Expanding the Language Teacher

Identity Landscape: An Investigation

of the Emotions and Strategies of a
NNEST
DOMINIK WOLFF1 and PETER I. DE COSTA2
1
West Chester University, Department of Languages and Cultures, 307 Mitchell Hall, West Chester, PA, 19383
Email: dwolff@wcupa.edu
2
Michigan State University, Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages, 619
Red Cedar Road, B257 Wells Hall, East Lansing, MI, 48824 Email: pdecosta@msu.edu

This article aims to broaden the scope of language teacher identity research by investigating the emo-
tional demands on teachers-in-training and nonnative English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) in particular.
We examined how our focal NNEST participant, Puja, was confronted with and successfully negotiated
numerous emotional challenges in her first year in a U.S. MATESOL program. Furthermore, we inves-
tigated the impact emotions had on her overall teacher identity development and how her growth as
an educator was evident in her use of strategies. Following past research that viewed teacher emotions
through a narrative lens (e.g., Barkhuizen, Benson, & Chik, 2014; De Costa, 2015a), we created Puja’s
‘story’ by analyzing data sources that included interviews, teaching observations, journal entries, and
stimulated verbal and written reports. Our narrative construction focuses on the reflexive relationship
between Puja’s emotions and her subsequent identity development. While we acknowledge that emo-
tional tensions are part of teachers’ identity development (and potentially more so for NNESTs), Puja
largely navigated emotional challenges in a positive manner. The article concludes with a call for new
pedagogical models that help teachers develop their reflexivity and negotiate potential emotion-related
challenges they might encounter.
Keywords: teacher identity; NNEST; emotions; strategies; reflexivity

You need to love your profession, you’re not … just dent from Bangladesh, who constitutes the focus
playing … [a] role. You’re … constructing your stu- of this article and whose views on teaching are
dents’ [identities] as well along with yours so you captured in the prologue. Puja also represents
should always respect and love your profession … one of the growing number of graduate interna-
You should be ready to embrace the new things,
tional students from non-English speaking coun-
which sometimes may not be in your comfort zone
… embracing the new things and then accommodat-
tries who populate U.S. MATESOL programs and
ing that in your teaching could make you a better who are former or continuing learners of English.
teacher. These programs have witnessed a demographic
shift in their composition, to the point where it
NO TEACHER BEGINS A GRADUATE tea- is increasingly common to find foreign nonnative
cher education program with a blank slate. This speakers (NNSs) of English comprising a sizeable
can certainly be said for Puja, a MATESOL stu- portion of the graduate student cohorts (Liu,
1999; Mahboob, 2010).
By (a) turning the spotlight on this segment of
The Modern Language Journal, 101 (Supplement 2017) language teachers, who are often referred to in
DOI: 10.1111/modl.12370 the field as NNESTs (nonnative English-speaking
0026-7902/17/76–90 $1.50/0 teachers), (b) drawing on developments in SLA

C 2017 The Modern Language Journal
identity, emotion, and strategy research, and (c)
Dominik Wolff and Peter I. De Costa 77
focusing specifically on Puja’s teacher identity and NNEST lens, “a multilingual, multicultural, and
emotional and strategy development, this article multinational perspective that takes diversity as
contributes to a growing body of research that a starting point rather than as a result” (p. 1).
frames language teaching as a sociocultural ac- Using a participative inquiry method, the re-
tivity (e.g., Canagarajah, 2016; Cross, 2010) and search team in Samimy et al. (2011), comprised
addresses the emotional realities of teaching of a faculty member (Samimy) and 3 inter-
(e.g., Acheson, Taylor, & Luna, 2016; Benesch, national MATESOL students, documented the
2017; Reis, 2015) that emerge alongside the in- evolution of second language (L2) identities from
tellectual demands of the profession. As we will NNES graduate students to NNES professionals,
illustrate, these emotional demands at the class- and reported on the growth and empowerment
room, school, and societal level, form not only an experienced by these graduate students.
integral part of teacher identity development but In a related study, Park (2012) investigated
also serve as “a potential site of pedagogical inter- the transformation of one NNEST’s identity in a
vention and an area of explicit focus in teacher TESOL program. Her Chinese participant, Xia,
preparation” (Morgan & Clarke, 2011, p. 825). showed a complex identity development, which
Park traced using an autobiographical narrative.
