The identity of the multilingual teacher in the language classroom. A literature Review

Although a substantial amount of research has been conducted on teacher identity within the field of bilingual language education, comparatively little attention has been given to the identity of teachers who speak more than two languages. By utilizing research databases and conducting profiling searches, an analysis of prevailing trends in articles addressing the subject of multilingual teacher identity was carried out. The analysis reveals i) multilingal teachers' beliefs about effective teaching methodologies to improve student’s proficiency in more than two languages; ii) the intricacies of multilingual linguistic identities, which tend to favor cognitive studies; iii) the presence of multilingual teachers as a source of multilingual motivation for students; and iv) a local understanding of multilingualism as both a defense of Indigenous languages and a form of resistance against English imperialism. The final section draws attention to the discourse surrounding multilingual teacher identity in context where English occupies a central role in language policy. In this regard, contemporary applied linguistics and decolonial perspectives play a pivotal role in comprehending the socio-political implications embedded in the educators’ identities, thereby illuminating a gap in the existing literature on the study of multilingual teachers’ identity.