Identity Language Tensions and Negotiations of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language in Costa Rica

• In Event: Friday Roundtable Session 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Language Teachers' Experiences in International and Heritage Contexts (Table 31)

Abstract

This study examined the identity tensions and negotiations of three novice English teachers in Costa Rica, an English as a foreign language context. Grounded in a Communities of Practice framework, this research describes how teachers’ identities are constrained and enabled in complicated academic, social, and political settings. In this study, identity tensions referred to dilemmas that juxtaposed internal and external expectations, values, and practices. Negotiations referred to teachers’ choices, proposals, and changes that denoted their appropriation or contestation of practices and meanings of their communities of practice. I used narrative inquiry to collect and analyze teachers’ experiences learning English and teaching it.

Author

• Hazel Vega, Clemson University