Becoming a Teacher Educator in the Korean Primary School English Teacher Training Context: An Autoethnography on Identity Development

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This article aims to explore formation of identity of an English teacher educator in the Korean primary school English teacher training context. Utilizing an autoethnographic approach, the author represents the ways by which his English teacher educator identity becomes a site of an ongoing struggle for various identities with language learning and teaching experiences situated at the meaning negotiation. By investigating multiple resources made relevant in the past 6 years by the author’s participation in the primary school English teacher training program, the current study recognizes that his English teacher educator identities are academic-self, teaching-self, and emotional being. Each identity is influenced by the other, being realized in the teacher training program as a classroom discussant (not a knowledge deliverer) on local and global ELT issues, as a researcher (not a monetary compensation seeker) who wants to bring local teachers’ stories to the broader academic world, and as an emotionally sensitive teacher whose professional development is closely tied to overcoming emotional vulnerability and being encouraged by positive feedback. This study ends with a call for further research and practical implications for teacher educators and teacher education programs.