The (re)construction of self through student-teachers’ storied agency in elt: Between marginalization and idealization

Abstract

This chapter presents and discusses the findings of a narrative inquiry conducted over 2 years in an English Language Teacher Education Program in Colombia (South America). Focusing on the stories of pre-service English language teachers, this inquiry examines how these pre-service teachers (re)constructed their personal, academic, and professional selves. It draws upon written narrative data set collected through a teacher education course over four semesters and this data set includes four different course assignments from 80 pre-service teachers. In these assignments, pre-service teachers were engaged in a three-step reflective practice upon significant people, contexts, and practices during the activities of teacher education. Their reflective practice fostered the notion of self-as-teacher that future teachers construct (Hopper T, Sanford K, Teach Educ Q 31:57–74, 2004). The data analysis yielded findings which we present under three headings: public education as possibility, ELT as a glocal profession, and teachers’ multiple ways of being. The study findings point to pre-service teachers’ identity construction experiences between marginalization and idealization.