NNEST IDENTITY RESEARCH Xia’s experience in a U.S. MATESOL program
allowed her to reconstruct and eventually em-
As mentioned, the number of NNS students brace her identity as a NNEST. Crucially, Park
enrolled in MATESOL programs in the United concluded her study with a call for an inclusion
States has spiked in recent years. This phenome- of teachers’ life histories in TESOL programs be-
nal growth in NNESTs in relation to NESTs (native cause such “insights could assist TESOL programs
English-speaking teachers) has resulted in more in (re)conceptualizing their curricula, meeting
teacher identity work being conducted on the for- the demands of their graduates seeking teaching
mer group. Central to this body of NNEST litera- jobs throughout the world” (p. 142).
ture is the problematization of the native speaker In his examination of the transformation of
fallacy, which can be traced to seminal work by four Chinese EFL teachers’ imagined identities
Phillipson (1992), Medgyes (1994), and Braine into practiced identities (Norton, 2001) as they
(1999).1 transitioned from their teacher education pro-
Previously, in their review of the history and gram to a real-life teaching context, Xu (2012)
research of NNESTs, Moussu and Llurda (2008) highlighted how one of his teacher participants,
pointed out that NNESTs are often treated as Aurora, withstood institutional pressures to
an entire group and noted that the term “does ensure that her imagined identity was not com-
not identify any particular characteristic of this promised. One key implication of his study, Xu
group except for the negation of their native surmised, was the importance of agency and
speaker condition” (p. 337). Not surprisingly, perseverance when educating future teachers
and as a consequence of often being constructed in order to allow such teachers opportunities to
in deficit terms, earlier research focused on a lack transform their own professional identities in a
of confidence among NNESTs. For example, in positive and effective manner. Also emphasizing
their study of 17 NNS TESOL graduate students, the significance of teacher agency and drawing
Samimy and Brutt–Griffler (1999) found that this on the notion of teacher reflexivity (Hawkins &
group of EFL teachers “did not feel particularly Norton, 2009), De Costa’s (2015a) longitudinal
disadvantaged in their work as EFL teachers be- case study of a South Korean female student
cause of their non-nativeness” (p. 138). However, enrolled in an MATESOL program in California
after arriving in the United States and moving demonstrated how “both teacher identity and
to teach in an ESL context, they began to doubt teaching practice are inextricably linked as iden-
their identity as English-language speakers and tity formation and practice support each other in
professionals. a symbiotic manner” (p. 136).
More recent work on NNESTs, however, has Admittedly, issues surrounding the nonna-
tried to reframe issues surrounding NNESTs tiveness of language teachers are not peculiar
along more asset-based terms. Llurda (2005), for to colleagues who work within TESOL because
example, showed that NNESTs scored higher in nonnativeness has also been a long-standing
cultural awareness due to their shared common matter confronted by the FL community. More
ground with students. In a similar vein, Mah- often than not, the topic of nonnativeness in FL
boob (2010) called for Applied Linguistics and teacher research has been connected to levels of
TESOL to be viewed through what he called the proficiency. In their exploration of how Spanish
78 The Modern Language Journal, 101, Supplement 2017
teaching assistants’ identity changed over time, cultural, social structural, cognitive, and neuro-
Thompson and Fioramonte (2012) reported that logical forces … [and that the] goal should be to
these teachers had to wrestle with native-speaker figure out how they are interconnected” (p. 9). In
stereotypes associated with pronunciation, which the next two sections, we provide a brief review
in turn influenced perceptions of them as teach- of SLA research on learner emotions and iden-
ers with advanced pedagogical abilities (see also tity before reviewing work on language teacher
Thompson & Vasquez, 2015, who investigated emotions. In drawing a connection between SLA
how FL teachers overcome considerable obsta- and second and foreign language education, we
cles). Within K–12 settings, FL teachers, too, join instructed SLA researchers such as Ellis and
have had to grapple with proficiency benchmarks Shintani (2014) and Loewen (2015) who have
required for K–12 world languages educators— started to explore how language pedagogy can be
benchmarks that are often tied to licensure enhanced through findings from SLA research.
