Theorizing language teacher identity: three perspectives and beyond

This paper explores the published article that discusses theorizing language teacher identity. The article analyzes ways of theorizing language teacher identity by showing three date-based studies of teacher identity. The first study, by Johnson (2005), uses the social identity theory of Hogg and Abram (1998) based on the work of Tajfel (1978) to explore the language teacher identity of a new teacher – a nonnative English speaking graduate student in an MA TESOL program. The second study, by Varghese (2005), employs Lave and Venger's (1991) theory of situated learning and communities of practice to see how identities are formed in the course of an ungraduated bilingual teacher education program in the U.S. The last one, by Morgan (2005), draws on Simon's (1995) post-structural work on identity as image-text to consider how an experienced teacher creates as well as maintains a particular identity within an adult English as a second language program in Canada. The article does not appraise one theory by rejecting another one but uses one to elucidate the other. This paper aims to examine the studies and then gives responses to the issues raised in the article