Cultivating Teacher Identity in a Graduate Program: A Holistic Approach

Engaging with recent calls to incorporate teacher identity as a central principle in language teacher education, this article aims to address practical ways to support teacher identity development in students in a graduate program for language educators. Employing duoethnography as a qualitative research approach and reflective practice, the two authors, who are instructors in the program, engage in conversation on coursework and activities that invite reflection on and negotiation of identities among participants in the program. The work we have been doing explores a variety of aspects to create a more holistic lens from which to support the development of teacher identity as connected to professional identities (educational beliefs, practices, and experiences) and personal identities (cultural background, ethnicity, language, gender, etc.). The idea that who we are is continuously evolving in a process of becoming is a metaphor guiding identity work in the program. This process of becoming and teaching who we are calls for teacher educators to consider in depth the impact of teacher education activities and processes on student teachers’ developing understandings of themselves as language educators in our globalized world.