attainment. In her work with beginning French, Next, given that NNESTs themselves are either
German, and Spanish teachers, Burke (2013), former or ongoing learners of English, we first
for example, reported on their agony, anxiety, review learner emotions and identity before pro-
and self-doubt that emerged as a consequence of ceeding to problematize teacher emotions and
having to take American Council on the Teaching identity.
of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) proficiency tests
that measure their proficiency against a native
speaker yardstick. Learner Emotions and Identity
In sum, research on NNEST identity has re-
vealed that initial insecurity associated with non- As noted by Turner and Stets (2005), emotions
nativeness can in fact be addressed if efforts are constitute a complex interplay among cultural, so-
made by teacher educators and researchers to cial, structural, cognitive, and neurological forces.
help NNESTs develop a sense of agency and to Hence, rather than viewing emotions merely as a
engage in professional reflexivity. While such in- cognitive individual difference, we view emotions
sights have helped advance the teacher identity as also bearing a social dimension and argue that
agenda, we examine next how this agenda can be they are also associated with identity, agency, and
further advanced if research on teacher emotions power. That emotions are inextricably tied to
is also taken into consideration. “identity, agency, and power” is underlined by the
DFG (2016), who add that these three constructs
FROM LEARNER TO TEACHER EMOTIONS are “all central in the learning and teaching of
AND THE CRUCIAL IDENTITY CONNECTION languages in today’s multilingual world” (p. 36).
This view of emotions as being discursively con-
Language learning, as observed by the Douglas structed and connected to identity is also echoed
Fir Group (DFG, 2016), “is an emotionally driven by other applied linguists. Prior (2016), for exam-
process at multiple levels of experience” (p. 36). ple, contended that emotions intersect “with our
That emotions have been widely studied in SLA is actions, our histories, our stories, our identities,
evidenced by the voluminous research conducted our relationships, our goals, our psychologies and
on motivation (e.g., Dörnyei & Chan, 2013), even our biologies” (p. 206), while Lewis and Tier-
foreign language anxiety (e.g., Horwitz, 2010), ney (2013) maintained that emotion “produces
and willingness to communicate (e.g., MacIntyre, identities and transforms signs” (p. 295). Arguing
Burns, & Jessome, 2011). The strong interest in in favor of an emotion-as-action perspective, that
learner emotions prompted Pavlenko (2013) to is, one that focuses on how emotions are “linked
describe this rising tide of interest as the affective to other actions historically and spatially within
turn in SLA. This turn, however, has not occurred and beyond the classroom” (p. 290), Lewis and
without criticism; rather, it has been met with calls Tierney also emphasized the need to examine the
(e.g., De Costa, 2015b; Dewaele, Petrides, & Furn- consequence of learner emotions. This stance
ham, 2008) to take into account how larger so- on emotions is shared by Pavlenko (2013), who
cial circumstances may play a role in helping lan- asserted that “we should wave away the question
guage learners avoid or overcome foreign lan- of what emotions are and focus [instead] on what
guage anxiety. This call for a broader treatment emotions do” (p. 23). Building on what emotions
of emotions is aligned with (a) the DFG’s (2016) do and emphasizing that emotions and power
view of emotion as an interdisciplinary entity, and are also intertwined, De Costa (2016a) examined
(b) Turner and Stets’s (2005) assertion that emo- how being framed as academically able stu-
tions “are the result of a complex interplay among dents ultimately created anxiety and subsequent
Dominik Wolff and Peter I. De Costa 79
depression among immigrant students who were combat these negative effects of harmful emo-
scholarship recipients. tions, Reis argued for a reflective and collabora-
Having established how contemporary SLA tive approach among NNS TESOL practitioners
researchers conceive of learner emotions as (a) that would allow NNESTs to identify, acknowl-
extending beyond the self to include cultural edge, and, eventually, manage their affective
and social forces, and (b) being bound with responses, which he argued would subsequently
identities, the next section explores how this lead to a healthier and better workforce in
conceptualization of emotions also applies to TESOL. Working within a Singapore education
language teacher emotions and overlaps with context, Loh and Liew (2016) attributed the
language teacher identities.2 emotional burdens, tensions, and challenges of
secondary school English teachers to the sub-
Teacher Emotions and Identity ject’s value-laden content, the stresses of grading
student essays, the performance pressures of
Studying teacher emotions, as observed by edu- high-stakes testing, and the need for culturally
cation researchers (e.g., Alsup, 2006; Hargreaves, responsive pedagogies. In short, research on
2001; Kelchtermans, 2005), is vitally important English language education has shown that emo-
for understanding the complex practices and tional challenges emerge from a myriad of sources
processes of teacher socialization and identity de- and that emotions do play a central role in shap-
velopment. Within language teacher education, ing teachers’ identity and professional practice.
