“What Should I Call Myself? Does It Matter?” Questioning the “Labeling” Practice in ELT Profession

Abstract

This autoethnographic writing explores the changing phases of the author’s (re)construction of selves within the English Language Teaching (ELT) profession and industry (along with its labeling games). The paper discusses phases of identity (re)construction in relation to the labeling practice in ELT industry, particularly the “native” and “non-native” labels, and how the author was engaged in dialogue, and struggled in the process of (re)learning her professional realities and identities. In this paper, she presents several reflective accounts of interacting with and responding to labels that she came across, and/or were attached to her, in her teaching work and life in three different contexts (Indonesia, Australia, and Thailand). The accounts discuss her ways of coping and living with competing TESOL pedagogies, ideologies and realities. This process of (re)learning her professional realities, brought her to new understanding and the re-inventing of her professional self, as she struggles to move beyond the confinement of labels in the ELT industry.