was just elementary school because they were driving me nuts that day, but then what I remembered, [TESOL program coordinator’s name] showed us a PowerPoint of words of wisdom from the prior cohort, and they said you‘d never have two bad days in a row. I stuck that one in the back of my mind because I remember driving home one day and thinking this is awful. I’m 202   never – I can’t ever imagine doing this. I don’t know what I was thinking. Then the next day the kids were on and everything went perfectly. It went better than I could ever plan. I was reminded there aren’t two bad days in a row. (Zoe, Interview 2) Being “driven nuts” by the students, deeply impacted Zoe, to the extent that she could not envision herself teaching anymore. This emotional experience drew her attention to what she was demanded to do as a teacher and what challenges she would be encountering in the classroom. Through this emotional experience, she discerned a dissonance between what she believed her teaching should look like and what it actually looked like. Then, her experience in the following day made her believe that “you’d never have two bad days in a row.” She came to understand that her teaching skills were not the only variables or factors affecting her classroom and reconsidered what she rendered as a discordance between her “professional functioning with [her] ideals and commitments” (van Huizen, van Oers & Wubbels, 2005, p. 285). She could still be an effective teacher even if the class did not go well since the reason might be students being “on” or “off” on a given day. This example from Zoe’s experience exhibits how intertwined teacher learning, identity and emotions are (Reio, 2005).   Elizabeth’s emotional experiences during her practicum also revealed the reciprocal relationship between her identity development and the emotional states she went through while teaching and reflecting on teaching. During her internship, she had not only positive but also negative emotional states which were intertwined with her reflections on her teaching and with how she, as a perfectionist, and others evaluated her teaching. For instance, she noted in an interview: “There were good days and bad days and I think that happens to all teachers. A lesson goes really well and you’re thinking, ‘Oh that went really well. I’m so happy’” (Elizabeth, Interview 2). She drew attention to the possibility of good and bad days together in teaching 203   which, she thought, was true for any teacher, so as an emerging teacher, she seemed cognitively prepared for that nature of teaching. When asked for examples, she discussed one of her classes, which was observed by the university supervisor. Well one of my observations went really well. In my elementary placement I had planned out this lesson and it just went the way that I envisioned and I was so excited. The kids were responding. They had remembered things from the day before. It – it was just – it just moved really well and everything connected together. Yeah, it just went really, really smoothly. I was really happy with that one. (Elizabeth, Interview 2) It is noteworthy that Elizabeth gave one of her observed lessons as an example of “good days” and her happiness when teaching. The fact that the class went really well likely made her “really happy” and “so excited” for two reasons: she had success in teaching the class well, according to her standards and the university supervisor who had an evaluative role was there and observed her successful lesson. Her sense of herself as a competent teacher whose lesson went as planned was complemented by “external” recognition (Jenkins, 2008, p. 41) which came from the supervisor’s evaluation. This exemplifies the joint role of self and other in the formation of teacher identity, because becoming a teacher necessitates not only self-identification but also social legitimation from the other members of the professional community (Coldron & Smith, 1999). Secondly, as in the case of Zoe, Elizabeth underscored the salience of how her students responded to the lessons she prepared and how their responses determined, to a large degree, whether or not “everything connected together” in her lessons and all would go “really, really smoothly.” This particular practice teaching situation evoked happiness in her, which led to the emergence of her image as a good teacher. This positive emotion likely affected her confidence and enthusiasm for teaching (Hayes, 2003) because “emotional experiences register the quality 204   of a person’s participation in activity in relation to that person’s needs and motives” (van Huizen, et al., 2005, p. 273).   Elizabeth also shared negative emotions about her teaching that she had during her teaching practicum. Her frustration concerning a lesson which did not go as planned and desired led her to engage in more reflection. In an interview, she described some situations when she became frustrated: [When] something doesn’t go well and I’m thinking, “Oh, what could I have done differently or what should I have done differently?” … And then moments when I was really frustrated where I’d planned to do X, Y, Z and I got to X. Or the kids were totally off task and they just weren’t paying attention and it was hard to get them to pay attention to what I – because we needed to get through the material or not feeling prepared in terms of how to teach something in particular and then just kind of scrambling at the last minute to sort of try and get the students to understand what I was talking about, but they’re not getting it. I know they’re not getting it. It’s frustrating for them. It’s frustrating for me. (Elizabeth, Interview 2) The constraints Elizabeth depicted (e.g., covering the material in a limited period of time, drawing students’ attention, last minute preparation) are all realities of the teaching profession that any teacher candidate should anticipate encountering. They lead teachers to certain emotional states because emotional experiences stem from “teachers’ embeddedness in and interactions with their professional environment” and they meaningfully reveal their “sense making” and “what is at stake for them” (Kelchtermans, 2005, p. 996). Experiencing those varying situations during their teaching practicum and their associated feelings, and learning how to handle them is quite instrumental for TCs’ growth as teachers. That is, through their emotional 205   experiences, they can learn about the relationship between their aspirations, commitments, and functioning in the professional community (van Huizen, et al., 2005). Their emotions constitute “the means through which teachers personally interpret the demands placed upon them” (O’Connor, 2008, p. 118) and drive attention to the extent to which TCs’ teaching accord or discord with their imagined and projected self-image of themselves as teachers (Day, 2004). This happens when TCs experiment with teaching and take responsibility and ownership of actual classes during the course of teaching practicum. Zembylas (2003) asserts that teachers need to practice having various teaching-related emotions as part of their growing as teachers. It is also striking to see again how Elizabeth placed emphasis on students’ paying attention to what she planned to teach as an important factor concerning whether or not her lessons would go well as desired. In her image of a good teacher, she valued her lessons when they went as planned, but she kept in mind that students’ responses determined the degree of divergence from her valued image of teaching. This pertained to how she conceives teaching and learning, which is part of her teacher cognition (Borg, 2003) or “implicit theories” (Peercy, 2012) and influences her emotional experiences during teaching. As she experimented with her teaching skills throughout the practica in the IMP, Elizabeth had the opportunity to practice handling teaching-related emotions (Zembylas, 2003) and to see what emotional states she experienced while imagining, experimenting, negotiating, and taking on identities from the “desired repertoire” (Ronfeldt & Grossman, 2008). Her future enactments of her teacher identity will probably be further impacted by whether or not she is able to successfully cope with the emotional instructional situations. Moreover, Elizabeth’s frustration about her perceived success in the lessons led her to engage in deliberations about what she should have done to have a better class. This is not only another common practice employed by experienced teachers but also a 206   strategy to handle such emotions as frustration and stress (Woods & Carlyle, 2002). Through practice teaching, Elizabeth learned that not all of her classes would be perfectly satisfying for her and her students and she will always have to reflect on her practices to improve and handle and regulate her emotional states with respect to her instruction. This finding from the data exhibited how teachers’ cognition, emotions, reflection, and learning to teach played out in an interconnected manner when they executed their multifaceted and complex profession in equally complex ecological spheres of practice. 4.4. University-based Coursework and School-based Teaching Thus far, this chapter has presented and discussed how the university-based teacher education coursework and school-based teaching practica offered in the IMP each contributed to the way in which the three focal TCs in this study formed their teacher identities. This section of the chapter will explore the collective contribution of both teacher education coursework and the teaching practicum to Zoe’s, Elizabeth’s, and Leslie’s identity construction throughout the program, because in some instances in the data it was impossible to tease apart their interconnection. Drawing on Wenger’s (1998) theory of identity as well as the literature on teacher learning (e.g., Johnson, 2009), teacher cognition (e.g., Borg, 2003), teacher biographies (e.g., Knowles, 1992), participation in communities of practice (e.g., Varghese, 2001), and contextual factors (e.g., Flores & Day, 2006), this section will present the findings related to how the participants’ coursework and practicum together provided synergistic opportunities for identity development through guided reflection, apprenticeship into professional discourses, and opportunities to identify key aspects of their instruction.   4.4.1. Guided Reflection The IMP supplied the ESOL TCs with many opportunities to deliberate or reflect on teaching practices of others, as well as their own practices. These opportunities were manifested 207   both through formal program requirements and informal conversations with TCs’ mentor teacher or supervisor. All three focal participants articulated the indispensable role and importance of reflection. They agreed that through reflection, they gained a deeper understanding about the multifaceted realities of teaching ESOL and equipped themselves with the repertoire of refined and enhanced teaching competencies. This is echoed by McGlinn’s (2003) participants, TCs and supervisors, who suggested the “profound impact” (p. 147) of reflection on learning to teach during teaching practicum. The fact that my participants’ teaching practice experiences were accompanied and enriched with guided opportunities to engage in reflective self-assessment not only made their experiences more useful and beneficial for their growth as budding teachers but also more conducive to their ESOL teacher identity development (Alsup, 2006; Cattley, 2007; Mantero, 2004). When asked about the influence of reflection on her growth as an ESOL teacher, Leslie focused mainly on the continuous process of reflecting and others’ instrumentality in facilitating her reflective process. Although she believed she was able to see her teaching self to some extent, that is, assessing her own teaching by asking such questions as what went wrong, what went well, and what improvements are needed, she also implied that there she depended upon others’ assistance to deepen her reflection. There is always so much you can see about yourself when you’re teaching … without anyone telling you what’s going on, it’s very hard to see your entire self. There are things about yourself you can’t see, good or bad. There are questions that other people ask you that you might not be asking yourself. … having the outside opinion and view of yourself as the programs provides through its mentor teachers and through supervisors and through the dialogue that the program tries to create in general within the classwork, it 208   really helps you talk things out and figure things out. Because we would bring in our classroom experiences to our evening classes and also in our meetings with [the university’s professional development school coordinator] every other week. And I think bringing those things in and talking about them with other people, having that team of people to work with is very important. (Leslie, Interview 2) Leslie seemed to hold the idea that teachers are supposed to reflect on their own teaching all the time and she viewed reflection as an integral component of a teaching role. She valued reflection as an important practice in teaching, which emerged from the teacher image she framed for herself as a prospective ESOL professional. She also believed that she could obtain a better understanding of her own teaching through experienced others’ orientation, feedback, questioning, and comments. In other words, she benefitted from hearing others’ perspectives because she thought she could not engage in a completely valid self-assessment about her instructional skills. Guided by experienced practitioners like her mentors and supervisor, reflection helped Leslie “deepen the understanding of the teaching role” (Cattley, 2007, p. 339) that she was preparing for, and to examine to what degree she could fulfill it. This deep understanding was a consequence of her engagement in reflective conversations with herself and others and through these conversations she could experiment, negotiate, and take on different identity positions as an ESOL teacher. For instance, Leslie commented and reflected on a lesson she video-recorded for her edTPA6 (Teacher Performance Assessment) submission In task 5, analyzing teaching, in response to a prompt asking her to describe what “[she] would do differently to improve the                                                              6 edTPA is a preservice assessment process designed by educators to answer the essential question: “Is a new teacher ready for the job?” edTPA includes a review of a teacher candidate's authentic teaching materials as the culmination of a teaching and learning process that documents and demonstrates each candidate's ability to effectively teach his/her subject matter to all students (http://edtpa.aacte.org/). 209   learning of [her] students,” Leslie deliberated how she would modify her lesson if she were to teach it again: Students were able to understand the word “details” when they worked on the graphic organizer and provided details about the person they were writing about. We talked about how details answer questions. To improve their understanding I would have the students ask one another questions about what they are writing and encourage the students to add the details that arise from these conversations about their writing. The idea that writing does not have to be an individual task and can be improved by conversation with others fits into the way they are taught in class and in many real life experiences. (Leslie, edTPA Submission) The edTPA prompt led Leslie to think more closely about her teaching in a specific lesson and specify the points she would alter for the purpose of enhancing her students’ learning experiences. Her comment illustrates her emphasis on the incorporation of an oral activity into students’ writing task, which could add a collaborative dimension to the task. Leslie pondered what her ELL students would need in their mainstream classes and in real life experiences with writing and concluded that students writing should include details from conversations with others. In this reflection, she negotiated her conceptualization of the role and scope of writing tasks in ESOL classes and framed her identity as a teacher who stresses the preparation of ELLs primarily for their real life experiences in the US schools and beyond. Through making a decision to improve her students’ learning experiences in this particular lesson, she externalized her “interpretive frame” (Olsen, 2010) or “implicit theories” (Peercy, 2012) that oriented her identity formation in the IMP and beyond. She gained understanding of her teaching role, preparing her ELL students for real life situations in terms of developing their writing skills, 210   through reflection and this impacted and was impacted by the type of teacher she imagined or envisioned to become (Urzúa & Vasquez, 2008; Fettes, 2005). Leslie found beneficial the program-wide reflection opportunities in general. In response to an interview question which queried about the impact of reflection on her growth as an ESOL teacher, she remarked: I think reflecting on your good and the things that you need to change as a teacher keeps it a cognitive process and teaching can be like – it can be like a factory like you do the same thing over and over again … having the outside opinion and view of yourself as the programs provides through its mentor teachers and through supervisors and through the dialogue that the program tries to create in general within the classwork, it really helps you talk things out and figure things out. Because we would bring in our classroom experiences to our evening classes and also in our meetings with [name of the TESOL coordinator] every other week. And I think bringing those things in and talking about them with other people, having that team of people to work with and reflecting is very important. (Leslie, Interview 2) Leslie discussed engaging in reflection as an important core quality of teachers which precluded doing the same thing over and over again and becoming “factory-like.” This point indicates her perspective that good teaching entails reflection and good teachers do it all the time. Additionally, the dialogue in the IMP reinforced her reflective processes. Through her interactions with her mentors, supervisor, professors, and other TCs, she was afforded a space and opportunity to hear others’ opinions about her teaching, share teaching experiences and issues she needed help with, and interpret instructional situations as a team. Thus, these 211   interactions constituted dialogic sites in which Leslie and other TCs could negotiate, road-test, and construct identities of themselves as teachers. The significance of reflection in becoming a teacher or learning to teach naturally emerged towards the end of the first individual interview with Zoe. She seemed to view reflection as an essential quality for a teacher’s ongoing growth and development to best serve her students and she gave an example of how reflection was becoming part of her repertoire as an ESOL teacher. Reflecting is, honestly, I hear teachers say it all the time, you always think about your lesson, what you could've done better, or you're changing on the spot, you’re like “oh this is going in a horrible, horrible way, this is going down and this is gonna be a disaster” or “oh this is going really well, quicker, and slower than you think” and you are adapting all the time. Then after that lesson is over, you can reflect and adjust for the next group, or adjust for a different proficiency level. Like with …the unit that … I videotaped with my students, I’d actually done about two weeks prior with the different group, they were little bit of a higher proficiency level. You know, I was like, “ok, this is what I’ll do differently” I won’t ask as much detail or I won’t give them so many tasks to do during the lessons, but then when I actually went in there and started teaching them, I was like “oh this certain aspect is taking a lot longer than I thought” and then other things were, they had the story done so much quicker than the first group that I did, but it took so much more scaffolding and guided practice than the first group did, so it was changes that I made after the first group and I was also making changes constantly during, so, [smiling] reflecting is great. (Zoe, Interview 1) 212   Through her experience in the program, Zoe seemed to have learned that reflection in and on action (Schön, 1983, 1987) was what experienced members of the professional community do, and she needed to have it in her skill kit as she sought access to participation in this community. Understanding what reflection was and what it entailed, she had ample opportunities to engage in reflection when she was experimenting her teaching in the school setting. Regular and guided reflection on her teaching, and thus refinement of her teaching philosophies and competencies, was intended to be one of the main foci of the teaching practica (Walkington, 2005). In the example Zoe gave, she described some of her thinking processes while she was reflecting during and after the lesson and what she learned about the teaching of a particular lesson with a particular group. As a reflective practitioner (Schön, 1983, 1987; Valli, 1992, 1997), she took responsibility for her students’ learning, assessed their needs, and made decisions to tailor her lessons for her ELLs’ proficiency level. This reflective process included a practice of negotiating and taking on an identity of an ESOL teacher whose major goal is to adjust her lessons to best serve her students’ needs according to their language abilities. This process drew from and contributed to her “personal philosophies and modes of operation” that “shape [her] emerging teacher identities” (Walkington, 2005, p. 59). Thus, the IMP as a whole afforded Zoe opportunities to understand reflection as a crucial component of everyday teaching practice, and engage in reflective practice and that way contributed to her fledgling identity as an ESOL specialist. 