and drawing on the rich insights from critical
theory and feminist perspectives, Benesch (2012) The Intersection of Teacher Emotions, Identity, and
underlined the complex emotional struggles that Strategies
surround the cultural politics of race, gender
class, and sexuality in the classroom. To Benesch, A relatively new area of inquiry within teacher
identity and emotion go hand in hand, and identity research is that of teacher strategies.
both elements need to be examined in order Changes in a teacher’s identity will ideally cause
to heighten the potential for critical praxis (see modifications in the use of teaching strategies,
Brutt–Griffler & Samimy, 1999, for a discussion of particularly if the teacher (Puja in our case) has
critical praxis in relation to NNESTs). Situating to adjust to a new teaching context. In Cohen
the teaching and learning of English within & Griffiths (2015), numerous researchers who
the emotional ecologies (Zembylas, 2007) of larger adopt different disciplinary approaches in their
sociocultural, institutional, and economic forces, work were invited to contribute to a wish list
she called for a deeper understanding of the lived apropos desirable future studies in the area of
experiences of English language teachers as they strategy use in successful language learning, some
adapt to different educational contexts. of which align well with the dual teacher/learner
That emotions are tied to the teaching of focus in this study. In response, Darvin and Nor-
English in different sociocultural contexts in ton, for example, called for a focus on Bourdieu’s
the United States was investigated by Khong and (2000) sens pratique, or “strategies for dealing with
Saito (2014), who called for more research on the the rules of the game” (as quoted in Cohen &
emotions of teachers of English language learners Griffiths, 2015, p. 419). In the same forum article,
(ELLs). In their review of teacher emotion re- Oxford answered Cohen and Griffiths’ invitation
search, Khong and Saito also observed that work- with a call for case studies “with an eye to collect-
ing with underperforming students contributes ing rich data on learner strategies, emotion, and
to the strain on ELL teachers, and pointed out identity within an intricate pattern of interacting
that this problem is often aggravated by a lack variables” (p. 421). Even though the present
of time, tools, and quality instructional materials article’s focus is not on language learning per se,
(Markham, Green, & Ross, 1996). Relatedly, in both of the aforementioned research suggestions
his exploration of the relevance of emotions for align with Puja’s development in the course of
NNESTs’ development, Reis (2015) reported on the study. In this article we report on how she
the negative effects of insecurities related to their adapted to the ‘rules of the game’; that is, the
status as NNSs (nonnative speakers), warning specific rules in the U.S. teaching context, and in
that “if ESL/EFL students at large repeatedly our analysis, which itself draws from three broad
encounter ESL/EFL teachers whose practices are transdisciplinary areas of research (identity, emo-
heavily influenced by their fears and insecurities, tion, and strategy), we demonstrate the complex
the vicious cycle of powerlessness in the face of interplay of Puja’s emotions and her subsequent
the NS myth is likely to continue” (p. 34). To identity development and strategy modifications.
80 The Modern Language Journal, 101, Supplement 2017
Finally, we would like to highlight that much TABLE 1
of the research on second and foreign lan- Puja’s Classes During Fall 2013 and Spring 2014
guage teacher identity (e.g., Barkhuizen, 2010;
De Costa, 2015a; Tsui, 2007) thus far has been Fall 2013 Spring 2014
conducted through a narrative lens. According to LIN 620: Language LIN 741: Language
Barkhuizen et al. (2014), narrative methods are Learning Processes Assessment
often used because they “capture the nature and LIN 631: Second EDUC 750: Characteristics
meaning of experiences that are difficult to ob- Language Learning of Language Learners &
serve directly and are best understood from the EDUC 790: ESL Teachers
perspective of those who experience it” (p. 8). Methods EDUC 791: Practicum
Building on developments in narrative-based lan-
guage teacher identity and emotion research, the Note. LIN = Linguistics, EDUC = Education, ESL =
English as a Second Language.
