Identity Ecologies of Pre-Service ESL Teachers in Québec: Translanguaging Practices and the Politics of Belonging

This study explores how pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) identity construction informs their perceptions and practices of ESL teaching within Québec’s unique sociolinguistic context, where French is a provincial majority but national minority. Drawing from a critical action research project, it analyzes interviews and assignments from four PSTs in a first-year English as a Second Language (ESL) theory course. Using the framework of Translanguaging-for-Critical Multilingual Language Awareness, findings show that PSTs’ identities are shaped by intersecting linguistic, cultural, racial, ethnic, and historical experiences. These identities are marked by tensions linked to the broader divide between the “French side” and the “English side,” rooted in colonialism, accentism, and whiteness. The complex identity ecologies of ESL teacher education in Québec make teaching inherently political, requiring continual negotiations of belonging. The study highlights the political nature of ESL teaching in Québec and emphasizes the need for teacher education to critically engage with sociopolitical contexts that influence professional identity formation.