The Construction of Language Teacher Identity Among Graduates from Non-English Language Teaching Majors in Vietnam

Research on language teacher identity has mainly focused on mainstream teachers or student teachers and has not yet extended to graduates from non-English language teaching majors. This research invited those “laymen” into the discussion of teacher development and made their stories visible. We explored why they decided to choose a teaching job and how they constructed and performed their teacher identity via narrative inquiry. The findings show that the participants first imitated their model teachers’ teaching techniques to seek their professional recognition. They then exercised their agency in material selection to affirm their professionality by appealing to some dominant educational concepts such as “authenticity,” “practicality,” and “creativity.” Emotionally, they positioned themselves as experienced learners to overcome their vulnerability. During this identity construction and performance, neoliberal tenets such as metricization and branding were used, (re)produced, and reinforced to affirm their teacher-entrepreneur position to compensate for the lack of formal pedagogical training.