4.4.2. Acquisition of Professional Discourse TCs confront “unfamiliar territories” (Dotger & Smith, 2009, p. 164) as they start their teaching internship in school contexts. They are considered prospective members of the professional teaching community and they need to acquire proficiency and fluency in this “community’s language or procedures” (p. 164). In Wenger’s (1998) conceptualization, TCs are 213   expected to acquire the discourse through which members create meaningful statements about the world, as well as the ways in which they express their forms of membership and their identities as members” (p. 83). Transitioning from a graduate student identity to a teacher identity, preservice teachers, as novice members of the teaching community, “must code-switch almost immediately from the language of student to the language of teacher, and this transition produces feelings of self-doubt and instability (Dotger & Smith, 2009, p. 162). Those feelings definitely impact their confidence and conception of themselves as competent teachers (Zembylas, 2003, 2005) and prevent TCs from imagining themselves as teachers (Fettes, 2005; Young & Erickson, 2011). Therefore, transitioning into a new profession, TCs need to be socialized into ESOL teaching discourses, which are “material of the negotiation of meaning and the formation of identities” (Wenger, 1998, p. 129-30). Conceptualizing teacher learning as situated in social and cultural activities and contexts of communities of practice, we need to see “learning to talk” as an essential prerequisite or condition to gain access to and participate in the practices of the professional community (Lave & Wenger, 1991). During their preparation in the IMP, the participants were exposed to the language or discourse of the TESOL profession into which they were becoming “apprenticed” and socialized (Morita, 2000) through their teacher education coursework and teaching internship. They were well aware of the fact that they needed to appropriate, claim ownership, and make use of this discourse so as to function in the context of various activities of the professional community (Wenger, 1998). For instance, in response to an interview question which queried about TCs’ use of ESOL terminology to which they were introduced in the IMP, Leslie explained that the language of TESOL was a vital resource for her as an ESOL teacher to access membership to the TESOL academic community: 214   Without the terminology and the understanding of the concepts, it would be really hard to partake in the academic discourse surrounding TESOL and reading the academic literature, if you don't understand the terms and what they mean. I think, with any field there is a language and understanding specific to that field … to be an educated part of this field. (Leslie, Interview 2) Through her explanation of the importance of acquiring TESOL discourse, Leslie’s focus seemed to be not only on entering the profession but also maintaining her active membership in the community. The professional field-specific language constituted a locus or a resource that she could utilize to make sense of her experiences (Wells & Claxton, 2002), and negotiate and construct her identity (Wenger, 1998). It also granted her access to the literature which she could draw upon in order to sustain her membership as an “educated part” of her field. Then, for Leslie who could claim its ownership, discourse turned into “a source of power by the very fact that it [was] a source of widespread identification” (Wenger, 1998, p. 209). In the same vein, Elizabeth viewed the acquisition of a particular set of TESOL terms and concepts as an essential component in an ESOL teachers’ professional knowledge. She understood TESOL “jargon” as a prerequisite to become “apprenticed” into (Morita, 2000, p. 302) and perform successfully in the ESOL professional community. Responding to an interview question about the benefits of acquiring ESOL terminology, she demonstrated that she was aware that competence and membership in a community entail access to and use of a specific language to perform in various contexts and interpret a wide range of situations in the professional community: It [terminology] is helping me become part of ESOL community, speaking as an ESOL teacher, I have to have this different sets of languages, I'm learning the language of 215   ESOL, I’m learning the vocabulary that goes with ESOL, I'm learning the jargon, I’m learning the academic language of education … I’m learning all the terms and how to use them, that comes with any job, like when I worked in public health field, I needed to learn all of the acronyms, and all of the terminology, fieldwork and all the different things that go with that, you pick it up you go, and you incorporate that into everyday language, and to become part of professional community, you do need to know the terms that are used in that professional community, so it helps me become part of the community as an ESOL teacher. (Elizabeth, Interview 2) From her prior professional experiences, Elizabeth believed that she had to “cultivate entirely new social language repertoires and literacies” (Hedgcock, 2009, p. 146) while she was accessing membership to the new community and forging her identity. Her perceptions about community membership which emerged from her experiences in her previous and current careers in public health and education are similar to the way Hawkins (2004) conceptualizes learning to teach. Hawkins posits that learning in general, and learning to teach in particular, is a form of “apprenticeship to new discourses” through which participants of the community construct and reconstruct their identities (p. 89). Therefore, the fact that the IMP facilitated ESOL TCs’ acquisition of the TESOL discourse proved to be conducive to their emerging self-identification as teachers since they were provided with linguistic instruments to participate in activities and negotiate and forge identities.      Moreover, Elizabeth utilized some professional language specific to teaching in general and ESOL in particular. Her reflective response to a question in the fourth task of edTPA, analyzing teaching commentary included instances of her appropriation and application of some 216   professional language use when expounding upon how she could modify and adjust her lesson in order to enhance her ELLs’ learning. In reviewing my video recordings and student work, there are three major changes I would make to the lessons to improve the learning of my students. One is the timing of the lessons. I attempted to squeeze a full lesson with a warm-up, guided activity, independent activity, and wrap-up in 20 minutes. … A second improvement would be to revise the rubric I used for the BCR assessment and begin with these indicators to guide and focus my instruction. … I should have scaffolded writing in a way to support students’ production of formal, academic writing. Finally, I would introduce new conceptual ideas by engaging with students’ deductive reasoning skills … According to Arthur Hughes (2003), assessments can produce positive backwash by encouraging teachers to realign their instruction with the achievement indicators of the final assessment. (Elizabeth, edTPA Submission)   While reflecting on her instruction, Elizabeth made use of such field-specific terminologies and concepts as “warm-up, guided activity, independent activity, wrap-up, BCR (brief constructed response), scaffolding, deductive reasoning, and positive backwash.” They functioned as discursive tools or as a frame (Marsh, 2002) for her to structure, orient, and enact her reflective thinking processes. They also provided linguistic material through which she discursively identified herself as a teacher in ESOL community, negotiated meaning, and enacted her identity (Wenger, 1998). She framed, represented, and constructed an identity of an ESOL teacher who valued and focused on what those terminologies and concepts ideologically and instructionally referred to. Their use in her reflective response would probably help her become recognized by edTPA reviewers as a TC who was a competent user of the professional language who is capable 217   of accessing, participating in, and navigating the practices of the ESOL professional community. Thereby, this recognition could bolster the legitimization of her identity in this community. Furthermore, like Leslie and Elizabeth, Zoe prepared a classroom observation assignment for her Elementary ESOL Literacy course which demonstrated how she employed some terminologies and concepts as professional language tools when articulating her instructional reflections on her mentor’s teaching. In what follows, she describes her observations in an elementary ESOL lesson with two six-year old first graders (L and H). Both students are around the same proficiency level; they are both low level 4 language learners (based on WiDA). They can read simple texts, they can write sentences, and produce written items after modeling. … it is their reading and writing proficiency that is being focused on. The female first grader’s L1 is Vietnamese and the male first grader’s L1 is Arabic. The educational backgrounds of both students are that they have been in formal schooling in their native countries and have had instruction in both English and their L1s. L and H worked on a page in their phonics packet… This particular worksheet did not really involve a lot of writing, but maybe served as some sort of formative assessment ... The main purpose of the sentence was to check for reading comprehension and connection to previous lessons (rhyming, plurals, etc.). … The techniques that Mrs. M. used were that she modeled, used scaffolding, tapped into their prior knowledge, and reinforced new vocabulary. (Zoe, Observation Report, Elementary ESOL Literacy) In this snippet from her assignment, Zoe mediated and orchestrated her reflective and critical thinking and discussion in academic discourse by means of such terms and concepts as “WiDA, 218   writing and reading proficiency, modeling, L1, educational background, phonics packet, formative assessment, reading comprehension, scaffolding, tapping into prior knowledge and reinforcing new vocabulary.” She utilized them as discursive material embedded, valued, and utilized in the academic culture of the IMP (Morita, 2000; Wenger, 1998) in order to make sense of the instructional events she observed (Wells & Claxton, 2002) and to organize her thoughts, comments, and interpretations that reflected what she focused on in an ESOL lesson. This utilization exemplifies her emerging fluency or literacy in the professional language (Hedgcock, 2002, 2009) and acquisition of an ESOL “identity kit” which formed and informed her explanation of the lesson (Gee, 2007). Like in the example of Elizabeth, Zoe’s use of field- specific discourse in her observation assignment was highly likely to facilitate acknowledgement of her identity as an emerging ESOL teacher from the course professor who read and graded her report. This assignment afforded Zoe with a discursive site in which she negotiated and represented a position or identity of an ESOL teacher who values and directs attention to certain matters in the lesson by competently using the relevant terms and concepts. 4.4.3. Priorities in Teaching ESOL What teachers believe is important in teaching is defined through their sense of who they are as teaching professionals, so their “implicit theories” about teaching and learning (Peercy, 2012) are part of their teacher identity. Previous research has examined how L2 TCs’ identity development is manifested through and oriented by what they viewed important in L2 teaching and learning processes (Ilieva, 2010; Kanno & Stuart, 2011; Peercy, 2012; Tsui, 2007).The participants in the current study had opportunities to negotiate what was at stake for them in their language teaching endeavors, not only in their academic teacher education courses but also in their internship practices. Through the dual opportunity for honing and refining their theoretical understanding and practical skills, the IMP simultaneously exposed TCs to both theory and 219   practice, which fostered their negotiation of what was important for them as prospective teachers serving ELL students. For instance, Elizabeth recounted how what she learned about theories in her TESOL coursework called into question the views that oriented her previous practices teaching English in Costa Rica. Her descriptive comparison exhibits what changed in her implicit theories in the IMP, which directly impacted what she viewed as important in serving ELLs in US public schools: we [team of English teachers] had to set grading requirements and one of the grading requirements is that you spoke English all the time in the English classroom. We're not allowed to speak in Spanish or were not allowed to speak in your native language. We actually had a bunch of Chinese students that immigrated to Costa Rica … So they couldn’t use Chinese in the classroom either. It was very strict and I was supposed to take points off and I was supposed to grade them on that and I was very strict about it and I thought that’s that, I mean they only had an hour to utilize that time to learn English so you need to communicate and speak in English. That was how I felt, I don’t know. Then I got to this graduate program. They’re saying no, L1 is very important. I need to teach the content, it needs to be content oriented and you know, all these things. I was like oh, my gosh. It’s like I screwed with these kids’ heads. I pounded grammar into them. They’re not gonna get anything from that. They didn’t learn anything from me. (Elizabeth, Interview 1) Through the 4-week certificate program and her teaching experience in Costa Rica, Elizabeth gravitated towards the idea that it was essential to reinforce students’ linguistic use and production in the target language, even through punitive methods, since classroom instruction was the only time when they could become exposed to and communicate via the target language. 220   What she learned in the IMP in terms of effective language teaching led her to reflect on her previous practices in Costa Rica and realize that she put too much emphasis on grammar and ignored the communicative purposes of her classes. The IMP underscored the significance of the use of ELLs’ first language and the ultimate goal of teaching content and language simultaneously, and Elizabeth appropriated that view as part of her teacher cognition and identity. This finding is echoed by Peercy (2012) who found that “the coursework they [two ESOL TCs] were taking at the time influenced their identity construction about teaching and learning” (p. 33). Elizabeth gave another striking example regarding the way her previous view on and practice of language teaching differed from what she learned in the IMP. The incident she depicted demonstrates how a focus on accuracy impedes fluency in the target language. I’m learning that now as a grad student at the time where I was going and so looking back, I can say the way I was teaching probably wasn’t all that great or like after class they would chat with me and ask me questions about coming from the United States. They would say teacher, “from where are you” or something like that. Instead of answering the question, I would say “you know what, I’m not gonna answer questions if you asked incorrectly” … They would ask something in class, they need a clarification and they would ask the question for clarification and instead of answering them, answering the question, I would say “your question was incorrect grammatically. See if you can correct that question.” They wouldn’t even ask the question and then I wouldn’t answer their clarifying questions. … they [trainers in the TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) program] wanted me to be correcting people all the time because the clients really liked it and they saw that as a really good learning tool … I like that I sort 221   of have like a second chance in a way. This is how I did it and then now I'm doing it this way in the classroom, it seems to be working. If I ever go back, I would do it this way now. (Elizabeth, Interview 1) Monitoring students’ grammar when they communicated in English was one of the important teaching acts that Elizabeth was expected to execute when she was teaching in Costa Rica. Her identity as an EFL (English as a foreign language) teacher in the Costa Rican context necessitated her to obtain external recognition and acknowledgement from the TEFL trainers and “clients.” This necessity led her to adjust her teaching according to their expectations. When she went back to reflect on her previous vision as a teacher, she saw her teacher identity mostly composed of the responsibility for grammar correction or accurate linguistic production of her students. She believed that this vision had changed thanks to the provisions of the IMP and she had “a second chance” to pick the instructional tools that more effectively facilitated her students’ language learning. Furthermore, Zoe’s case presented another example of the IMP’s contribution to TCs’ identity development by facilitating identity negotiation in relationship to what matters she saw significant in her teaching of ELLs. Her growing teacher identity was manifest through what she viewed important in working with ELLs throughout the IMP program. In response to an interview question asked by the researcher about the qualities that an effective ESOL teacher should have, Zoe’s responses demonstrated how she had the opportunity to negotiate what mattered to her in serving ELLs through her teaching experience in elementary and high school settings. She focused on three qualities of a successful ESOL teacher, which she noted were constructed through her experiences in her practicum: being compassionate, having high expectations for her students, and willingness to adapt. She described her ideas as follows: 222   Compassion is key because I feel like my space is the only space where they have the time to slow down. I don’t know if that’s true, but in my head, that’s how I approach my class. Compassion for their situations and their unique experiences … also you have to have high expectations. You have to hold them accountable. Enforce those rules. You’re going to raise your hand. You’re not going to speak out in class. I’m glad you feel comfortable, but you have to follow the rules … it’s also showing them that their teacher doesn’t think they’re stupid or doesn’t want them to just not say anything; that they’re valued in the class … None of your students are the same. You’re going to have your ones who talk back to you. You’re going to have the ones who barely say anything. You’re going to have the ones who shout out all the time. You have to be flexible. (Zoe, Interview 2) Our identity leads us to describe what is important for us, and compassion, having high expectations for ELLs, and willingness to adapt were the important aspects or highlights of the ESOL teacher Zoe was striving to become. Her vision of herself as an ESOL teacher required special attention to those three main qualities that she believed needed to be possessed by an effective ESOL teacher. The internship placements where she tried out teaching ELLs led her to primarily attend to those qualities. Adhering to those key qualities, she projected or imagined herself into the future and considered them as part of her major foci and agenda for improvement wherein she would exert her pedagogical energy. Furthermore, Zoe’s portrayal of the image of the kind of teacher she did not want to be revealed how she framed her teacher identity, as well. Her observations and experience in the school setting seemed to shape her self-identification as an ESOL teacher and she came to know 223   what kind of teacher she wanted to become and what approach was required of her to achieve this. I didn’t have behavior issues with the elementary school, but when I was at my high school internship, I had those issues come up because they’re high schoolers and they’re going to talk back to you. I had to really reflect and say ‘how do I want to be in this situation and how do I want them to feel at the end of it?’ I don’t want to be that teacher that just yells at the kid in the front of the class, or I don’t want to be that teacher who is constantly pulling kids out in the hallway and coming in and the same actions still occur. I had to think of a way to best do that. I took a lot of human development classes at undergrad, the parenting styles came to mind. There’s the compassion and the strict and you want to have both. You make it clear to students of the rules and the expectations, but then you also say what you’re feeling is okay. It shows me you care or I want you to be in my classroom, I want you to stay here. That’s why I’m talking to you now because if you do this again, I’m going to have to send you out and I don’t want to … It really makes the difference. I did it a few times at [high school placement] and it worked. I said I’m going to keep going with this one. I’ve done it a few times in my four weeks at [my current school] and it works. It was reflection and then experience and then practice. I can hear teachers yelling through the walls, and you don’t want to be that teacher. It doesn’t work. If you’re yelling all the time, then something’s wrong, it’s not working. (Zoe, Interview 2) Zoe’s vision of herself as a teacher centered on two characteristics: being compassionate and strict, because “compassion is key” for her. She negotiated and extended that vision as a framework when she approached classroom management issues emerging in her classes in her 224   high school placement and in her paid teaching job after graduation from the IMP. Her observations and experiences provoked her into not imagining herself as a “teacher that just yells at the kid in the front of the class.” She had witnessed undesirable examples of classroom management which was largely marked by teachers’ yelling at students and she believed that yelling did not work at all. In her search for “a way to best” deal with behavioral issues, she generated and tested her own approach contrary to what she witnessed, and after reflecting, experiencing and practicing, she had satisfying results. Then, she decided to continue utilizing that approach in her further teaching. Thus, this exhibits how the program provisions afforded the ESOL TCs to engage in the negotiation of what mattered to them as ELL teachers through their classroom experiences in the practicum, which reflected their self-image as a teacher and, in return, bolstered their teacher identity formation process. 4.5. Conclusion This chapter presented the findings of a qualitative case study which addressed the following two research questions: (1) how does university-based teacher education coursework in an intensive MATESOL program contribute to ESOL TCs’ identity construction in the IMP? (2) how do field-based teaching practicum experiences in an intensive MATESOL program contribute to ESOL TCs’ identity construction in the IMP? This chapter categorized the findings into three main areas: the findings from the contribution of teacher education coursework, those from the contribution of the teaching practicum, and those that jointly emerged from the collective contribution of coursework and the practicum. The discussion of findings explicated what contributions this dissertation research has made to a more nuanced understanding of ESOL TCs’ identity development. Thereby, it also demonstrated the ways in which this research study builds upon and expands the prior work on L2 teacher identity. 