Language Teacher Agency Research Articles

“Most of my students kept saying, ‘I never met a gay person’”: A queer English language teacher's agency for social justice

This article presents an interview-based case study of a language teacher agency from social justice, queer, and ecological perspectives. We use Pantić’s (2015) model of teacher agency for social justice to investigate four aspects (i.e., “sense of purpose,” “competence,” “autonomy,” “reflexivity”) of Jackson's agency, a queer language teacher. A central driving force of Jackson's agency was her identification of contradictions between her sense of purpose and the educational structure in which her work was located, and thus her sense of purpose changed based on her context—from tending to her students' pastoral needs and to educating students about homophobia and Queer culture. Favorable conditions at the institutional and classroom levels enabled Jackson to exercise agency. They were a supportive department, an institution located in a liberal region, a conducive curriculum, student-teacher rapport, and timing of an instructional module (on LGBTQIA Rights). Jackson exercised agency particularly through the means of identity as pedagogy and also by changing the program's materials, by decentering herself as the sole holder of knowledge, and by coming out in the classroom.

“Just treat me as a teacher!” Mapping language teacher agency through gender, race, and professional discourses

Drawing on a longitudinal project, this paper focuses on the micro-aspects of emergent agency in several English-as-a-second-language teachers in training with a focus on the causative social factors that mediate this construct. Specifically, as it employs multimedia narrative structures, including written texts, images, and interviews, it traces how gender, race, and culture mediate the formation of their agentive selves. These factors are not isolated from one another but interact closely. Findings reveal how the participants respond to the often stereotypical discourses of gender and race in their personal and professional relationships with others. They show that by employing multimodal spaces for unique personal, on the one hand, and larger, social positionings, on the other, the narratives provide the teachers with the opportunity for active awareness, resistance, and transformative practices. The paper and the analysis are informed by ecological perspectives on agency and Bakhtin's views of relational selves and social responsibility.

Sites of struggle: Classroom practice and the complex dynamic entanglement of language teacher agency and identity

Sites of struggle: Classroom practice and the complex dynamic entanglement of language teacher agency and identity

Language teacher agency, emotion labor and emotional rewards in tertiary-level English language programs

Research on language teacher agency and language teacher emotions has demonstrated that both are central components of teacher identity and practice. However, few researchers have explored the co-constitutive effects of agency and emotion for language teachers or the role of emotion labor in producing emotional rewards. This article addresses these underexplored components of language teaching through reporting on the findings of a qualitative study with language teachers in tertiary settings in the U.K. and the U.S. The study drew on language teachers' questionnaire (n = 30) and semi-structured interview (n = 25) responses in identifying the most common emotions experienced by these teachers and how their relationships with students engendered emotion labor as well as emotional rewards. We consider these aspects of teacher experience in terms of discourses of teaching-as-caring and Foucault’s (1983) concept of ethical self-formation.

Learner agency in language planning

The role of language teacher agency in language policy and planning (LPP) enactment and implementation at the micro-level has received increasing treatment in the literature. Under-addressed in this context, however, is the role of the learner and the extent to which learner activity can be agentive. Seeking to redress this situation, this paper focusses on learner agency in LPP. After establishing a general ecology of language context, issues related to the problematic concept of ‘agency’ are addressed. This discussion draws upon poststructuralist critiques as well as the insights of sociocultural theory. A poststructuralist perspective provides a broad philosophical base for problematizing learner agency and supplies a critique of the limited structuralist approach characteristic of traditional LPP. A sociocultural lens supplies a more concrete conceptualization of how agentive learner activity operates interactively with teacher agency. The final section of the paper focusses on ethnography as a research methodology; ethnographic research yields qualitative data on learner agency that can be drawn upon in micro planning and policy-making. A relevant case study employing ethnographic methodology is discussed. The conclusion is that learner agency should be given more prominence in LPP research and literature.

Activity Theory and Language Teacher Agency

This article takes a broadly sociocultural perspective on the development of an Armenian English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher. It focuses on how experiences and actions outside the professional development classroom influence language teacher agency. The paper is framed within activity theory and specifically draws on Galperin's orienting activity, the psychological process of regulating internalization, which may occur through an image that guides actions. Data from email interviews, oral interviews, and classroom observations are iteratively analyzed to show how the participant oriented to her actions through a specific image. This image was based on the participant's early experiences with her English teacher as a school pupil, and it mediated her developing sense of agency by guiding the way she engaged in individual actions as a language teaching student, English teacher, and teacher trainer. The participant appeared to be leading emerging activity in her local teaching situation, but social activity provided the requisite background to her individual actions. The article concludes by suggesting that individual agentive actions can contribute to local social activity, that professional development occurs over a life, and that case studies may contribute to professional development not only as a model of personal reflection but also as a professional call to action.

Hegemonic Relations and Gender Resistance: The New Veiling as Accommodating Protest in Cairo

H E P E R SI S T E N CE OF women's subordination throughout history and across many cultures presents a difficult puzzle; although women are clearly assertive actors who struggle for better conditions for themselves and for their families, their efforts often seem to produce limited or ephemeral results. The recent widening of opportunities for some women is unusual, and when placed in historical and cross-cultural perspective, its future seems uncertain.2 In