Understanding tertiary EFL teacher learning and identity development: a cultural-historical activity theory perspective

Abstract

Though current scholarship has conducted much research on teacher learning and teacher identity respectively, there are limited empirical studies examining the combination of these two constructs. This study, drawing upon cultural-historical activity theory, aims at exploring two tertiary EFL teachers’ specific learning processes and how they develop their identities through learning. Data sources include observations, interviews, informal communications and artifacts concerning the two participants’ learning and identity constructions. The findings reveal that teacher learning is an expansive learning process that starts with triggering events, and reflection permeates all the phases of teachers’ expansive learning. Besides, teacher learning is driven by multiple contradictions. Faced with these contradictions, teachers exert their agency, negotiate with significant others and cross various boundaries in their learning activities, which eventually promotes their identity development. The findings provide implications for further explorations of teacher learning and teacher identity. FUNDING INFORMATION. This work was supported by the [Youth Fund for Humanities and Social Sciences Research of the Ministry of Education] under Grant [22YJC740041]; [General Project of Philosophy and Social Science Research in Colleges and Universities] under Grant [2022SJYB2210]; [Chinese Scholarship Council] under Grant [202208320214]; and [Higher Education Reform Research Project of Jiangsu University] under Grant [2021JGYB081].