225   Previous research inquiries into L2 TCs’ identity development during their experiences in TEPs have scrutinized how TCs constructed their identities within the overall span of preservice teacher education. They have not explored the role coursework and the practicum each play in TCs’ identity development, which represents a gap in the literature addressed in the current dissertation study. Findings from this study may potentially inform the existing understanding of preservice teacher identity construction in the literature on alternative TEP programs (Zeichner & Concklin, 2005). Because the focal TCs recruited for this study from the IMP were all White females who are native speakers of English, which is not dissimilar from the overall population of ESOL teachers and TCs in the US, this exploration may inform the processes of teacher identity development in similar TEPs across the country. Through a comprehensive scrutiny of the programmatic components by means of multiple data sources, this research also contributed to the literature by informing L2 teacher educators, supervisors, mentor teachers, and TCs about what aspects of preservice teacher education practices are conducive to TCs’ identity formation processes. Understanding what their TCs go through in a TEP with regards to identity construction, including coursework and the teaching practica, teacher educators, supervisors, and mentor teachers can better facilitate this construction by tailoring the programmatic provisions they are responsible for. Also, learning about how Zoe, Elizabeth and Leslie developed their identities in my study, teacher educators, mentor teachers, and university supervisors may be able to use these findings to assist TCs with navigating the programmatic offerings to negotiate and construct their teacher identities in TEPs. Findings from this study indicate that the TCs in this study were afforded opportunities to build up and take on an ESOL teacher perspective through various experiences in their university-based teacher education courses and their assuming of this perspective supported their 226   negotiation and formation of their identities as ESOL professionals. For instance, coursework provisions promoted TCs’ fledgling identities as teachers because their teaching experience in the internship (yearlong and concurrent with the coursework) was highlighted and valued by their professors and peers and they were positioned as experts in the classes about public school context. Moreover, TCs engaged in professional interaction with their peers in the social spaces of teacher education classes and as they shared ideas, and responded to or challenged others’ ideas, they reflected on their teaching and negotiated their vision of themselves as teachers. Concerning TCs’ identity development through practicum experiences, the current study revealed that mentor teachers play a significant role in preservice teachers’ identity building. Their sharing of power and ownership of students gives budding teachers the external recognition or acknowledgement from students in the real teaching context, which complements their internal self-image. Furthermore, whether or not TCs are given a work space in the school plays a determining role in their legitimacy as part of the school community. When TCs have a designated work space, students assign them power and authority and perceive them belonging in the ESOL professional community in the school. Finally, as TCs engage in activities in their teaching practicum, they have opportunities to experience various emotional states in relation to their teaching and to learn how to handle these emotions and develop socio-emotionally. How TCs emotionally respond to situations in their instructional setting is impacted by their vision of themselves as teachers which shapes their values and interpretations about these situations. The collective contribution of programmatic components to preservice ESOL teachers’ identity construction is also significant. The present study found that when TCs engage in guided reflection on their own teaching and the teaching of others, the aspects of their teaching they reflect upon is influenced by their sense of themselves as teachers. As they reflect on their 227   practice, they negotiate, experiment, and take on different identity positions, which promotes their identity building process. In addition, teacher education program helps future teachers acquire TESOL discourses, which gives them discursive access to membership they seek within a professional community. Through this engagement, they can negotiate and road-test different images of themselves as teachers. Lastly, as TCs participate in the complex ecological spheres of activities and events both in their teaching practicum and their teacher education courses, they find opportunities to identify what is important for them in serving ELL students in the US public schools. Their fledgling teacher identity functions as a frame or basis which they use to decide what is important in their teaching and where they channel their efforts and energy (Hammerness, et al., 2005). When TCs observe others’ lessons or plan, execute, and reflect on their own lessons, what exactly they pay their attention to is determined by their self-image as a teacher. 228   CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION, IMPLICATIONS, AND FURTHER RESEARCH “Consciously we teach what we know; unconsciously we teach who we are.” (Hamachek, 1999, p. 209) 5.1. Introduction This study examined the contribution of university-based teacher education coursework and school-based internship experiences to the ways in which three TCs developed their identities as teachers. The existing literature on second language teacher education (SLTE) needs more studies that address the question of language teachers’ identity development during their preservice professional preparation (Kanno & Stuart, 2011; Morgan, 2004; Varghese, et al., 2005) because language teacher identity construction remains underexplored and undertheorized in the current body of SLTE literature. A better understanding of how teachers of language learners construct their identities gives insight into broader questions about TCs’ learning because their identities constitute a basis and framework through which they interpret, value, and make sense of their “personal but often unexamined life themes” (Olsen, 2011, p. 258), professional theories of teaching, and classroom teaching experiences (Bullough, 1997; Olsen, 2010; Sachs, 2005). The kind of a teacher TCs are and aspire to be influences and is influenced by their instructional decision making and experiences. Building upon Wenger’s (1998) notion of communities of practice, as well as work in teacher learning, teacher cognition, teacher biographies, and work that explores the contextual factors that impact teachers’ identities, this study utilized a sociocultural definition of identity, in which one constantly reimagines and reframes her identity as she acquires more professional knowledge and engages in the activities of communities of practice (Wenger, 1998). Therefore, this study builds upon research that asserts that (a) teacher identity refers to teachers’ dynamic, ever-changing self-conception and imagination of themselves as teachers; (b) teachers manifest 229   their identities through their activities and interactions in human relationships; and (c) teachers’ identities are also shaped by their contexts, social positioning, and ways of making meaning. This chapter will first present a discussion of the findings in this study which shine light on TCs’ identity development in teacher education programs (TEPs). It will then discuss the theoretical, empirical, and practical contributions of this research study to the field’s understanding of teacher identity formation. It will also present the limitations in this study, and recommend future research directions for exploring questions about language teacher identity formation. 5.2. Discussion This section presents a discussion of five main points in light of the findings from this study: (1) the inseparable nature of the processes of teacher learning, growth, and identity construction; (2) individual and social dimensions of teacher identity development; (3) the mutual relationship between teachers’ emotions and identity; (4) reflection as part of identity development; and (5) discourse as a tool for identity negotiation. This discussion is intended to contribute to gaining a more nuanced understanding of teacher identity development than has previously existed in the literature. 5.2.1. Intertwined Nature of Teacher Learning and Identity The findings of this research highlight the inseparable nature of teacher learning and identity construction. As focal participants, the three TCs in this study engaged in constant negotiation and construction of meanings concerning their teaching and students’ learning, as well as their own opinions about “how to be, how to act, and how to understand” their teaching and their place in social professional contexts (Sachs, 2005, p. 15). They continually negotiated and tried on different teacher identities while constructing their theoretical and practical knowledge and learning how to implement it in actual teaching settings. When they were 230   engaging in various learning activities as part of the IMP provisions, they actually were going through “a process of coming to be” ESOL teachers (Lave, 1992, p. 3). The findings in this study underscore the interplay and interdependence between how the TCs in this study go through their processes of learning to teach and their processes of negotiating and taking on teacher identities. For instance, in Elizabeth’s case, I observed how she “critically interrogate[d] and adjust[ed] the conceptions on which [her] professional learning rest[ed]” (Olsen, 2011, p. 261) and her learning to teach ELLs involved “negotiating and mediating multiple (often conflicting) identity sources” (p. 261). When she entered the IMP, she brought in a self-image or vision as an English language teacher which she built through her experiences as an EFL (English as a foreign language) teacher in Costa Rica. More specifically, the contextual factors in that program led her to take on a teacher identity which placed significant emphasis on language accuracy in teaching English. This image proved to be in conflict with what she was exposed to in the IMP coursework and the role she needed to play in her placement schools. In her IMP program, Elizabeth’s role was one of providing instructional support for ELL students’ development of communicative competence and integration and preservation of their native language. She had to negotiate and mediate between those conflicting “identity sources” to become an ESOL teacher who would be effective in her current context (Olsen, 2011, p. 261). This negotiation and mediation were an evolving outcome of the dialectic between her ideas and ideals, and the demands and requirements of the professional setting. In Zoe’s case, her critical observations of teacher behaviors in her high school placement led her to define her identity in “contrast with others that are part of what [she is] not” (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011, p. 315) and through her decision not to participate in certain practices (Wenger, 1998). During her experiences in her internship school, she observed a certain 231   type of aggressive teacher behavior, namely yelling at a student, which she did not believe was useful because it did not fit with her ideal of being a compassionate teacher. This critical observation led her to adhere to one of the aspects of her teacher identity more strongly: being compassionate when handling classroom management issues or student behavior in general. Her learning experience in the professional community required her to identify what mattered to her. This negotiation and conscious choice of non-participation was primarily steered by “how [she] locate[d] herself in a social landscape” and “what [she] care[d] about” (Wenger, 1998, p. 171) (e.g., being a compassionate ESOL teacher). Her identity negotiation also reinforced what she believed about being a good ESOL teacher, which she summarized as having high expectations for ELLs, and her willingness to adapt her teaching to students’ needs. These two examples illustrate how the processes of learning to teach and teacher identity formation are intricately intertwined and influence one another. TCs’ professional learning leads them to reevaluate what kind of teacher they are and reimagine or re-envision what kind of teacher they aspire to become. On the other hand, their ever-evolving self-conceptions as teachers constitute a framework for their constant formal and informal professional learning. Therefore, understanding how teacher learning occurs is contingent upon understanding how teachers forge their identities, and vice versa. 5.2.2. The Nexus of Individual and Social The dialogic interrelationship between individual and social dynamics in teacher identity formation is another crucial point underscored in the findings of this research project. The findings exhibited that the identity negotiation of the Zoe, Elizabeth, and Leslie transpired at the nexus of their individual beliefs, preconceptions, and aspirations as well as the impact of their interaction with others. How they defined themselves in relation to others, namely their mentors, students, professors, and supervisors was as important as how they defined themselves to 232   themselves (Coldron & Smith, 1999; Lasky, 2005; Mantero, 2004). What others in the professional community thought and said about them or their perceptions of others’ thoughts were important for the social legitimation of their teaching identity (Wenger, 1998). Therefore, another common thread across the findings was the indispensable nature of the individual and social dimensions of identity formation. To illustrate, in Leslie’s case, such social validation or endorsement of her identity as an ESOL teacher came from her peers and professors. This validation was complementary to her self-identification as a teacher and conducive to her self-confidence as an emerging professional. Her peers and professors highlighted the fact that she, like the five other students in her IMP cohort, was currently working with ELLs, because she served as an intern in two different school settings for two semesters. They positioned her as an expert and benefitted from her internship experiences and knowledge as resources when they wanted to learn something about the public school context. “Being the teacher within a classroom of teachers” as she depicted it, Leslie’s self-identification as a teacher was confirmed and legitimated by the others in teacher education classes. This legitimation was an indication of her “apprenticeship into an identity of a successful member” of ESOL professional community (Singh & Richards, 2006, p. 167). In Zoe’s case, she started conceiving or identifying herself as a teacher in relationship to her mentor teachers and ELLs she worked with. Early in her internship placements, she was granted authority and power in the class by her mentors. Because her mentors shared their classroom power and students with Zoe at the very beginning of her placement, this endorsed and validated her presence as a teacher in the classroom and school. As a newcomer, her inclusion in this particular community of practice (Wenger, 1998) was facilitated by her mentors and this constituted an entry into “legitimate peripheral participation” (Lave & Wenger, 1991). 233   She was treated as a potential member of the professional community and all her “inevitable stumblings and violations” turned into “opportunities for learning rather than cause for dismissal, neglect, or exclusion” (Wenger, 1998, p. 101). Also, Zoe’s relational identity formation was manifest in the way she viewed her designated work station in the classroom as a power symbol for her students. Her self-identification as a teacher was complemented by her students’ acknowledgement of her presence especially as a teacher with power in the classroom. Social legitimacy (Coldron & Smith, 1999) for Zoe’s identity in this case was reliant upon her students’ perceptions about her “spot” as she called it, or her positioning in the classroom. These examples from Leslie’s and Zoe’s cases exhibit that teacher identities are not only “autonomous” but also “dependent” (Johnson, 2003). The winding journey of teacher identity construction involves a complex and multifaceted symbiosis between individual aspirations and ideals, and social interactions with others in professional settings. As “unique and transcendent agents” (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011, p. 315), TCs enter formal TEPs with certain well- entrenched preconceptions about teaching and learning and an image of the teacher they aspire to become (Britzman, 1986; Lortie, 1975/2000). These individual preconceptions and aspirations largely determine their self-identification which in turn derives from their social legitimation (Coldron & Smith, 1999) and access to “legitimate peripheral participation” (Lave & Wenger, 1991) through their interaction with others in their professional setting. 5.2.3. Handling Emotions, Framing Identities The reciprocal relationship between teachers’ emotional states and their identities was also significant. When the three TCs in this study were serving as interns in public schools during their teaching practica, they had opportunities to interact with students and coworkers and engage in professional learning activities. Through this interaction and engagement, they experienced various emotional states ranging from happiness to frustration to stress, which were 234   indicative of the matters and concerns they had “at stake” in their teaching practices (van Veen, Sleegers, & van de Ven, 2005). More specifically, as they were preparing to become teachers, which Williams (2006) has identified as “a deeply emotional profession” (p. 336), their emotional experiences as fledgling teachers informed their identities as ESOL teachers because their emotions directed them to the exploration of their “self-knowledge” (Zembylas, 2003, 2005). On the other hand, their emerging teacher identities determined how they interpreted, made sense of, responded to, and handled their emotions and the situations in which these emotions arose. Their emotional responses to instructional and non-instructional situations were shaped by their investment in “the values that they believe[d] their teaching represent[ed]” (Zembylas, 2003, p. 213). The common goal of all three participants in this research was to become ESOL teachers, which is “an emotionally demanding and frequently stressful activity” (p. 61) according to Hart (2000). Their classroom experiences in their internship schools were ones where they felt “the impact of [their] emotional condition” (Hayes, 2003, p. 154) most intensely because they tried out teaching in actual setting and interacted with their students and mentor teachers. To illustrate, Elizabeth experienced both positive (e.g., happiness and excitement) and negative (e.g., frustration) emotions during her teaching practicum. As Kelchtermans (2005) states, these were “meaningful experiences” which emerged as the TCs participated in and interacted with the professional community. This is because these experiences revealed how teachers made sense of the situations they confronted and what was “at stake for them” in their classes (Kelchtermans, 2005; van Veen, et al., 2005). One of her classes observed by the university supervisor for her official evaluation evoked the emotion of happiness in her because the class went smoothly, students were responsive, and she received the supervisor’s recognition for her good teaching. 235   This was significant for her self-image as a teacher because this positive emotion directed her attention to her knowledge about her own teaching (Zembylas, 2003, 2005), or in other words, it reflected her good teaching to herself and she also experienced those happy and exciting moments as part of teaching. On the other hand, she felt frustrated and observed the same reaction in her students when she had to go through the material quickly in a given amount of time and “the kids were totally off task and they just weren’t paying attention.” The way she handled this frustration was to seek reasons for the things that did not go well in the class rather than attributing it to her teaching competencies. She also learned that she would have to deal with constraints such as having to prepare last minute classes and to cover the material in a limited time as part of her future teaching career, which might have impacted her imagining herself as gaining prospective “membership to the community” (Wenger, 1998) of ESOL teaching. Another example of the mutual relationship between TCs’ emotions and identities comes from Zoe’s experience when she was “driven nuts” because her elementary students were “off” for a couple of days. These stressful days made her feel awful and she was so intensely influenced by this particular experience that for a short while she could not “ever imagine” teaching anymore. More specifically, in response to an interview question inquiring about her teaching-related emotional experiences, Zoe commented: “They were driving me nuts that day, … I remember driving home one day and thinking this is awful. I’m never – I can’t ever imagine doing this.” Students’ behavior elicited some negative emotions in her and “distract[ed] and divert[ed] her attention from instructional goals” (Sutton & Wheatley, 2003, p. 336). Discordance between how her classes went and how she thought her classes should have gone (van Huizen, van Oers, & Wubbels, 2005) brought about this emotional state. Reflecting on the 236   problematic situation and applying an aphorism previous cohort interns in her situation had shared with her (“you’d never have two bad days in a row”), she learned how to regulate this negative emotional state (Zembylas, 2003) by considering her challenges (e.g., students’ misbehavior) as part of her teaching and attributed this mostly to her students. It is likely that in the future when she reflects on her instructional actions (Schön, 1983, 1987) in the lessons that do not as planned, she will continue to evaluate herself and her teaching without directly and solely finding her teaching competence responsible for those lessons. This will help her maintain her teacher self-efficacy level (Olsen, 2010; Sutton & Wheatley, 2003) and the self-image of ESOL teacher that she frames for herself and prevent these kinds of lessons from shaking this self-image. Her frustration led her to recall advice from previous cohort members and encouraged her to revise her self-image as a teacher. Rather than interpreting a failed lesson as an indicator that she was a bad teacher, she felt that it was likely that even good teachers have bad days and good days as a natural part of teaching, and she could not control all the variables, especially the variable of students who might overthrow her lesson plan. The examples from Elizabeth’s and Zoe’s cases highlight the twisting and turning nature of teacher identity construction. Their responses to fluctuating emotions lead budding teachers to frame and reframe their self-conception as teachers. The emotional states they go through are entangled with their learning and identity development during their teaching practicum experiences. Therefore, to put it simply, “knowledge of teachers’ emotions is essential in understanding teachers and teaching” (Sutton & Wheatley, 2003, p. 332) and teachers need to be cognitively and emotionally involved in exploring the complex contours of professional learning and preparation (Avalos, 2011). Their emotional experiences constitute a crucial source of information about the way in which TCs’ positive and negative experiences with teaching 237   interrelate with their self-perception as well-functioning participants in the professional setting (van Huizen, et al., 2005). 