Pedagogizing Identity in Professional Development: The Case of Two Native English-Speaking Teachers in Hong Kong

Despite the emerging attempts to integrate identity work into teacher education programs, how identity can be incorporated into professional development of in-service teachers is still an open question. This study reports on a professional development program on productive teacher questioning that was offered to secondary school English teachers in Hong Kong. The program aimed to pedagogize identity work for the native English-speaking teacher participants while they were engaging in the target pedagogic knowledge-base through identity-oriented activities. Using a comparative case study design, we drew on data collected with narrative frames, stimulated recalls, and semi-structured interviews. Our thematic analysis revealed that the teachers juxtaposed their enacted and narrated identities by negotiating multiple externally defined roles, that they identified professional tensions while reflecting on the academic cultures as transnational teachers, and that their identity work unveiled the emotion labor of becoming a native speaker teacher in Hong Kong. The findings highlight the interface of identity work and teacher learning and call for an identity focus in in-service teacher learning as well as the betterment of the native English-speaking teacher policy in Hong Kong.