Reflecting on Reflections Concerning Critical Incidents in Developing Pre-Service Teachers’ Professional Identity: Evidence from a TESOL Education Project

Abstract

Due to the limited capacity enacted to supervision and the absence of a comprehensive framework leading to the professional identity of the pre-service teachers, the researchers initiate the Growing as a TESOL teacher project that involves the pre-service teachers in a teaching practicum course, engages them in reflecting on reflections concerning critical incidents for conceptualizing their identity as TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) teachers. The study reports the impact of the project on developing the PSTs’ identity as TESOL teachers. The dialogical approach suggested by Akkerman and Meijer (Teaching and Teacher Education, 27(2), 308-319, 2011) lays the theoretical foundation of the study. A phenomenological study is undertaken involving 10 pre-service teachers specializing in TESOL at a university in Malaysia. Using multiple instruments, we document the responses pertaining to their perceived identity as future TESOL teachers prior to the project and perceived identities as TESOL teachers after the project. Since the study enjoins the pre-service teachers to share their reflections initially, then receive reflections from others, and finally reflect on self-reflections and reflections of others, the processes induct them into a dialogic activity within the self. With the knowledge gained from reflecting on reflections of critical incidents, the pre-service teachers continue the dialogues to negotiate prior identities with the demanding identities to deal with the classroom realities. The dialogue paves an avenue to readjust and realign their identities as TESOL teachers.