5.2.4. Reflecting Back, Negotiating Meanings As Beauchamp and Thomas (2009) have noted, reflection is “a powerful way for students and practising teachers to delve deeply into their teaching identities” (p. 183). Thus, opportunities for reflection must be incorporated in the development of TCs and beginning teachers if we situate identity formation as a central goal of teacher education (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009). Prior work has illustrated the importance of reflection in teachers’ identity formation (Cattley, 2007; Dotger & Smith, 2009; Fettes, 2005; Freese, 2006; Liu & Fisher, 2006; McLean & White, 2007; Urzúa & Vàsquez, 2008), highlighting that reflection helps TCs deepen their understanding of their roles and responsibilities as teachers, evaluate their teaching behaviors according to the kind of teacher they imagine to become, and negotiate their teaching identities as they revise their self-images as teachers. The findings in this study cohere with what those previous studies revealed about the contribution of reflection to teacher identity development. Therefore, the role of reflection in TCs’ teacher identity construction is another major topic that requires additional discussion in this study’s findings. Throughout their preparation in the IMP, the three TCs were required to engage in reflection upon their teaching, either formally through portfolio and observation mechanisms, or informally (e.g., conversations with professors, mentors, and supervisor). These opportunities through coursework and the teaching practica proved to be instrumental for the three study participants to negotiate their teaching identities. As they reflected upon their practices, they externalized their “practically- oriented personalized” knowledge (Borg, 2003, p. 81) and their teaching philosophies which helped mold their growing identities (Walkington, 2005) and reconsidered and revised them in light of their teaching experiences. This reconsideration and revision were influential on the 238   ways in which they understood their teaching practices and imagined how they, as teachers, should act. For instance, in response to an interview question about her reflective practices during the IMP, Leslie noted that her reflection was facilitated through her “mentor teachers, supervisors, and the dialogue that the [IMP] tries to create in general within the classwork,” Leslie highlighted the importance of guidance she received from her mentors, supervisor, professors, and fellow TCs for her engagement in reflection which was “an examination of [her] pedagogical intentions, outcomes, and commitments” (Urzúa & Vàsquez, 2008, p. 1936). She also remarked that “without anyone telling [her] what’s going on, it’s very hard to see [her] entire self” in her response to the same question. This indicated her belief that grasping a complete picture of her own teaching necessitated the combination of her self-assessment with others’ questions and comments. Only then could she gain a more profound understanding of what her teaching required of her depending on her conception of herself as an ESOL specialist. Leslie had many opportunities to have others observe and comment on her teaching during her formal preparation in the IMP. Therefore, in regards to the way others’ input about her teaching related to her teacher identity, conversations with others, members of the same professional community (Wenger, 1998), presented her with a dialogic space or a “reflective room” (Hoveid & Hoveid, 2004) in which she could verbalize her pedagogical experiences (Golombek, 1998) and negotiate her identity as an emerging ESOL professional. In brief, her example that underscored how others’ input helped her to better see her teaching practice and identity supported Urzúa and Vàsquez’s (2008) notion that teacher identities “emerge through interactions with others,” in which they reflect on (retrospective) and for (prospective) action (p. 1936). 239   Zoe’s case presents another example of how teachers, through examination of their everyday instructional practices, utilize reflection to externalize their implicit theories undergirding their self-image as teachers (Peercy, 2012). When responding to an interview question inquiring about her reflective practices throughout the IMP, Zoe gave a specific example of what sort of instructional reasoning she followed when modifying a lesson for a group with lower level of linguistic proficiency. This example exhibited some significant instances of verbalization and externalization about her thinking process as a teacher) before, during, and after the execution of this modified lesson. While reflecting on her previous class and modifying her lesson for the next group of students who had lower proficiency level in English, she told to herself “OK, this is what I’ll do differently, I won’t ask as much detail or I won’t give them so many tasks to do during the lessons.” In her implicit theories (Peercy, 2012) or in her teaching “interpretive frame” (Olsen, 2010), she conceived that adjusting a lesson for a lower linguistic proficiency level entails asking for fewer details and incorporating fewer in-class tasks than she would do with students who had a higher level of English proficiency. In this conception or belief, a good ESOL professional should make this adjustment, which reflects the identity she framed for herself at that time. What Zoe identified as important in her lesson, that is, amount of details and tasks demanded from ELL students appropriate for their linguistic proficiency, oriented how she rationalized her pedagogical choices and decisions. I interpreted her choices and decisions as displays of such metacognitive aspects as “awareness, intentionality, commitment, self-confidence, and responsibility” which Urzúa and Vàsquez (2008) construe as some of the indicators of teacher identity formation (p. 1944). Zoe’s reflective deliberations during and after the lesson (e.g., “it took so much more scaffolding and guided practice than the first group did”) demonstrate a change in her understanding of what such a lesson modification 240   requires. Through those deliberations in which she saw herself in the role of an ESOL teacher, she engaged in a negotiation of her identity as a teacher who was making decisions about her lesson, executing it, and thinking about how to further improve it. Cattley (2007) asserted that reflection on the breadth of their roles helps TCs “shape a robust professional identity” (p. 341). The two examples from Leslie’s (guided reflection throughout the IMP) and Zoe’s (self-initiated reflection to modify her lesson) cases pointed out that reflection, either through others’ guidance or individual deliberations, presents opportunities for TCs to negotiate their emerging identities by taking on the role of a teacher and interacting with others. 5.2.5. Professional Discourse: Tool for Teacher Identity Negotiation Another important factor in teachers’ identity formation in this study emerged in the professional discourses in which the participants engaged. This research accentuated the salience of professional discourse acquisition which TCs utilize as a critical tool to engage in participation in the community and negotiation of their teacher identities. As apprentices seeking membership (Wenger, 1998) in the ESOL teaching profession, TCs are socialized into a new professional discourse. Becoming fluent in professional discourse is a crucial competency that they need to acquire to first peripherally participate in professional practices and then to extend and sustain their active participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991). The TCs in this research project were exposed to the discourse of ESOL teaching both through teacher education coursework and their learning experiences in school-based practica. This exposure helped them become competent in a discourse that is valued by and utilized in the professional community for which they were receiving formal preparation (Wenger, 1998). Their competency was instrumental in gaining recognition as a legitimate member of the community (Morita, 2000) which supported their self-identification as a competent member (Wenger, 1998). 241   To illustrate, through her experiences with the university-based teacher education courses and school-based teaching practica, Leslie was “confronted with the acquisition of an entirely new literacy” (Hedgcock, 2002, p. 307) throughout her IMP experiences. Through her comment that “without the terminology and the understanding of the concepts, it would be really hard to partake in the academic discourse surrounding TESOL,” Leslie demonstrated her belief that active participation in the TESOL community was contingent on her use of this literacy, that is, understanding the relevant concepts and building up the repertoire of requisite field-specific terminologies. She utilized TESOL-specific language as a resource in order to interpret the instructional and non-instructional situations she encountered in the context of “constellations of practices” (Wenger, 1998) and to make sense of her teacher learning experiences (Wells & Claxton, 2002). She made use of the TESOL discourse – as an “identity kit” which encompassed “instructions on how to act, talk, and even write, so as to take on a particular social role that others will recognize” (Gee, 2007, p. 127) in the community of ESOL professionals. Leslie was also cognizant that she needed this academic literacy in TESOL so that she could sustain her active participation and identity (re)construction in the community as “an educated” (Leslie, Interview 1) member as recognized by others in her profession. TESOL Discourse was also important in Elizabeth’s experiences with identity formation. Elizabeth became “apprenticed” into TESOL Discourse (Morita, 2000) through her teacher education coursework and teaching internship in the IMP. In response to an interview question inquiring about her use of ESOL terminology in the IMP, Elizabeth commented that “it [terminology] is helping me become part of ESOL community, … I have to have these different sets of languages, I’m learning the language of ESOL, I’m learning the vocabulary that goes with ESOL, I’m learning the jargon.” “Speaking as an ESOL teacher,” Elizabeth knew that she 242   needed to develop a new literacy that could enable her to “enact [her] activities and identities” (Gee, 2005, p. 7) in the TESOL profession. Along with her evolving knowledge and skill base, this literacy was part of [her] developing identity (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 122) as an ESOL teacher. She learned “the language of ESOL,” as she noted in an interview, and thereby, she was able to situate herself in a Discourse which facilitated her “‘dance’ with words, deeds, values, feelings, other people, objects, tools, technologies, places and times so as to get recognized as a distinctive sort of who doing a distinctive sort of what” (Gee, 2007, p. 155). Being able to engage in such a dance was vital for her to become part of the ESOL community, and to (re)negotiate and (re)construct a teacher identity in it. Apprenticeship or socialization into a community (Morita, 2000, 2004) or legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991) necessitates a process of developing competence and being able to claim membership in a discourse community. The two examples from Leslie and Elizabeth above exhibit that becoming fluent in a professional discourse was required for the “legitimacy of [their] participation” in the social configuration where they were situated (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 105). As prospective members of the ESOL professional community, the TCs in the IMP experienced an initial socialization into the profession as they learned “the boundaries, expectations, and guidelines of” teaching ESOL (Dotger & Smith, 2009, p. 164) through teacher education coursework and the teaching practica. In other words, in order “to become a legitimate participant” in this community, they learned “how to talk (and be silent) in the manner of full participants” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 105). 5.3. Empirical Contributions Over the last two decades, the SLTE literature has made recurring calls to better understand teachers as learners of teaching practices and as individuals who have their own well- entrenched beliefs and personalized theories about language teaching and learning, which in turn 243   impact their professional practices (e.g., Borg, 2003; Freeman & Johnson, 1998; Johnson, 1999; Johnson & Golombek, 2003; Golombek & Doran, 2014). Research on language teachers’ identity building, a recently emerging sub-field in SLTE, has emerged as a response to these calls. This project has been framed as part of this response, with the purpose of contributing to this sub-field and addressing the paucity of research on teacher identity in the field of SLTE. More specifically, it inquired into how teacher education coursework and practicum experiences contributed to the identity construction of three ESOL TCs in the IMP. There are several studies which have scrutinized how ESOL TCs forge their teacher identities during their formal preparation programs (Ilieva, 2010; Johnson, 2001; Kanno & Stuart, 2011; Liu & Fisher, 2006; Pavlenko, 2003; Peercy, 2012; Trent, 2010). However, they examined individual components of TEPs such as one course (e.g., Pavlenko, 2003), coursework in general (e.g., Peercy, 2012), and the practicum (e.g., Kanno & Stuart, 2011). Taking a more holistic perspective, this study examined how the TCs’ teacher identity formation was influenced by the amalgamation of both the university based teacher education coursework and school based practicum experiences. Thereby, it shines light on the interactive contribution of those two programmatic components to the way TCs conceive and imagine themselves as ESOL teachers, in other words, the ways in which they frame their ESOL teacher identities. ESOL TCs’ identity development is not a completely untrodden landscape in the field of SLTE, but it needs more exploration in terms of how TEPs specifically facilitate their teacher identity formation. In the interest of parallelism, I will expound upon the contributions of my research to the existing research by utilizing the same categorization in the findings which is aligned with my research questions: the relatively separate contributions of university-based 244   coursework, and the school-based teaching practicum, and the joint contributions the two to the identity formation of ESOL TCs. With regards to its findings illuminating the contribution of university-based teacher education coursework to TCs’ identity formation, the current study empirically bolsters Richards’ (2008) and Singh and Richards’ (2006, 2009) socioculturally oriented conceptualization of teacher education coursework as an ecologically complicated social space where TCs try out, experiment, and negotiate new identities. That is, the TCs in this study started constructing their ESOL teacher perspective through their coursework experiences, they were frequently positioned as experts on the public school system due to their ongoing full time teaching practicum, and they found a professional venue to interact with peers in the classrooms. The findings in this dissertation study point out that teacher education courses afforded the TCs with a discursive space in which they negotiated, framed, represented, road-tested, and took on various “potential identities” (Ronfeldt & Grossman, 2008). Moreover, this study builds upon and furthers the work of Abednia (2012), Danielewicz (2001), Peercy (2012), and Pavlenko (2003), who scrutinized the impact of teacher education courses on TCs’ identity formation. Gathering data from observations in K-12 settings and in their teacher education classes, individual interviews, and review of the participants’ online interactions in preservice course assignments, this study answers a broad question: how coursework as a programmatic component contributes to TCs’ identity formation, and presents findings concerning TCs’ experiences across various courses, which provides a broader scope of study regarding the influences on TCs’ identity construction. That is, prior work in the literature has attended to the impact of particular courses on the change in TCs’ emerging identities, but this study addresses a more global framing of teacher education courses as a contributory 245   component to how they start negotiating, imagining, and experimenting themselves as ESOL specialists. More specifically, this study put SLTE courses under scrutiny as a programmatic component and investigated the holistic contribution of coursework to the TCs’ teacher identity development. This study also extends previous work that has explored how L2 TCs forge their teacher identities during their teaching practicum (Kanno & Stuart, 2011; Liu & Fisher, 2006; Trent, 2010). More specifically, relying upon prior work, its findings shine further light on how their experiences as interns in public schools help them construct their teacher identity. Prior work that examined the effect of the teaching practicum on teacher identity development has adopted various foci when looking at L2 TCs’ identity development. Kanno and Stuart (2011) examined how two preservice ESOL teachers’ identities grew during their teaching experiences as interns. Liu and Fisher’s (2006) inquiry explored the changes in preservice modern foreign language (namely French, German, Spanish, Russian and Italian) teachers’ dynamic conceptions of self as teachers during their teaching internship experiences. Trent’s (2010) research, on the other hand, capitalized on preservice English language teachers’ navigation in the landscape of varying and possibly clashing discourses that they confronted when serving as interns in teaching settings. Relying on those inquiries which investigated TCs’ trajectories of identity building when interning in professional settings, the current research concentrated on the contribution of the teaching practicum experiences to the way prospective ESOL teachers form their identities as teachers. The three main findings that are specifically related to practicum in this study illustrated the contribution of the teaching practicum to TCs’ teacher identity development. They contribute to the exploration of TCs’ identity formation during teaching practicum by identifying the vital role of school-based mentor teachers’ support and willingness to share their classroom 246   power and ownership of their students with their interns. The critical role that mentor teachers play in the growth of preservice teachers has been frequently investigated in the literature (e.g., Furlong & Maynard, 1995; Calderhead, 1996; O’Brian, Stoner, Appel, & House, 2007; Roberts, Benedict, & Thomas, 2013). However, the ways in which they impact emerging teachers’ identity formation is underexplored terrain in the SLTE literature (for exceptions see Johnson, 2001; Liu & Fisher, 2006). This study also contributed to the existing research through the finding that having a designated work space in the classroom afforded TCs concrete acknowledgment in their professional setting. This made them feel they were accepted members of the professional community and solidified their power and authority in the eyes of their students. The literature review in this dissertation work has not come across any inquiries discussing the significance of physical space as a factor impacting TCs’ identity building. Finally, the finding that pertains to the mutual relationship between negotiation of emotional states and negotiation of identities proved to be another empirical contribution of this research study to the SLTE literature. Although several scholars in SLTE have directed attention to the central role of emotions as integral to cognition and action by utilizing Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of mind without explicitly highlighting its impact on teacher identity (e.g., Childs, 2011; Golombek & Johnson, 2004; Golombek & Doran, 2014; Reis, 2011), the role of emotion in teachers’ identity development has not been their principal point of discussion. While growing as a teacher, emotions emerging out of TCs’ interaction with their students and coworkers orient, inform, and define the formation of their teacher identity (Zembylas, 2003, 2004). Their emotions indicate what they see at stake in their teaching and on the other hand, as they experience and have to deal with different emotional states, they negotiate their teacher 247   identities and frame and reframe their teaching self in accordance with their responses to these states. Having been in both elementary and secondary school settings for a full semester, the participants had the opportunities to experience various emotional states and to learn how to interpret, deal with and regulate these states. Ultimately, this study yielded findings that demonstrated the synergistic contribution of teacher education coursework and teaching practicum to teacher identity. Those findings expand the previous work on the impact of the following on teacher identity development: reflective practices (Alsup, 2006; Cattley, 2007; Liu & Fisher, 2006; Mantero, 2004; Urzúa & Vàsquez, 2008; Walkington, 2005), professional discourse acquisition (Dotger & Smith, 2009; Ilieva, 2010; Trent, 2010; Wells & Claxton, 2002), and opportunities for TCs to identify their pedagogical values concerning the teaching of ESOL students (Ilieva, 2010; Kanno & Stuart, 2011; Peercy, 2012; Tsui, 2007). Prior work has studied the contribution of reflection to teachers’ identity building. Some focused on reflection as a factor in TCs’ positive change (Liu & Fisher, 2006) and future-oriented reflection in teacher identity development (Urzúa & Vàsquez, 2008). Others have concentrated on the role of reflective writing practices (Cattley, 2007), simulated experiences (Dotger & Smith, 2009), and teacher educators’ support in TCs’ reflection on their role in the context (Walkington, 2005) as conducive to their identity formation. Adding to those findings, the current research accentuated the importance of TCs’ awareness about the contribution of reflection to their emerging and growing as ESOL professionals and as an essential element of being a teacher, which has not been exclusively attended to in previous research. Since the programmatic provisions of the IMP were the focal point in terms of TCs’ identity development in this study, findings from this study indicate that the IMP in general offered opportunities for ESOL TCs to reflect on their teaching practices. 