questions that guided this study are:

RQ1. What emotional challenges were encoun-

tered by our focal participant, Puja, and national scholarship that allowed her to pursue
what was their impact on her teacher iden- a 2-year MATESOL degree. Coming to a pri-
tity? vate university in the Southwestern part of the
RQ2. How did Puja’s negotiation of emotional
United States marked the first time that she had
challenges influence her pedagogy and
impact the learning outcomes and identi- left Bangladesh, with the exception of short trips
ties of her students? across the border to India. As a female who grew
up in a very traditional society, Puja’s career op-
tions had always been limited. After an arranged
METHODOLOGY
marriage at the age of 16 and the subsequent birth
Our Participant and the Broader Research Context of her two children, she was only allowed to pur-
sue a career in English education. She planned
I was just 15 years old then. I remember one of the
to return to her old university job in Dhaka upon
American ladies who was working in my home coun-
graduating from the MATESOL program. In this
try. She came to interview me. I understood what she
said, but I could not respond in English. She came article, we draw on data collected from the first
to visit me with one translator and that translator was year of the program (see Table 1).
translating in English what I was saying to her, but I
could understand that he was not translating exactly Data Collection and Analysis
what I was saying. I knew that, I realized that, but I
couldn’t do anything. That moment made me real- We analyze Puja’s narratives in order to build
ize that now I should learn English. I should not only on the body of teacher identity- and emotion-
learn English as a language, but I should major in En- oriented work described earlier (e.g., De Costa,
glish … (and) go for English language learning and 2015a; Tsui, 2007), and to respond to Johnson
teaching.
and Golombek’s (2011) lament over the follow-
ing gap in teacher narrative research: “[a]lthough
We introduced our Bangladeshi focal partici- the accolades for narrative as a vehicle for teacher
pant, Puja, in our prologue and presented her as a inquiry abound, less attention has been paid to
committed teacher. In the aforementioned quote, documenting what this change looks like or how
we learn of the genesis of her interest in learning narrative activity fosters teacher professional de-
English and her subsequent desire (Motha & Lin, velopment” (p. 488). Puja’s narratives were ex-
2014) to major in English and become an English tracted from a larger corpus of data that included
teacher. This dream was made possible through (a) semi-structured interviews, (b) class observa-
a scholarship that afforded her the opportunity tions, (c) stimulated verbal and written reports,
to leave her rural village and earn an undergrad- and (d) prompted journal entries. This larger
uate and graduate degree in English Education study, conducted by Dominik—himself a NNEST
from the largest public university in Dhaka. who had taught English in Japan, Spain, and the
Upon graduation, Puja was hired by the same United States—involved four female MATESOL
Bangladeshi university as an English lecturer and students (two NSs and two NNSs), who had
taught English, Linguistics, Psycholinguistics, and various amounts of previous English teaching ex-
Second Language Acquisition. perience. The selection of the participants, in-
At the time of our study, Puja was 30 years cluding Puja, can be described as organic. PhD
old and had been awarded a prestigious inter- students (such as Dominik at the time of the
Dominik Wolff and Peter I. De Costa 81
study) and MA students shared office space, and extent, Puja’s narratives were also partially influ-
thus communicated frequently with one another. enced by how she might have wanted to present
Although a larger number of MA students volun- herself to Dominik as she described her evolving
teered to participate in the study, the four afore- professional development and how he impacted
mentioned MA students were chosen due to their the narratives on professional development pre-
diverse backgrounds and the fact that they would sented by her. In foregrounding teacher and re-
complete the teaching methods and practicum se- searcher reflexivity, we underscore how this study
quence in their first year. is part of a larger ethical and moral project (De
After the data were collected, we analyzed the Costa, 2016b) that aims to advance the field of sec-
data corpus by using a constant-comparative ap- ond and foreign language education from both a
proach (Corbin & Strauss, 2014). In other words, practitioner and researcher perspective.
