Pre-Service Language Teachers and Practitioner Research: Investigating Professional Role Identity Formation

Following the Exploratory Practice principles to equip pre-service language teachers with practitioner research skills through a research course, we employed narrative inquiry to explore perceptions of research engagement and the professional role identities constructed through it. The data for this study came from its two participants' written and oral narratives. Our findings indicated that the participants viewed their involvement in practitioner research positively and benefited from it both personally and professionally, achieving a transformative shift from a singular student-focused perspective to a more complex dual viewpoint that also embraces aspects of a teacher's perspective. Among the various professional role identities that language teachers enact, our participants emphasized the roles of ‘care provider’ and ‘motivator’ over more traditional role identities such as ‘presenter’ and ‘manager’. In addition, the roles of ‘learner’ and ‘researcher’, when combined, were found to be more dominant than the role of ‘knowledgeable, signifying an inquiry and growth mindset. We conclude that a course design requiring active research engagement and reflection on teacher identity offers significant benefits for language teacher education and, therefore, should be included in the curricula of such programs.