248   Throughout their experiences in the program, they reflected on their teaching skills either individually or through interaction with experienced others, such as professors, university supervisors and mentor teachers. This led them to see reflection or reflective practices encapsulated in the definition of the good ESOL teacher which undergirded their teaching identity. They became conscious about the fact that reflection is imperative for their growth as ESOL teachers. Thus, reflection was a critical component of being a teacher, according to Zoe, Elizabeth, and Leslie. This finding sheds light on the role of reflective practices in TCs’ identity construction, which has not been adequately explored in the prior research. In addition, the acquisition of a professional discourse during coursework and practicum experiences afforded the TCs in this study access to the tools of participation in the ESOL professional community. This finding relies on and corroborates the previous work on the role of discourse in L2 teachers’ identity development throughout their early formal professional preparation (e.g., Ilieva, 2010; Trent, 2010). Findings from this study indicate that the three TCs had to acquire and appropriate a professional discourse as part of their apprenticing into the professional community, which was critical to developing their identities as teachers. This finding is congruent with Trent’s (2010) study that found language TCs’ identities emerging while navigating in the landscape of contradictory discourses and Ilieva’s (2010) work that revealed TCs’ creative utilization and appropriation of the program-approved discourses. This study extends those findings by underscoring the importance of teachers’ awareness about the fact that they need to acquire a discourse to become active participants in the professional community. Lastly, the IMP offered opportunities for the three TCs to identify what was important for them in teaching ESOL which is a manifestation or signature of their emerging teacher identities. 249   This finding builds upon and validates previous inquiries in the literature (e.g., Kanno & Stuart, 2011; Peercy, 2012) which investigated how TCs’ fledgling identities were manifested in their teaching practices, their narratives, and their perceptions about teacher education coursework. With the main purpose of interrogating the contribution of the IMP to how ESOL TCs form their teaching identities, the current study revealed that through IMP experiences, they externalized what they saw as significant about teaching ELLs in the US. What they externalized comprises their beliefs, conceptions, and interpretations regarding their image of effective ESOL teaching and teacher which is influential upon how they decide and act in their instructional setting. Their externalization is underpinned by their implicit theories (Peercy, 2012) resting upon their teacher cognition (Borg, 2006) and biographical trajectories of learning and teaching (Bailey, et al., 1996; Johnson, 1994, 1999) which were constantly rewritten and revisited as they were exposed to pedagogical theories in teacher education coursework. This understanding of L2 teacher learning challenges earlier views in teacher education which conceived TCs as empty vessels ready to be filled with program-approved knowledge. In reality, as TCs enter initial teacher preparation, they bring in their preconceptions regarding language teaching and learning which establishes their “interpretive frame” (Olsen, 2010, p. 43). This frame constitutes the initial basis for their teacher identity development throughout their experiences in TEPs. 5.4. Theoretical Contributions This study commenced with a conceptual framework which encompassed the pertinent elements and dynamics that have been investigated thus far as major factors in teacher identity formation. The main purpose of this study was to construct a deeper understanding of the intricacies and particularities of teacher identity building in the context of a TEP. The literature has highlighted a variety of dynamics as significant influences upon the way teacher develop their identities: teacher learning (e.g., Tsui, 2011), teacher cognition (e.g., Peercy, 2012), teacher 250   biographies (e.g., Sugrue, 1997), participation in communities of practice (e.g., Varghese, 2006), and contextual factors (e.g., Flores, 2001). I built upon these studies by using all five of these features to yield a more comprehensive portrayal of TCs’ identity construction (See Figure 1a in Chapter 2, Section 2.1.5.). This study makes a theoretical contribution to the literature by putting together and exemplifying the utilization of a multi-layered lens which illustrates how the interrelationship between TCs’ learning, cognition, biographies, participation in communities of practices, and contexts contribute to teacher identity development. This multilayered conceptual lens afforded a more nuanced picture of how the IMP contributed to the three ESOL TCs’ identity construction. This contribution can facilitate future research on teacher identity development by providing a conceptual tool that can be tested against further empirical data in other inquiries. An additional theoretical contribution of this study is the re-conceptualization of the role of emotion in TCs’ identity formation. Drawing on previous work about the interconnectedness between teachers’ cognition and emotions (Nias, 1996), I originally conceptualized teacher cognition as encompassing of teacher emotions because the literature asserts that “teachers’ emotions are rooted in cognitions” (Nias, 1996, p. 294). That is, what teachers feel about the practices of teaching and learning hinges on their preconceptions and values regarding the characteristics of good teaching and learning. However, as I further explored the complex and multifaceted nature of the reciprocal relationship between teachers’ emotions and identity formation in light of the data, the data demonstrated that teachers’ emotions merit a separate layer in the conceptual lens to understand and explore teacher identity development. The data directed my attention to the following about the mutual relationship between teachers’ emotions and identity construction: (a) constructing their identities as ESOL professionals, the participants 251   in this study had to learn to regulate their emotions evoked by their experiences in instructional situations, and (b) their emotions reflected what they identified as important and saw at stake in their teaching practices. The emotional states they went through and how they responded to and handled those emotional states, especially intense negative emotions, were influential on their self-conception and imagination as effective ESOL teachers caring their ELLs in their current and future teaching settings. Supported by previous work on teachers’ emotions (e.g., Golombek & Johnson, 2004; Golombek & Doran, 2014; van Veen, 2005; van Veen & Lasky, 2005; Zembylas, 2004, 2005), I revised my conceptual framework (See Figure 1b in Chapter 2, Section 2.1.5.), adding teachers’ emotions as a significant dynamic in the way teachers frame and reframe their sense of being as teachers. This finding will support future work by providing a conceptual lens which more comprehensively captures the interrelated factors that are a part of language teachers’ identity development processes. The conceptual lens this dissertation study created and revised can function as a starting point for future research which in return can build upon, test, and revise this lens, examining the role of TCs’ emotion in their journey of teacher identity construction. 5.5. Practical Implications This study also offers practical implications about the preparation of TCs. This section discusses those practical implications for preservice TEPs. There are seven implications that the present study contributes to preservice teacher education practices: TEPs should (1) make TCs’ identity development a conscious and intentional process throughout their programmatic provisions, (2) create safe spaces in the university-based coursework for personalized identity negotiation, (3) begin teacher preparation with TCs’ preconceptions which shapes the basis for teacher learning and identity formation, (4) carefully select mentor teachers and provide them with professional development to bolster TC identity development, (5) guide TCs in exploring 252   and attending to emotional experiences, especially during teaching practicum, (6) augment reflective practices to support TCs’ identity construction in coursework and practicum, and (7) provide support for beginning teachers’ induction into the profession when they begin their paid career. These implications will be further explicated in the rest of this section. However, before proceeding, I acknowledge that some of the recommendations I make in what follows require additional resources in TEPs, so making adjustments in accordance with these recommendations becomes challenging for TEPs. Although these adjustments would lead to good practices, these recommendations pose challenges of additional time and resources on TEPs that are often already strained in terms of financial and personnel-related supports. 5.5.1. Make TCs’ identity development a conscious and intentional process Because becoming a teacher is a process of negotiating and constructing a teacher identity (Danielewicz, 2001), teacher educators should let TCs know that formal TEPs afford a venue in which they can intentionally begin this negotiation and construction. My findings suggest that TCs’ teacher learning and identity development are two intricately intertwined processes that go through a significant transition during initial teacher preparation. These two processes reciprocally shape and influence one another, but TCs’ identity development is generally not the main focus in TEPs. However, TCs’ identity development, and its impact on teacher learning, began receiving more attention in the research literature in the 1990s. Therefore, becoming conscious of their own identity development casts a telling influence upon the way in which TCs can intentionally take ownership of and lead the routes in their journey of teacher identity formation (Olsen, 2011). Formal TEPs represent “the ideal starting point for instilling not only an awareness of the need to develop an identity, but also a strong sense of the ongoing shifts that will occur in that identity” (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009, p. 186). For the purpose of raising this awareness in 253   TCs, teacher educators need to help TCs recognize identity formation as an important goal of their formal preparation in which they are expected to transition from being an undergraduate or graduate student to being a teacher. This entails a program-wide endeavor that all teacher educators should collectively pursue in order to make sure that this goal is infused and reflected in individual teacher education courses and teaching internship practices. Teacher education practices should construct and orchestrate safe spaces in which TCs can bring in their prior conceptions about teaching and learning, critically “examine the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of teaching” (Singh & Richards, 2006, p. 160) against the backdrop of their cognition (Borg, 2003) and implicit theories (Peercy, 2012), socialize into the professional community (Morita, 2000) through interacting with teacher educators and fellow TCs, and acquire the discursive tools to negotiate their identities in this socialization. More importantly, throughout formal teacher preparation, TCs “can become more conscious of their own identities and more intentionally direct the contours of their own professional growth” (Olsen, 2011, p. 270). Therefore, TCs need to be consciously oriented to deal with such core questions as “what kind of teacher am I and what kind of teacher do I want to become?” (Singh & Richards, 2006, p. 160) which would guide them in the winding journey of identity development. In order to embed teacher identity construction as a “conscious pursuit” (Hoveid & Hoveid, 2004, p. 53) pervading throughout teacher education practices in a program, the challenging aspects of teacher identity development should be explicitly discussed in relation to their learning to teach by TCs and educators. These discussions are crucial to raise TCs’ awareness about the pedagogical implications of identity (Morgan, 2004) pertaining to their personal practices, “even though it might be uncomfortable for us and … [they] might mean revealing some of our own perceived weaknesses” (Alsup, 2006, p. 7). Explicit use of teacher 254   identity as a framework can guide teacher educators to devise scaffolding activities through which TCs “can more critically interrogate personal influences, [and] more deeply direct the contours of their own professional development” (Olsen, 2011, p. 270). Furthermore, teacher educators should strategically encourage TCs to consciously externalize and carefully examine their beliefs about how those activities are related to their “developing personal pedagogy” (Alsup, 2006) or “practically-oriented personalized knowledge” (Borg, 2003). Engaging in this sort of externalization and examination will afford them opportunities to negotiate and experiment with their teaching identities both in university-based and school-based components of teacher education. Lastly, teachers in the making should be mentally and emotionally prepared for the fact that their identity is in flux and will go through changes due to the surrounding micro and macro contextual factors (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009). Their constraints and obligations in differing contexts might necessitate certain shifts in what kind of teacher they need to be to best function in those contexts. 5.5.2. Create safe spaces in teacher education classes Teacher education courses are often considered to be offered primarily to promote TCs’ acquisition of knowledge and skills of language teaching which they try out applying to teaching practices in their internship experiences. A teacher education pedagogy that centers on teacher identity formation as its major goal could broaden this narrow understanding of teacher education coursework. It would conceive language teaching knowledge and skill acquisition as part of “teacher identity development, not the other way around” since the latter represents “the central project novice teachers engage in” (Kanno & Stuart, 2011, p. 249-250). The findings of this dissertation research directed attention to the professional venues or spaces afforded through teacher education courses. Those spaces were conducive to the teacher identity development of the three focal TCs in this study. From this perspective, teacher education classrooms should be 255   “viewed as having a rich life which unfolds over time, as events and processes interact, and shape the way participants think, feel and act” (Singh & Richards, 2006, p. 151) as well as the way they conceive and imagine themselves as teachers. Therefore, teacher educators should engineer their courses as safe cultural spaces in which TCs can comfortably verbalize their pedagogical thinking, reasoning, and justification processes and externalize their growing teaching philosophies in the making. These spaces should also promote “interactive professional community” in which TCs can receive ample feedback from teacher educators and peers (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, 2010, p. 5). Teacher educators should engage in “intentional structuring of opportunities” (Ronfeldt & Grossman, 2008, p. 57) made available in their classes for TCs to grapple with and experiment with refining and enacting possible images of teacher identity. The teacher education classroom environment should encompass “social participation structures” (Singh & Richards, 2006, p. 154) in which TCs can critique and challenge the theories and practices they are exposed to through their “interpretive frame” “hidden from view” (Olsen, 2010, p. 43) and shaped and subsumed by their fledgling teacher identities. Those structures, comprising class discourses and activities, should be supportive and facilitative of TCs’ critical meaning or sense making and knowledge construction depending on the image of teacher they envision becoming. Most importantly, those structures should acknowledge TCs’ “internal struggles and dilemmas” (Singh & Richards, 2006, p. 156) potentially stemming from the discordance between their “implicit theories” (Peercy, 2012) and the new practices to which they are introduced. What is more, teacher education courses need to allow space for the articulation and negotiation of these struggles and dilemmas because the way in which they are handled shapes and is shaped by TCs’ identity as an emerging teacher. In addition, those social structures should allow and promote the 256   construction and sustenance of a professional learning community amongst TCs which can serve as a venue for collegial interaction. Through this sort of community, they can experiment with employing their new “repertoires of literacies” (Hedgcock, 2009) and dialogically craft and road- test varying visions of teacher identity by repositioning themselves in the context of a constellation of relations. Professional learning communities created in teacher education courses could be instrumental for simulating, to a certain extent, the networks of professional interaction with TCs’ future coworkers in school settings when they begin their paid teaching career and continue remaking their identities in new contexts. 5.5.3. Start teacher preparation with TCs’ preconceptions Having observed many teachers and teaching techniques and gone through extensive educational trajectories themselves (Kennedy, 1991; Lortie, 1975), TCs bring numerous preconceptions and aspirations to their preservice settings, which construct a basis for their learning to teach. Being socially situated and constructed, teacher identity development is initially fueled “by the powerful ideologies teacher-learners bring to the classroom with them” (Singh & Richards, 2006, p. 152). This is in the same vein with what the findings in the current study suggest. That is, Zoe’s, Leslie’s, and Elizabeth’s learning to teach and identity development were influenced by the preconceptions that they brought in when they entered the IMP. Therefore, teacher educators should recognize that these preconceptions and aspirations exert an intense influence upon what prospective teachers learn in formal teacher education regarding what good teaching and learning look like. Whenever teacher educators make decisions about their own teaching and TCs’ learning to teach, they should make sure that these decisions are sensitive to “teacher-learners’ histories of participation and the expectations they bring” to TEPs (Singh & Richards, 2006, p. 157). Teacher educators should keep in mind that TCs rely on what they already bring with them from their prior experiences which might not be 257   in agreement with the new or different instructional strategies they are exposed to in TEPs. Their existing “rarely noticed” conceptions (Olson, 2010, p. 34) from their experiences as students function as a means of “sense-making” (Golombek, 2000, p. 87) or “reasoning” and “decision making” (Johnson, 1999). Second, teacher educators should help TCs grow functional awareness about the fact that their growth as a teacher is impacted by their biographical trajectories and future-oriented imaginations shaping and shaped by their teacher learning and identity development (Freeman & Johnson, 1998; Johnson, 2009a, 2009b; Tsui, 2011). In other words, TCs should become cognizant that their “accumulated knowledge, skills, and awareness to many of the issues” (Singh & Richards, 2006, p. 168) they are exposed to in teacher education practices have a powerful influence upon their participation in the new professional community for learning-to- teach purposes. Going one step further, teacher educators need to explore ways to foster TCs’ storying and restorying of their prior experiences (Golombek, 2000) so that TCs come to see what lies beneath their identity as a teacher. Lastly, teacher educators should help TCs realize that they are “learners of teaching in their own right” (Johnson, 2000, p. 6) and they engage in the practice of theorizing about their teaching and students’ learning in light of the amalgamation of their growing theoretical, personal, practical and experiential knowledge. In order to make this theorizing a conscious process more conducive to teacher identity development, TCs should externalize, reflect on, and “critique their existing conceptions” about teaching and learning (Golombek, 2000, p. 88) and their images and visions of a good teacher and learner which orient their initial theorization. These conceptions need to be “made visible for examination” (Olsen, 2010, p. 34) since a better 258   understanding of them could enrich their interaction and integration with research based theories in terms of TCs’ developing knowledge base and new teaching competencies. 