teacher identity categories (e.g., authority fig-
ure, friend, helper) that emerged from the data FINDINGS
were recursively evaluated by looking across the
various data sets over the course of the 2013– As noted, working in English education was re-
2014 academic year. We then connected these ally Puja’s only professional choice after she had,
emergent categories with the gamut of emotions following local custom, entered into an arranged
(e.g., anxiety, confidence) that Puja felt. Next, dif- marriage and started a family at an early age.
ferent facets of Puja’s teacher identity and her Upon arriving in the United States, Puja found
emotions were juxtaposed with the various ped- herself having to negotiate a plethora of chal-
agogical strategies that she adopted during her lenges that included an initial lack of access to re-
observed lessons and which she highlighted dur- sources, having to negotiate her NNEST status, a
ing the interviews and verbal reports as well as in change in the cultural teaching context and an
her journal entries. By cycling back and forth be- attendant shift in teacher status, and being in-
tween the multiple sets of data and weaving to- troduced to new pedagogical approaches. Collec-
gether Puja’s spoken and written narratives on her tively, these developments resulted in an emotion-
language teaching experience, we aim to show ally charged first year for Puja as she embarked on
how her teacher emotions and strategies were her MATESOL program. In the long term, how-
inextricably linked with her teacher identity de- ever, her aggregated experiences contributed to
velopment and professional practice. Finally, in her overall teacher identity development because
keeping with the practice of member checking, she was able to manage her emotions successfully
Puja herself read and shared her thoughts on an and engage in acts of teacher reflexivity.
earlier version of this article, and we considered
her feedback for this final version. Limited Access to Resources and the Desire for English
When analyzing the narrative data, particular
attention was also paid to Puja’s teacher reflexiv- As observed by the DFG (2016), “Variation in
ity (De Costa 2015a; Hawkins & Norton, 2009; access to opportunities across learners within a
Kumaravadivelu, 2012) as well as Dominik’s re- classroom or across classrooms plays a significant
searcher reflexivity (De Costa 2015a; Prior, 2016; role in shaping learners’ investment in these con-
Talmy, 2010). While the former form of reflex- texts” (p. 32). As an English language learner and
ivity illuminated our understanding of how Puja a NNEST, Puja encountered a conspicuous lack
managed her emotions in ways that contributed of access to material resources that shaped both
to her professional teacher identity development, her language learning and teaching experience.
the latter form of reflexivity helped to remind us She described, for example, how her teachers
to take into account the relationship between the in Bangladesh “always used to translate the En-
researcher (Dominik) and the researched (Puja) glish words into the mother tongue so we never
during the data collection process. Dominik, as thought that we would learn English one day to be
a NNEST with years of teaching experience in a able to participate in English conversations.” Over
variety of contexts (English as a foreign and as time, however, Puja added that English had be-
a second language), was always available to Puja come so important to her that she could not imag-
for teaching advice or to answer any questions ine “a life without learning and teaching English.”
about her graduate classes. It is also important to Thus, it was this limited access to resources that
point out that Puja had experience reading re- fed her investment (Darvin & Norton, 2015; Nor-
search in the field, which might have had a posi- ton, 2013) in learning and subsequently teaching
tive effect on the depth of her reflection. Put sim- English. Interestingly, this resource deficit was
ply, we attuned ourselves to the fact that to some exacerbated by a paucity of academic literature at
82 The Modern Language Journal, 101, Supplement 2017
the university library in Bangladesh. In contrast to an effective English teacher by implementing a
the Bangladesh university library, she remarked: culturally relevant pedagogy that was consistent
with the material realities of Bangladeshi school-
EXCERPT 1. ing. Rather than feel discouraged, the challenges
she faced actually seemed to have fed Puja’s in-
I would rank the [U.S. university] library in my top vestment in the English language and her devel-
position here because this type of library and this
opment as a language teacher. Her hunger for En-
type of system, this type of, let’s say, access to anything
glish and the prestige it carries in the Bangladeshi
that you want to read this was beyond my imagina-
tion. I had heard about the library system because context should also not be underestimated.
