EFL Teachers’ Spatial Construction of Linguistic Identities for Sustainable Development in Globalization

Abstract

Grounded in Gidden’s space theory, this case study examines the construction of linguistic identity in Chinese English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) teachers teaching in a major Chinese city with regard to their language-learning experiences and beliefs about the roles of English as a language within the context of globalization. The data were collected from semi-structured interviews with two Chinese EFL teachers and observations of their classrooms. The narrative and thematic analyses show how two Chinese EFL teachers came to have preferences for moving from the “periphery” to the “center” of a monolingual or multilingual foreign-language community in different ways. The findings not only reveal how English as a language relates to globalization, they also broaden our understanding of the complex formation of identity of the language teachers within a global context.