5.5.4. Select mentors carefully and provide them with professional development TEPs should be very selective when assigning mentors to TCs who need teaching practicum experiences conducive to honing their teaching practices and identities. In terms of being conducive to teacher identity development, the quality of practicum experiences that TCs have in school settings is considerably contingent upon the support and guidance they receive from their mentor teachers. The current study revealed that ESOL TCs’ interaction and relationships with their mentors are tremendously important in terms of their teacher learning and identity development processes. Whether or not their mentors were supportive made a significant difference for Zoe, Leslie, and Elizabeth when they practiced teaching and took on their teacher identities during their teaching practicum experiences. TCs need to immerse themselves in the school context and learn how to navigate through the inner workings and dynamics of the workplace where they practice teaching as apprentices and seek membership to a professional community. This immersion and professional learning hinges on whether or not their mentors are willing and committed to provide TCs with necessary orientation and support. However, the main criterion for the “casual selection” of mentors is usually their availability and they “too often lack essential knowledge and skills needed to strengthen the learning of prospective teachers” (Schön, 1987, p. 27). TEPs should select mentor teachers who are “effective practitioners” (NCATE, 2010, p. 6) and can actively help TCs to “present themselves as prospective teachers’’ and ‘‘acquire the confidence to see themselves as budding teachers’’ (Hawkey, 1997, p. 328). They need to make sure that mentor teachers can provide opportunities for TCs to negotiate their emerging identities in and outside of the classroom. Mentors should know that as “old timers” of the community, 259   they can function as gatekeepers with regard to TCs’ access to the legitimate peripheral participation. The extent to which mentors make this access easier facilitates the ways TCs negotiate and forge their identities in the professional activities in which they partake. Mentors should be cognizant of the fact that they can provide the power or authority TCs need in the professional environment of the language classroom in order to road-test their growing teacher identities. In brief, mentors should be aware of the decisive influence they can exert on TCs’ successful entry into the profession and the likelihood that they will retain in the profession in subsequent years of teaching. Selecting good mentors is a big part of the endeavor to ensure that optimal conditions are provided for TCs in school settings, where they face “emotional vulnerability that becoming a teacher involves” (Malderez, et al., 2007). Since “the well-being of the student teachers should be our first priority” (Beck & Kosnik, 2006, p. 40), TEPs should utilize several approaches to ensuring optimal conditions for TCs’ professional learning. First, they should construct a feedback system through which TCs share their experiences about the experienced or veteran teachers who have worked as their mentors in their teaching practicum. Through this system, program coordinators are able to gather important data which can help them (1) decide whether or not they should assign future TCs to those teachers, (2) make plans to enhance the mentoring TCs receive, and (3) learn how they have done in terms of communicating the expectations from mentor teachers in terms of TCs’ professional learning in school context. Second, university-based teacher educators should be actively involved in the selection of mentors for TCs registered in the TEP. One significant contribution that they can make is to observe potential mentor teachers’ classes before the program makes a decision to request those teachers to serve as mentors for TCs. They would make sure the teaching practices of mentor 260   teachers are philosophically aligned with what undergirds TEPs’ curriculum, which can decrease the possibility of conflicts between TCs and mentors and increase the possibility of fruitful teaching practicum experiences for TCs. TCs’ evaluation of potential mentors could be used as supporting data to determine the program’s decision that is going to affect TCs’ learning to teach experiences that are vital for their growth as teachers. Therefore, teacher educators should also know that becoming a teacher requires a close engagement with identity construction rather than acquiring certain sets of knowledge and skills (Danielewicz, 2001) and TCs’ practicum experiences have a significant impact on TCs’ identity development processes. Third, TEPs can offer or require participation in a series of professional development sessions for not only existing mentor teachers but also those experienced teachers who would like to serve as mentors for TCs. Teacher educators who design and deliver those professional development sessions need to incorporate teacher identity development as a central theme and highlight its prominence as a core goal of formal teacher education. The main idea running through these sessions should include the vital role that mentors play in the way in which TCs are apprenticed into the professional community and conceive themselves as active participants. Additionally, the content of these sessions should be enhanced by drawing upon the data sets that are created through feedback garnered from TCs. Real life examples from TCs’ practicum experiences should underscore teacher identity formation as an integral part of teacher learning. Lastly, these professional development sessions should also be utilized to clearly describe the expectations of all parties that are involved in the venture of the teaching practicum, namely, TEP, TCs, supervisors, and mentor teachers. This clarification is necessary for a seamless and healthy communication amongst them which is a key aspect in minimizing potential issues and providing optimally supportive professional learning opportunities for TCs. 261   5.5.5. Guide TCs in the handling of emotional experiences Teachers rely on their identity when responding to emotional situations and their emotional experiences inform their identities and lead them to gain a more enhanced “self- knowledge” (Zembylas, 2003, 2005). If teachers’ emotions are an essential component of their work and lives (Hargreaves, 1998; Nias, 1996; Shapiro, 2010; Zembylas, 2003), the development of TCs’ “emotional literacy” (Hayes, 2003) should be part of preservice teacher education. By the end of their teacher education experiences, TCs need to acquire the skills to successfully handle emotional experiences such that they are not negatively impacted in terms of their individual integrity, commitment to teaching, and professional practice. The current dissertation research corroborated that TCs go through a socio-emotional development process as they learn to teach and they simultaneously develop their teacher identities. Zoe, Leslie, and Elizabeth learned how to handle their emotions and how to emotionally respond to teaching and non- teaching incidents during their teaching practicum experiences. Their emotional responses were oriented by the kind of teacher they were or they aspired to become. Therefore, along with constructing their knowledge and competency base to effectively teach, TCs’ initial preparation for the profession of teaching critically entails becoming “literate” about the handling of their emotions (Hayes, 2003) which are triggered by their interactions with others and tacitly influence their practice and self-image as teachers. Because teachers’ emotions are “too important to be left to chance” (Hayes, 2003, p. 169), teacher educators should first raise TCs’ awareness about the fact that they are going to confront varying emotional experiences not only in teacher education courses but also in the teaching practica. To contextualize this, they can invite beginning teachers from previous cohorts of TCs who graduated from the same program and have them share their experiences. TCs should also know that these emotional experiences will have an impact on their understanding of 262   teaching and themselves as budding teachers. This awareness could aid them to see the reason why they need to engage in more introspection and reflection to better explore and understand their emotional responses when encountering certain emotion-provoking situations. They need to be able to pinpoint how “their emotions expand or limit possibilities in their teaching, and how these emotions enable them to think and act differently” (Zembylas, 2003, p. 232). Becoming conscious identity developers necessitates that TCs discern their emotional responses to certain teaching and non-teaching incidents “as signals of the (more or less successful) agreement of their professional functioning with their ideals and commitments” (van Huizen, et al., 2005, p. 285). Then, they can learn how to handle their emotional reactions and despite their “vulnerability” especially in school settings (Kelchtermans, 1996, 2005), they can successfully “navigate the inevitably emotionally-charged process of becoming a teacher” (Malderez, et al., 2007). Furthermore, TCs should be afforded opportunities to express their emotions because “if we don’t express [emotions]… we will not learn how to have them. We need practice in being affectionate, fearful, and angry at appropriate times” (Beck & Kosnik, 1995, p. 163; emphasis original). For this to happen, TCs should feel comfortable expressing their emotions when working with their students, peers, teacher educators, mentors, supervisors, and others. Although being comfortable or not might be determined by their personality, their peers, teacher educators, mentors and supervisors should facilitate an increase in their comfort level. Regarding their interactions with their students, TCs should consider their potential emotional responses “when certain events transpire, controversial beliefs surface, or challenging comments emerge” when planning for their lessons (Olsen, 2010, p. 131). 263   Lastly, since TCs become highly emotionally vulnerable during their early teaching experiences in the teaching practica, as newcomers of the teaching profession, they need a significant amount of support from their mentors and supervisors as well as the other coworkers and principals in school settings. This support determines whether their practica turn into a crucible threatening their emotional welfare or a fruitful learning environment facilitative of their “emotional literacy” (Hayes, 2003). In addition, this emotionally intense process can be ameliorated through creating a repertoire of stories and sharing them, and writing autobiographical reflections, and philosophies and histories of emotions (Zembylas, 2003, 2004). These activities can help them establish “a rich emotional flexibility that allows them to look at one story in the light of another” (p. 231). 5.5.6. Augment reflective practices to support identity construction Through reflection on others’ or their own teaching, TCs (re)interpret and (re)frame their practice from different perspectives and explore the complexities involved in teaching. Reflection leads them to make sense of what teaching requires and to verbalize their thinking and reasoning about their pedagogical experiences, whereby they (re)negotiate and take on different teacher identities. This research project revealed that guided reflection opportunities not only in teacher education courses but also in teaching practicum made a significant contribution to Zoe’s, Leslie’s, Elizabeth’s teacher identity development. As TCs reflected on their teaching either through various assignments or discussions with peers, teacher educators, and university supervisor, they externalized their pedagogical beliefs and knowledge and negotiated their emerging teacher identities. Therefore, TEPs should augment guided reflective practices in their curriculum to cultivate their continuing identity development which is constantly being (re)shaped in the course of formal teacher education and beyond. Teacher educators as well as 264   supervisors and mentor teachers, as crucial actors in supporting fledgling teachers, should take the initiative to activate TCs’ reflection on their experiences in the new professional community. First, teacher educators, supervisors, and mentors should make sure that TCs have the necessary guidance or orientation about what reflection involves and entails as an essential component of teaching or as a core characteristic of a good teacher. They need to model multiple times in varying instances what reflective practice looks like and how experienced teachers engage in reflection. Thereby, TCs would also be informed that teacher education practices orchestrated either through teacher education coursework or practica will tacitly and/or overtly expect and encourage them to be reflective and deliberative about their instructional practice. In other words, they should know that those practices are meant to contribute to their emergence and growth as reflective practitioners as the desirable outcome of TEPs. Moreover, TCs need to internalize the instrumentality of reflection in relationship to the ultimate goal of teacher identity construction in the course of teacher education. For example, when they write “dialogue journals, reaction papers, or respond to introspective questionnaires,” they would have to ponder, inquire into, and “articulate their convictions about language, learning, and teaching” (Hedgcock, 2002, p. 302). TCs should be cognizant that thanks to this articulation, they might gain “deeper understanding” of themselves as second language teachers and deeper “insight into [their] perceptions and interpretations of” teaching and non-teaching events (Freese, 2006, pp. 110-112). These kinds of reflective writing practices afford TCs with a dialogic space in which they can discursively experiment with, negotiate, and take on teacher identities. Lastly, reflection opportunities embedded in teacher education practices can be formal assignments like edTPA submissions, response papers, and journals, or informal conversations 265   that TCs have with their peers, teacher educators, mentors, and supervisors. In terms of their content and quality, those opportunities can be clustered under five headings, namely, technical reflection, reflection-in and on-action, deliberative reflection, personalistic reflection, and critical reflection as Valli (1997) describes. To summarize her description, when TCs are reflecting on their teaching in order to match it, for example, for the program’s formal rubric like in performance-based assessment (PBA) in this study, they engage in technical reflection. While making instructional decisions relying on their own teaching situations, which occurred both in coursework and practicum in this study, TCs reflect in and on their actions. They deliberatively reflect on their teaching by basing their decisions upon various sources such as research, prior experiences, and feedback from their mentors, supervisors, professors, and peers. TCs’ reflection becomes personalistic when they listen to and trust their “own inner voice and the voices of others” (Valli, 1997, p. 75). They engage in critical reflection by considering and evaluating the goals of schooling from an ethical perspective, critically highlighting the issues of social justice and equal opportunity. All five types of teacher reflection have the potential to contribute to TCs’ identity formation. It is crucial that as they critically assess and “analyze their relationship to [their] developing personal pedagogy” (Alsup, 2006, p. 7), TCs should also be able to acquire autonomy in continuous learning to teach, and appropriate the reflective process as one of their teacher competencies. This will be instrumental not only in the way TCs adjust their teaching identity in accordance with the contextual needs and demands, but also in their further identity reconstruction during their professional lives. 5.5.7. Provide support for beginning teachers’ induction Teacher learning and identity construction are both an ongoing process which continues after TCs exit formal TEPs. When they begin their paid teaching careers, TCs have received some theoretical and practical preparation to successfully participate in the activities of their 266   professional community, but they are not prepared for all local workplace challenges and demands. In other words, they are “new entrants, who upon accepting a teaching position in a school are often left to their own devices to succeed or fail within the confines of their own classrooms” (Smith & Ingersoll, 2004, p. 682). TCs abruptly transition from a support-rich environment designed to promote and facilitate their learning to teach into an environment which does not usually offer any institutionalized support to enable their induction into the professional setting as beginning teachers. For example, after data collection for this study was completed, Zoe later shared the challenges that caused her to quit her teaching job about a month after she started her first year of teaching. She described how unprepared she was for those challenges after having two rewarding teaching practicum placements in the IMP program. Lack of support from her school administration in terms of workload and mentorship in her full-time job led her to a helpless situation for which she was unprepared. This is one of the main reasons for the “revolving-door phenomenon in the [US] education system” (Gustafson, 2011, p. 20) which refers to “the chronic attrition of new teachers that plagues American schools” (National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, 1996, p. 8). Practically 25% of beginning public school teachers quit their job within the first three years (Marvel, et al., 2007). Therefore, it is critical that both school systems and TEPs collaboratively provide support for beginning teachers, a group of significant concern in teacher attrition rates, so that new teachers are retained in the profession. First, in the course of formal teacher preparation, TCs should become acquainted with what beginning teachers experience in their initial years, what potential constraints and challenges are awaiting them, and what resources they can make use of when grappling with those constraints and challenges. Usually, the teaching practica significantly contribute to TCs’ 267   familiarization as well as their apprenticeship into the context of teaching. However, an additional good strategy would be to have the graduates of previous years meet the current TC cohort for certain events and invite graduates to share their experiences and the current cohort to ask questions about the beginning years of teaching. This definitely requires a continuous and strong relationship between TEPs and their alumni. Moreover, TCs should be assisted in their job search, which might turn out to be a thorny process, so that they can find a school that is the best fit for their aspirations and imagined future career. TCs’ successful induction into the profession largely depends on the match between their teacher identity and the setting of the particular school recruiting them. TCs require significant orientation during the job search process in order to handle its challenges and find an environment conducive to their successful induction during their beginning years. Although informal assistance from teacher educators, mentors, and supervisors is helpful, programs should provide some institutionalized support which might include, for example, inviting guest speakers such as the following: school principals or vice principals, veteran teachers who have recruited and worked with beginning teachers, or program graduates who have recently been recruited. The main goal of all the support should be to help TCs better learn the dynamics of the process and figure out how to navigate within these dynamics to end up starting to teach in a setting which best fits their identity as a teacher. Lastly, when TCs are hired, TEPs and school systems need to work collaboratively to facilitate the transition of newly hired teachers into full time working conditions. After graduation from TEPs, there is frequently a disconnect between beginning teachers and the programs from which they have graduated. If beginning teachers stay in touch with their professors, mentors, or supervisors, it is generally because of their individual initiatives rather 268   than an organized, program-led initiative. The support, if they are offered any, comes from the school setting. That is why sustained “strategic partnerships” initiated and sustained by formal TEPs and school districts (NCATE, 2010, p. 6) are needed to better aid novice teachers in this intense learning process throughout which they are so likely to be emotionally “sensitive” and “vulnerable,” feeling helpless, hopeless, stressed, overwhelmed (Hayes, 2003; Hong, 2010; Kelchtermans, 2005; Malderez, et al., 2007). This aid could play a significant role in teacher retention rates during initial years of their career. 5.6. A Note on Accreditation Standards If the main goal of all educational policies is to improve student learning, they should start with the education of teachers because “no in-school intervention has a greater impact on student learning than an effective teacher” (NCATE, 2010, p. 1). Because teacher identities significantly impact TCs’ teaching and learning to teach their students, policies regulating preservice and in-service education (e.g., NCATE7, CAEP8) should acknowledge the significance of teachers’ identities for their practices and bolster teacher identity development. Teacher identity is not easy to incorporate in licensure accreditation standards, although are a number of studies that reach research-based conclusions about “the invisible and comprehensive power that identities exert over instruction” (Rex & Nelson, 2004, p. 1317) and their influence on teacher retention (Kardos & Johnson, 2007). The TESOL/NCATE Standards (2010) do not explicitly allude to teacher identity development as part of their formal professional preparation and beyond. They present a policy-                                                              7 NCATE stands for National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education in the US which is the teaching profession’s mechanism to help to establish high quality teacher, specialist, and administrator preparation. Through the process of professional accreditation of schools, colleges and departments of education, NCATE works to make a difference in the quality of teaching, teachers, school specialists and administrators (www.ncate.org). 8 CAEP stands for Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation in the US which replaced NCATE as the new body of teacher education accreditation as of July 1, 2013. The council describes itself as “advanc[ing] excellence in educator preparation through evidence-based accreditation that assures quality and supports continuous improvement to strengthen P-12 student learning” (www.caepnet.org).   269   approved teacher identity for ESOL TCs with five interlocking domains of teaching ESOL, namely, language, culture, instruction, assessment, and professionalism. To secure their national accreditation, certification granting ESOL TEPs need to comply with those standards in their curriculum. Thus, they need to make sure that these standards are met across their curricula, which means that the ESOL teacher identity options framed by these standards are translated into TEPs’ curricular components and practices. Then, the Standards go through another translation with individual teacher educators’ course syllabus design (Bullough, 2005; Murray & Male, 2005; Williams & Ritter, 2010). Despite these processes of translation from top-down policy to bottom-up teacher education practices, TESOL/NCATE standards attempt to function as a set of guidelines or a framework which creates a script for ESOL teachers’ identities. However, such standards fail to discern that TCs engage in negotiation of teacher identities, which is impacted by many individual (emotions, motivation, aspirations), biographical (prior learning and teaching experiences) and contextual (interaction with students and colleagues) factors along with what TEPs offer in terms of teachers’ knowledge and skills. In short, even though TESOL/NCATE standards design a framework for forming teacher identity to be adopted by TEPs, they do not explicitly take into account TCs’ dynamic identity development in the course of initial teacher preparation. They seem to neglect TCs’ continuous identity negotiation which is not necessarily aligned with the discourses framed by TESOL/NCATE standards. In their current version, they fail to reflect or capture the complexities of the multifaceted process of teacher identity development. This research asserts that teacher identity formation, which is inextricable from teacher learning, should be viewed as an important goal of formal teacher education. This view concurs with the notion of identity as pedagogy (Danielewicz, 2001; Morgan, 2004) which repudiates the 270   dominant segmented fashion permeating teacher education providing “subject-matter preparation, theory, and pedagogy … in isolated intervals and too far removed from clinical practice” (NCATE, 2010, p. 2). Thus, TESOL/NCATE standards, which hold significant power with their “rigorous monitoring and enforcement for program approval and accreditation,” (NCATE, 2010, p. 16) should be reconsidered and reconstructed in light of this goal and teacher identity development should be situated across the standards as an explicitly articulated desired outcome of TEPs. Since teacher identity it resists and “risks being modularized” “in the dominant discourse of language teacher education” due to its abstract nature (Morgan, 2004, p. 177), the standards should overtly infuse the idea of teacher identity construction across all domains of ESOL knowledge and skills base. The sustained enactment of those standards at the program level should ensure that programs are promoting teacher identity construction as TCs’ continuous conscious pursuit, creating open spaces in teacher education courses, starting with TCs’ preconceptions, selecting mentors carefully and providing them with professional development, teaching TCs how to handle their emotions, augmenting reflective teaching opportunities, and providing support for beginning teachers. Thus, by constructing an identity as a teacher, TCs can secure their “commitment to their work and adherence to professional norms” (Hammerness, Darling-Hammond, & Bransford, 2005, p. 383) which would fulfill one of the underlying aims of NCATE standards. 