Learner investment and language teacher identity

Abstract

What I have learnt from both language learners and teachers is that “language” is not only a linguistic system but also a social practice in which identities and desires are negotiated. I have therefore defi ned identity as “the way a person understands his or her relationship to the world, how that relationship is structured across time and space, and how the person understands possibilities for the future” (Norton, 2013, p. 4). This defi nition acknowledges that language teacher identity indexes both social structure and human agency, which shift over historical time and social context. Also important are the language teacher’s hopes and desires for the future, and their imagined identities (Kanno & Norton, 2003). Language teachers need to navigate relations of power in the classroom and understand the possibilities and limitations of their institutions and communities. Like language learners, language teachers can reframe their relationships with others in order to claim more powerful identities from which to teach. Thus, while identity is conceptualized as multiple, changing, and a site of struggle, the very multiplicity of identity can be productively harnessed in the interests of more productive language teaching.