The Structure and Characteristics of Chinese University English Teachers’ Identities: Toward a Sustainable Language Pedagogy

Abstract

This study investigates the enacted identities of Chinese university English teachers in the context of English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching. The aim is to explore the underlying structure and characteristics of these teachers’ identities and examine their alignment with the principles of sustainable learning in education (SLE), which goes beyond knowledge acquisition in a chosen discipline and aims to nurture life-long and resilient learners that are able to reflect upon, renew, relearn, and assess what has been taught and orient themselves for future learning processes. A questionnaire was used to gather perceptions of enacted identities in teaching practice from 326 Chinese university English teachers. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) revealed four distinct dimensions of identity: Advocate and Motivator for English Learning, Facilitator of English Learning, Reflective Practitioner and Researcher, and Book Teacher. Interviews were conducted with a subsample of 12 teachers to further explore the contextualized meanings of these identity factors. The findings indicate that these identity dimensions align with the four tenets of sustainable learning in education, reflecting the teachers’ orientations toward sustainable language teaching practices. This study contributes to our knowledge of language teachers’ shared identities and offers important implications for language teacher professional development.