5.7. Limitations of This Study and Implications for Future Research This study investigated the contribution of ESOL teacher education coursework and practicum experiences to the three TCs’ construction of their identities as teachers. Its data, findings, and implications are limited because the study focused on the experiences of three individual ESOL TCs as focal participants of this qualitative inquiry. The research methods I adopted have yielded a micro picture of the ways in which the programmatic provisions in the 271   IMP contributed to Zoe, Elizabeth, and Leslie’s journeys of teacher identity formation over the course of their initial teacher education. More insights could be gained about the contributions of coursework and practicum to identity formation, or ESOL teachers’ identity construction in general, if future research endeavors attend to the following features. 5.7.1. Examine TCs coming from various linguistic, cultural and educational backgrounds The current study is limited because it only scrutinized the teacher identity formation experiences of three TCs whose backgrounds are not vastly different from one other. This was because of the characteristics of the cohort members in the IMP when this research was carried out. It would be informative to look at TCs who come from various linguistic, cultural and educational backgrounds and to compare their identity construction in a particular ESOL TEP. This depends on the understanding that TCs’ backgrounds have a telling influence on the ways in which they construct their identities during initial teacher preparation. For example, further research projects could compare the teacher identity construction of the following groups of ESOL TCs: (a) TCs for whom English is a second or foreign language and those speaking English as their mother tongue, (b) those who were home-schooled and those coming from formal education system, (c) those who are changing careers and those for whom teaching is the first career, (d) those who have had foreign language learning experiences and those who had none, (e) those who have been exposed to many diverse cultures and those who have limited multicultural experiences. How those TCs coming from diverse backgrounds are apprenticing into the profession of ESOL and constructing their identities could provide intriguing insights to better understand ESOL teachers’ identity formation and the role of programmatic components in that formation, that is, coursework and practicum. 272   5.7.2. Explore the contribution of different language TEPs This dissertation research is limited because it inquired into the contribution of a particular ESOL TEP to TCs’ identity construction. Therefore, similar research questions could be addressed with a pool of participants who are enrolled in various programs with varying provisions. The main question could be how two or three different ESOL TEPs housed in different departments or institutions are contributing to the ways in which ESOL TCs are developing their teacher identities. For example, the department where the IMP is housed offers three ESOL teacher education tracks in total which vary in terms of length, eligibility for certification, and practicum courses. Further research studies could compare TCs’ identity development across those three programs. Additionally, it would be interesting to focus on two or three English language TEPs across the globe, and examine how TCs’ identity formation is facilitated in those programs. Also, another study could recruit its participants from an ESOL TEP and a world languages (e.g., Spanish, French, Chinese, German) TEP in order to investigate their teacher identity development in these two program settings. Lastly, gathering data from various cohorts of the same program in a longitudinal study would provide much richer insights into the contribution of this very program to ESOL TCs’ teacher identity development. 5.7.3. Continue observing TCs as they start their paid teaching career The current inquiry is limited due to the fact that it observed the three TCs’ identity construction as teachers only in the course of initial teacher education which embodied two main components, namely, coursework and practicum offered within a thirteen-month period. It would be intriguing to see how these three TCs continue constructing their identities when they begin their paid teaching career and how their teacher identities impact their language teaching practices as ESOL specialists. The current study could be extended or a longitudinal study of one or two TCs would span over their preservice teacher education and beginning years in the 273   profession when they need to acquire “collaboration, communication, and problem-solving skills to keep pace with rapidly changing learning environments and new technologies” (NCATE, 2010, p. 1). Such research would be able to yield a deeper examination and understanding of their identity (re)negotiation and (re)construction starting from their decision to enter the program. It would also provide more insights into how their identities crafted in the preservice program help their successful induction into ESOL profession, how their fledgling identities impact the way they handle the challenges and utilize the resources in their induction years, and how their teacher identities are modified or refined depending on the workplace conditions. The beginning years in the teaching profession are frequently the most challenging years when novice teachers are emotionally sensitive and have a fairly steep learning curve despite what they have experienced during their teaching practicum. Observing the continuation of ESOL TCs’ identity formation after graduating from the program could shed important light upon ESOL teachers’ lives with a concentration on their identities and teaching practice. Lastly, in such an observation in another potential inquiry, it would be possible to investigate to what extent novice ESOL teachers who consciously pursued identity construction in their initial preparation in turn facilitate their English language learners’ cultural and linguistic identity development in the classes they teach when engaged in in-service practices. 5.7.4. Document ESOL teachers’ identities in the context of education reform This dissertation study is limited because it capitalizes on how ESOL TCs start forging their identities as teachers only in the context of a preservice TEP. It does not observe how those ESOL teachers handle the demands and constraints when they are compelled to make modifications in their teaching identity especially in the context of a national or state-wide educational reform. Additional study on this topic would generate salient findings and provide insights into the ways in which teachers re-negotiate and re-construct their existing teacher 274   identities. It could collect data from novice and experienced teachers regarding their identity re- formation when they are obligated to implement a curriculum or set of standards and readjust their teaching in accordance with those standards. Thereby, it would be able to scrutinize the tremendous impact of educational reforms on novice and experienced teachers’ identities (Kelchtermans, 2005; Lasky, 2005; van Veen, Sleegers, & van de Ven, 2005). For example, it would explore what sort of an adjustment, refinement, or modification ESOL teachers make in their existing teacher identities in the context of newly-adopted Common Core State Standards (CCSS) which require students to comprehend considerably more complex informational and fictional texts and express their comprehension through academic lexicon and registers. A research project could investigate how ESOL teachers’ identities are reformulated particularly when they commence engaging in more collaborative efforts with mainstream and content area teachers (Peercy, Martin-Beltran, Yazan, & DeStefano, 2014). 5.7.5. Investigate the influence of teacher educators’, mentors’, and supervisors’ identities on TCs’ identity formation The present study is limited because it directed its focus solely to the three ESOL TCs’ identity construction in the context of a preservice TEP in which they interacted with stakeholders such as teacher educators, mentors, and supervisors. Although it acknowledges that those stakeholders have their own identities which surface and become obvious when interacting with TCs, this study did not attend to how TCs’ identities in the making influenced and were influenced by their interaction with that of each stakeholder. The degree to which each set of stakeholders conceive themselves as part of TCs’ learning to teach determines their commitment, which in turn shapes their interaction and the assistance and guidance they provide. Therefore, a study could hone in on the effect of TCs’ interaction with each of those stakeholders in the program because the identities of each involved in this interaction align or clash with each other 275   and create a space for identity negotiation both for TCs and others. It could be a case study of an individual ESOL TC developing his/her identity while learning how to navigate the professional landscape and interacting with main actors of teacher education practices. Such research would have to gather more interactional data and analyze identities-in-discourse (Trent, 2010; Varghese, et al., 2005). 5.8. Conclusion This chapter presented (a) a discussion of the findings in this study by further tethering them to the relevant literature, (b) empirical and theoretical contributions of the findings to the existing body of research, (c) practical implications of the findings for the activities of teacher education, and (d) limitations and further research opportunities. Relying on the findings of this study, the current chapter engaged in discussing five main points concerning TCs’ teacher identity development. First, TCs’ professional knowledge construction or teacher learning in general cannot be conceived separately from their teacher identity development. The former continuously influences and is influenced by the latter. Second, teacher identity development is nested at the nexus of individual and social dynamics which are dialogically interwoven and in constant interplay. TCs’ self-identification and social legitimation are mediated through negotiation. Third, because teachers’ cognition and emotions are inseparable (Nias, 1996), TCs’ emotional responses to the situations regarding their teaching are shaped by their self-image as teachers, and through these responses, they construct a self- knowledge of emotions and learn how to cope with their emotions stemming from their teaching practice. Fourth, guided reflection throughout the activities of teacher education contributes to TCs’ teacher identity development since reflection gives them opportunities to better understand their roles and responsibilities as teachers, assess their own teaching in relation to their imagined teaching identities, and negotiate their identities in this assessment. Last, TCs’ teacher identity 276   development includes their socialization or apprenticing into the professional language which affords them the instruments to negotiate their identities in the professional community. The findings of this study made empirical contributions to the literature on L2 teacher identity development by shedding light on how teacher education coursework and teaching practicum in TEPs holistically contribute to TCs’ teacher identity construction. More specifically, the findings enhanced our understanding of the ways in which teacher education courses and teaching practicum solely and synergistically contribute to TCs’ teacher identity formation in an alternative TEP in the US context. Theoretically, depending on its findings, this study proposes an empirically-tested conceptual framework to comprehensively capture the processes of teacher identity formation. This framework comprises the following factors which are intimately entangled with teacher identity: teacher learning (e.g., Kanno & Stuart, 2011), teacher cognition (e.g., Borg, 2006), participation in communities of practice (e.g., Varghese, 2006), teaching context (e.g., Flores & Day, 2006), teacher biographies (e.g., Olsen, 2008a), and teachers’ emotions (Zembylas, 2003). The creation of this conceptual lens can be considered as a research-driven attempt to better illustrate in one framework the interrelation between those factors and teacher identity development. Based on its findings, this dissertation study presents some implications for the practices of teacher education as its practical contributions to the field of education. These practical implications can be summarized as follows: TEPs should (1) include identity development as a conscious and intentional pursuit for TCs in their activities of teacher education, (2) provide safe spaces in the university-based coursework that allow, facilitate, and enhance personalized identity negotiation, (3) start preparing TCs by focusing on their preconceptions that constitute the groundwork for teacher learning and identity building, (4) meticulously choose mentor 277   teachers and provide them with professional development to support TCs’ identity formation, (5) orient TCs in examining and paying attention to their emotional experiences, specifically during practice teaching, (6) enhance guided reflective practices embedded in coursework and practicum to bolster TCs’ identity development, and (7) support beginning teachers’ induction into the profession during initial first 5 years of their paid teaching career. Finally, the data, findings, and implications of this research study are limited because it capitalizes on the three TCs’ teacher identity development in the IMP and presents a microscopic delineation of their experiences. Further research can gain more insights about the contributions of teacher education courses and teaching practicum to TCs’ identity formation. For example, future research can (a) examine teacher identity formation of TCs from various linguistic, cultural and educational backgrounds, (b) explore how different language TEPs contribute to TCs’ identity development, (c) conduct a longitudinal study by observing TCs as they begin their paid teaching career, (d) investigate the changes in ESOL teachers’ identities in the context of education reform, or (e) document the impact of teacher educators’, mentors’, and supervisors’ identities on TCs’ identity formation.   278   APPENDICES Appendix A: Consent Form Project Title How TESOL MCERTers construct their professional identities   Purpose of the Study         This research is being conducted by Dr. Megan Peercy and Mr. Bedrettin  Yazan at the University of Maryland, College Park. We are inviting you  to participate in this research project because you are currently enrolled  as an MCERT student in the TESOL teacher education program in the  department of Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership. The  purpose of this research project is to investigate the ways TESOL MCERT  (Master Certification) students negotiate, construct and articulate their  identities during their experiences in the teacher education program at  the University of Maryland, College Park.   Procedures   The procedures involve the following. You will be asked to:   participate in two 40‐45 minute audio‐recorded individual  interviews and one 40‐45 minute audio‐recorded focus group  interview at a mutually convenient location, date, and time,    share or allow access to the assignments you submit as course  requirements during the semesters (Summer I 2012, Summer II  2012, Fall 2012, Winter 2013, Spring 2013, Summer I 2013),    allow the researchers to observe you in your university based  graduate classes (five times per semester),     allow the researchers to observe you in your teaching internship  setting (three classes in total)at a mutually convenient time,   share the statement of purpose essay you wrote when you applied  to the MCERT program.    allow the researchers to access your edTPA submissions, PBA  evaluations, and teaching portfolio,   share your action research papers,   allow the researchers to join and observe your feedback sessions  and PBA meetings with your university supervisor and mentor,    In the interviews, researchers will ask you questions about your  experiences in the program as a whole with the regards to the ways the  program is helping you construct your professional identity. Example  individual interview questions might include the following: Considering  your experiences in the program so far; (1) Could you tell us about the  moments when you felt yourself more as a graduate student and what  made you feel that way? (2) Could you tell us about the moments when  279   you felt yourself more as an ESOL teacher and what made you feel that  way? (3) Do you consider yourself as a member of the community in the  school where you student‐teach? Could you explain why?  Example focus group interview questions might include the following: (1)  Which graduate course has led you to identify yourself as ESOL teachers  the most and why? (2) Which graduate course has led you to identify  yourself as ESOL teachers the least and why? (3) To what extent do you  think your mentor teacher allows you to claim ownership of his/her group  of students? Any particular situation you recall happening in this regard?    Concerning both types of observations, that is, those in your university‐ based classes and the classes you teach as interns, the researchers will do  their best to be as unobtrusive as possible throughout the class time  without being part of any class activity unless they are asked to. They will  sit at the back of the room jotting down their field notes about the class.  They will not video or audio record any part of these classes. No  information about K‐12 students will be collected.  Potential Risks and Discomforts   There are no known risks associated with participating in this research  project. It is possible that you may experience very low levels of anxiety  during the interviews and classroom observations; although we will make  sure to make the experience as enjoyable and relaxing as possible.  Engagement in this study is completely voluntary, and there will be no  penalty if you refuse to answer questions or withdraw from the study. It is  not an institutional nor a course requirement. Your decision to participate  will have no impact on your grades, nor on researchers’ treatment of you  throughout the study. If you decide not to participate in this study, or if  you stop participating at any time, you will not be penalized in any way or  lose any benefits to which you otherwise qualify.   Potential Benefits   There are no direct benefits to you. However, we hope that in the future  other people studying teacher education might benefit from this study  through improved understanding of how second language teacher identity  might be influenced through coursework and practicum experiences in  teacher education programs. In addition, results will help teacher  educators, mentors, university supervisors and future preservice teachers  to better understand teachers’ processes of learning to teach English as a  second language in the U.S. context.    280   Confidentiality   The researchers will not reveal any kind of individually identifiable  information they learn through your involvement in the study. Data will be  recorded using code numbers and a separate list matching names and  numbers will be kept on the password protected computer until data  collection is complete, then the matching list will be destroyed. In any  case, all data will be stored on a password protected computer in my own  office in the Department of Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership  at UMCP. All data will be destroyed ten years after the completion of the  study: all paperwork about the research will be shredded.  Manuscripts  submitted for publication will not include any information about the  individuals by name or location. The researchers will use pseudonyms to  keep your identity confidential while sharing the excerpts from the data. If  you would like to learn more about the research results and receive a copy  of the research report, you can request that the researchers share the final  report with you via email.  If we write a report or article about this research project, your identity will  be protected to the maximum extent possible.  Your information may be  shared with representatives of the University of Maryland, College Park or  governmental authorities if you or someone else is in danger or if we are  required to do so by law.     Medical Treatment   The University of Maryland does not provide any medical, hospitalization  or other insurance for participants in this research study, nor will the  University of Maryland provide any medical treatment or compensation  for any injury sustained as a result of participation in this research study,  except as required by law.  Compensation You will receive $50 as honorarium/compensation in this study. You will be  responsible for any taxes assessed on the compensation.    ☐ Check here if you expect to earn $600 or more as a research participant  in UMCP studies in this calendar year. You must provide your name,  address and SSN to receive compensation.  ☐ Check here if you do not expect to earn $600 or more as a research  participant in UMCP studies in this calendar year. Your name, address, and  SSN will not be collected to receive compensation.  Right to Withdraw and Questions Your participation in this research is completely voluntary.  You may  choose not to take part at all.  If you decide to participate in this research,  you may stop participating at any time.  If you decide not to participate in  281   this study or if you stop participating at any time, you will not be penalized  or lose any benefits to which you otherwise qualify.     If you decide to stop taking part in the study, if you have questions,  concerns, or complaints, or if you need to report an injury related to the  research, please contact the investigators:   Dr. Megan Peercy at: 2231 Benjamin Building, University of Maryland,  College Park, MD 20742. Phone: (301)405‐0067, mpeercy@umd.edu OR   Bedrettin Yazan at: 2311 Benjamin Building, University of Maryland,  College Park, MD 20742. Phone: (301)405‐3324, byazan@umd.edu    Participant Rights   If you have questions about your rights as a research participant or wish  to report a research‐related injury, please contact:    University of Maryland College Park   Institutional Review Board Office  1204 Marie Mount Hall  College Park, Maryland, 20742   E‐mail: irb@umd.edu    Telephone: 301‐405‐0678    This research has been reviewed according to the University of  Maryland, College Park IRB procedures for research involving human  subjects.  Statement of Consent Your signature indicates that you are at least 18 years of age; you have  read this consent form or have had it read to you; your questions have  been answered to your satisfaction and you voluntarily agree to  participate in this research study. You will receive a copy of this signed  consent form.    282   If you agree to participate, please sign your name below.  Signature and Date   NAME OF SUBJECT  [Please Print]    SIGNATURE OF SUBJECT      DATE                                        283   Appendix B: Interview Protocols Individual Interview 1 1. Could you briefly tell me about your language learning and teaching experiences before coming to the program? What made you want to become an ESOL teacher? Do the reasons that you initially had in mind for becoming a teacher still exist? Which? Why? 2. Which of the courses in the program has had the biggest/smallest impact on your growth as an ESOL teacher so far? Why? 3. Could you tell me about the moments when you felt yourself more as a graduate student/ an ESOL teacher and what made you feel that way? 4. How would you evaluate your teaching ability (competencies and knowledge)? 5. Which component(s) of your internship has had the biggest/smallest impact on your growth as an ESOL teacher so far? Why? 6. How would others (professors, supervisors, mentors, colleagues, students) evaluate your teaching ability? 7. What roles or tasks did you have in your internship? Which of these were challenging, and why? Which were not difficult for you, and why? Follow up: Do you think all these duties and tasks help you feel yourself more as a teacher in the school, more of an active participant in school culture? 8. To what extent do you think your mentor teacher allows you to claim ownership of his/her group of students? Any particular situation you recall happening in this regard? 9. Do you feel that using the terminology you learn in the program make you feel yourself more like knowledgeable teacher? Why? 10. Did you have your room in the school or did they give you, I mean, did you share your mentor's room? Did you feel yourself physically comfortable in the space? End note: These are all the questions I have for you. If you have any questions for me, I can answer or you can email them to me. 284   Individual Interview 2 Introductory note: My questions will be about your experiences in the program, both the coursework and the internships placements. I would like to remind you of the focus of my research: I’m looking at the way you constructed your teacher identities, in other words, the way or the extent to which you started conceiving yourselves as ESOL teachers, how you built up your identity as an ESOL teacher, and what helped you in this process? 1. What are the qualities of a good / effective ESOL teacher in your conceptualization? How do you think you came up with / constructed this conceptualization? To what extent do you think you have these qualities? 2. How would you evaluate your teaching? 3. How would others (your mentor, students, supervisor) evaluate your teaching? Did you hear any comments that you want to share? 4. To what extent did you take or were you allowed to take the initiative or responsibility concerning your students’ learning? How did the coteaching model work for you as an intern? 5. Depending on my observations, you have established a very good rapport with your students. Why do you think this is important for your to become an ESOL teacher? How do you think coming late in the semester affected this? 6. My notes about you: “She keeps very good track of her students. She has studied them very well.” She knows almost everything about each student. Why do you think this is especially important for an ESOL teacher? 7. My notes about you: She speaks slowly. She enunciates every word to be as comprehensible as possible for her students, (who are newcomers in Elizabeth’s case). Why do you think this is particularly important for an ESOL teacher? 8. Your Spanish language skills apparently help you a lot while dealing with kids who speak Spanish. I just wonder whether these language skills made you become a more effective ESOL teacher? If yes, how and why? (for Leslie and Elizabeth only) 9. You had prior teaching experiences (and a certificate in Elizabeth’s case) in international settings before you entered the MCERT program. How do you think these prior experiences helped you to grow as an ESOL teacher while taking courses and completing your teaching practicum? (for Leslie and Elizabeth only) 10. In your second placement in [name of the high school], you taught ESOL Math. How do you think this particular Math teaching experience contributed or didn’t contribute to your becoming an ESOL professional? Did you face any challenges? Did the coursework prepare you for this? (for Leslie only) 285   11. Depending on my observations, your focus with the newcomers students was almost always to help them acquire basic Math language and skills. How do you think this particular Math teaching experience contributed to your becoming an ESOL professional? Your quote: “I’m not comfortable yet, I’m gonna become a math teacher, I’m trying to teach from what I learned at high school” (for Elizabeth only) 12. You worked with two mentors in high school. What were the constraints and affordances of this experience for your growth as an ESOL teacher? (for Leslie only) 13. Could you tell me about the emotional experiences you had during your internship? I mean, the times when you got so happy, excited, surprised, angry, overwhelmed, upset, frustrated, sad etc.? Any specific moments or incidents you want to share? 14. So far you have been exposed to two different teaching contexts: elementary and high school. Could you compare these three settings in terms of your experiences in there and tell me to what extent you feel comfortable working with different populations of ELLs in each and why? Are they different ESOL models? 15. When you look back to your experiences in the program, you have been encouraged in different ways to engage in a lot of reflection on your teaching and I’m sure you are still doing right now. I just wonder to what extent reflecting on your teaching contributed to your growth as an ESOL teacher (individual reflections as well as those with [name of the university supervisor], with your mentors)? How did it influence your self-conception as an ESOL teacher? 16. Depending on my observations in your practicum school, I can say that you have gone through the process of establishing certain routines in your classroom. How do you think this is important for your growth as a teacher or for you to conceive yourself more as a teacher? Here are my notes: “she observes and engages in a process of constructing a routine in her classroom. She gains firsthand experience concerning the steps of socializing students into a routine.” 17. Depending on my observations in your teacher education classes, I easily realized that you as MCERT students are viewed as experts regarding the public school context. You play as (academic) cultural ambassadors for the people who want to/need to learn more about the American public school context, Maryland in particular. How did you feel about that, I mean, being positioned as experts in your teacher education courses? Working with international students (other TESOL programs or Chinese teacher education program)? 18. What about your action research? What did you study? Did you like the teacher research experience? Any challenges? 19. Have you ever joined county-wise ESOL teachers meetings? Any relevant experiences? 20. What about your job search experiences? How were you treated by the people in the county and also in the schools? What do you think you had that impressed them and hired you or 286   didn’t give you an offer? Did you have any interesting experiences or conversations that you may want to share? 21. What was my role for you in the classes you were observed? I just wonder whether or not / how do you think my presence did(not) contribute to your teaching? End note: My questions are over, [name of the participant]. Is there anything that you want to add? Is there anything you want to say about your experiences so far with the IMP? Are there any questions you want to ask me? Anything you want to learn? Or you can email me if any questions pop up or if you want to share anything else about your program experiences and your growth as an ESOL professional? 287   Appendix C: Email Letter to Teacher Educators Below is the draft email to request permission from the professors of the graduate courses we are going to observe our participants in. Dear Dr. …, For my dissertation study, I am conducting an IRB approved research project (under the supervision of Dr. Peercy, my dissertation chair) which explores the identity construction, negotiation, and articulation of current TESOL MCERT students. One of the components of data collection in this study is to observe the TESOL MCERT participants in their university-based graduate classes. Since participants are taking your course, I wonder if you would allow me to observe in your class twice this semester. If there are any class meetings during which my presence would be inconvenient, I am happy to work around those dates. Additionally, I will make my observations as unobtrusive as possible in order not to disturb the flow of your classes. We would really appreciate your help and collaboration. Sincerely, -Bedrettin Yazan Ph.D. Student Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership University of Maryland 2311 Benjamin Building College Park, MD 20742-1115 288   Appendix D: Recruitment Script For my dissertation study, under the supervision of my dissertation chair, Dr. Peercy, I am conducting an IRB approved research project which explores the teacher identity construction of current TESOL MCERT students. It builds upon the notion that the investigation of teachers’ identity construction can shine light on the way second language teacher develop as professionals while transitioning from a graduate or undergraduate student self to a teacher self. Therefore, since you are currently enrolled in TESOL MCERT program, I want to ask you whether you would like to join this study as participants. Your participation in this study will not positively or negatively affect the grades of any courses you are enrolled in. Now, I am going to distribute IRB approved/sealed consent forms which specifically state what is expected of you if you decide to participate in this study and inform you that you can withdraw from the study at any time. If you would like to be participants in this project, you can sign it. Please turn in your form whether you wish to participate or not. Thank you very much for your time. Have a good class. 289   Appendix E: Summary of the Previous Studies on L2 Teacher Identity Entire preservice teacher education Source Focus Context Theoretical framework Research methods & participants Relevant Findings Johnson (2001) Influence of NNES membership on teacher identity formation. US-based MATESOL program. Theory of self- categorization by Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher and Wetherell (1987). Semi-structured interviews, informal discussions, on- going collaborative reflective journal, member check (1 ESOL teacher candidate). Teacher identity development is impacted by self-categorizations and the perceptions of the surrounding community members. Ilieva (2010) The way(s) NNESTs negotiate program discourses as they journey the activities of the program. MATESOL program in Canada. Bakhtin’s (1981) understanding of identity processes as dialogical. End-of-program portfolios (20 ESOL teacher candidates from China). MATESOL program functions as a locus for L2 teacher identity construction as teacher candidates interact and navigate via particular discourses, relationships, and positionings. Liu & Fisher (2006) Teacher candidates’ conceptions of their classroom performance, their relationship with pupils, their self-image in pupils’ eyes, and teacher identity. Postgraduate certificate program in education in the UK. Theories on teachers’ conceptions and factors inducing teachers’ change. Semi-structured interviews, log, open-ended questionnaire, and end-of- course self-reflection report (3 foreign language teacher candidates). Consistent positive change observed in teacher candidates’ conceptions of their classroom performance and teacher identity while variance in the pattern of conceptions about relationships with students and self- image in students’ eyes. Academic, institutional, and curricular factors as well as cognitive, affective, and social factors played a role in these changes. Teacher education courses Source Focus Context Theoretical framework Research methods & participants Relevant Findings Pavlenko (2003) Interrelation between teacher candidates’ teacher identity and their imagined community. Second Language Acquisition course in a US-based MATESOL program. Discursive positioning by Davies and Harré (1990) and Harré and Langenhove (1999). Autobiographies (44 ESOL teacher candidates from two cohorts). (1) Teacher candidates’ imagined community plays a crucial role in how they view themselves, their relationship with the L2 and their own professional legitimacy; (2) classroom readings and discussions 290   of the NS/NNS dichotomy open up new discourses and offer new identity options for fledgling teachers. Abednia (2012) EFL teacher candidates’ professional identity construction in a Second Language Teaching Methodology course. Teacher education program at an Iranian university in Tehran. Kelchtermans’s (1993) comprehensive picture of different aspects of teacher identity: self-image, self- esteem, job motivation, task perception, and future perspective. Bolívar and Domingo’s (2006) retrospective identity and prospective identity and Varghese et al.’s (2005) notion of claimed vs. assigned identities. Pre-course and post- course interviews on professional identity, their reflective journals, recorded class discussions, and teacher educator’s reflective journals. Seven (2 male & 5 female) senior B.A. students of Translation Studies. Three primary changes were observed in EFL teacher candidates’ identities: shift (a) from conformity to and romanticization of dominant ideologies to critical autonomy, (b) from no orientation or an instrumentalist orientation to a critical and transformative orientation of teaching, and (c) from a linguistic and technical view to an educational view of English language teaching (ELT). Peercy (2012) The impact of ESOL teacher candidates’ identities on how they make sense of theory and practice in four teacher education courses. Pre-service ESL endorsement program in the US. Sociocultural framework of L2 teacher development (e.g., Golombek & Johnson, 2004; Johnson, 2006) which views teacher identity construction as intertwined with teachers’ experiences in their environment. Two individual interviews with follow-up informal discussion, observation of teacher education courses, interview with course instructors, and review of artifacts. (Two ESL teacher candidates with divergent ideas on theory and practice in teacher education courses.) The differences in the ways they see their courses as useful and not useful for their future teaching were closely linked to their emerging teacher identities. Teaching practicum experiences Source Focus Context Theoretical framework Research methods & participants Relevant Findings Trent (2010) Role of practicum experiences in L2 teacher Four-year Bachelor of Education program in Identity-in-practice as discussed by Wenger In-depth semi-structured interviews L2 teacher candidates adopt, resist, and reject various identity options 291   identity formation in an actual teaching context. Hong Kong. (1998) and identity-in- discourse by Fairclough (2003). (8 ESOL teacher candidates) in schools and teacher education program, which is impacted by multiple and potentially contradictory discourses of these two contexts. Kanno & Stuart (2011) The way L2 teacher candidates learn to teach and come to identify themselves as professional L2 teachers. US-based MATESOL program (focus on practicum). Notions of learning-in- practice and identities- in-practice from situated learning theory by (Lave, 1996; Wenger, 1998). Interviews, teaching journals, stimulated recalls, classroom observations, video-tapings of classes, documents, and member check. (2 ESOL teacher candidates) Continual practice plays a significantly contributive role in L2 teacher candidates’ emerging identities, and their evolving identities lead to telling changes in their teaching practice. Dang (2012) EFL teacher candidates’ professional identity development in a paired- placement teaching practicum and how factors specific to pair-work mediate this development. Preservice teacher education program at a Vietnamese university. 15-week teaching practicum in a university setting which included working with sophomores. Engeström’s (2001) activity theoretical framework with an emphasis on the idea of contradiction, and Vygotsky’s (1987) concepts of zone of proximal development and perezhivanie (emotional experience). Individual semi-structured interviews prior to the practicum and after each lesson (post-teaching interviews); video-recordings and observations of the lessons; field notes of observations during the lessons; and artifacts like lesson plans, instructional materials, and other documents. Two Vietnamese EFL teacher candidates. During their paired-placement, EFL teacher candidates experienced contradictions in their conflicting perceptions of teaching practicum, the unequal power relationship between each other, and differing levels of appropriation of pedagogical tools. Also, pair- placements represent an environment characterized by tensions. Practicing L2 teachers’ identity development Source Focus Context Theoretical framework Research methods & participants Relevant Findings Duff & Uchida (1997) Interrelationships between (a) language and culture (b) teachers’ sociocultural identities and teaching,(c) their explicit discussions of culture and implicit modes of cultural transmission in classes. Adult EFL language center in Japan. Theories on learner identity and language socializations. Teacher/student questionnaires, retrospective journal entries, audio- or video-taped classroom observations, field notes, post-observational interviews, life-history interviews, review of (1) Teachers’ biographical trajectories are fairly prominent in their perceptions of their identities. (2) Contextual components as lead them to continuously (re)negotiate their professional, social, political and cultural identities which are fraught with complexities and 292   instructional materials, and participant observer’s journal. (4 practicing EFL teachers) paradoxes. Varghese (2006) The way(s) four bilingual Latino/a teachers constructed and enacted their professional identities in an urban public school district in the U.S. (particular focus on structural and institutional concerns along with national & local discourses). (1) Professional development institute for apprentice- bilingual teachers; (2) three schools where participants teach. The notion of cultural production as discussed by Levinson and Holland (1996) and communities of practice by Lave and Wenger (1991) and Wenger (1998). Interviews with, observations of teachers, teacher trainers, and administrators, archival documents, field notes, and email correspondence. (4 practicing bilingual Latino/a teachers) (1) Understanding of complex nature of teacher identity is contingent upon the explication of interaction between macro and micro structural influences and teachers’ reaction to them. (2) Lack of uniform view on bilingual teaching impedes teachers from identify with a uniform and collective sense of bilingual teaching. Tsui (2007) A practicing EFL teacher’s lived experiences during 6 years of teaching, with particular focus on the processes involved as he struggled with multiple identities. A university in in China with a reputation for ELT. Social theory of identity formation as discussed by Wenger (1998). Face-to-face storytelling, reflection diaries, four 4-hour conversations. (1) Teacher’s identification process interacts with his participation in negotiating meanings and sharing the ownership of meanings. (2) Power relations among community members play a determining role in his (non)participation in the negotiation of meanings. Urzúa & Vàsquez (2008) Novice ESOL teachers’ future-oriented talk as discursive means for reflection and identity construction. Intensive English Program at a southwestern US university. Future-oriented teacher reflection (Conway, 2001) and future dimension in identity construction (Conway, 2001; van Lier, 2004; Norton, 2000). Twenty mentoring meetings (with 7 female, native English speaking teachers) in 2001, which occurred at the beginning, middle, and end of the semester. Nineteen post- observation meetings (with 1 male and 8 female teachers, 3 of whom are non-native English speakers) between 2002 and 2004. Teachers’ future-oriented talks in planning and prediction are connected to various strategies of self-presentation and perspective taking, which can be considered as manifestation of discursive construction of their teacher identities. Farrell (2011) Experienced ESL teachers’ identities as manifested in their talks in regular group Intensive English program at a Canadian He bases his definition of identity upon Urrieta (2007) and Holland et al’s (1998) Audio-recorded group discussions and follow-up interviews. 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