[in my home country] we have libraries of 1960s and Knowing English and being able to teach English
70s and 80s and some of the books that we get are brings an enormous amount of capital (Bourdieu,
from our professor, that’s all. 1991), which undoubtedly contributed to her
hire as a faculty member in Bangladesh and her
Invoking Norton’s (2013) notion of investment scholarship to come to the United States.
and framing it in terms of language desire, Motha
and Lin (2014) emphasized the link between Confidence Issues Related to Puja’s NNEST Status
the individual and society, and complexified lan-
guage desire by conceiving it as a co-constructed As reviewed earlier, NNEST EFL teachers who
and multilayered phenomenon. In addition, they arrive in the United States have been known to
noted that TESOL educators need to consider not question their identity as English-language speak-
only the desires of learners but also those of teach- ers and professionals (Samimy & Brutt–Griffler,
ers, institutions, communities, and states or gov- 1999). In this respect, Puja was not a NNEST
ernments. In foregrounding how desire extends anomaly. One aspect of language that she con-
beyond the individual to include national and in- tinued to be concerned with was her nonnative-
ternational domains, Motha and Lin also remind like pronunciation. In her first journal entry Puja
us that desire can be both an inspiring and an op- stated: “Since English is my third language and
pressive emotion. In Puja’s case, and in the face we were never exposed to the input from native
of limited access to resources in Bangladesh, it speakers of English, I am always worried about
was encouraging to see how she was able to chan- improving my pronunciation.” This concern was
nel her desire positively and creatively to enhance an ever-present issue that carried increased sig-
her professional development. Such positivity and nificance because, as she said during the pre-
creativity are exemplified by her response to her practicum interview: “I came to realize that the
MATESOL course on materials design that ad- first thing which I still feel is I need to improve
dressed the use of technology in the classroom. my pronunciation a lot because that’s what some
Underscoring how Bangladeshi teachers lacked of the people of my country expect when you go
access to technology, she revealed: to the native speaking environment to learn.” In-
triguingly, this concern about her pronunciation
stemmed from herself and how she perceived her
EXCERPT 2.
Bangladeshi peers back home would construct
They [teacher educators in Bangladesh] teach us her. In signaling her discomfort with her pronun-
how to prepare pocket charts from cloths and card- ciation, Puja also highlights the ideological nature
boards. They teach us how to use flannel boards. of language learning and instruction, and the is-
Each of us has to prepare flannel boards and pocket sues of power and inequality surrounding it. As
charts. We had to sew it with our hands … It’s be- Matsuda (1991) explains:
cause we have to make use of locally available mate-
rials, which are very easily accessible to all the teach- When the parties are in a relationship of domina-
ers throughout the country. [ …] They [teachers in tion and subordination we tend to say that the dom-
Bangladesh] may not even have cloths to prepare inant is the normal, and the subordinate is different
pocket charts and they make use of something that is from normal. And so it is with accent … People in
going to be recycled, the boards, and we used to cut power are perceived as speaking normal, unaccented
them into circular shape and then we use them to English. Any speech that is different from that con-
teach vocabulary items into play. We don’t have the structed norm is an accent. (p. 805)
ready-made language games and activities [ …].
By not attributing her perceived deficiency to
Hence, in spite of the evident lack of research her U.S. peers—ostensibly the dominant party—
and teaching resources back in Bangladesh, Puja Puja appears to engage in a form of symbolic vio-
was able to successfully manage her desire to be lence (Bourdieu, 1991), which constitutes a form
Dominik Wolff and Peter I. De Costa 83
of tacit compliance to social domination, result- constructs from the fields of Linguistics and SLA
ing in a form of self-deprecation that affected her before starting the MATESOL program. Never-
teacher emotions and identity. theless, she reported feeling less than confident
In fact, on several occasions, Puja shared in- initially in the first semester. Fortunately, this feel-
formation that hinted at her initial lack of confi- ing was assuaged by a very supportive class instruc-
dence in being a NNEST. First, in a journal entry tor who helped Puja build confidence in herself.
for EDUC 790: ESL Methods, which prepared her
for EDUC 791: Practicum, she disclosed that the EXCERPT 4.
methods course boosted her confidence by help-
ing her realize she was not worse than the other Actually when I entered the class in the beginning
smart students. Second, on several occasions, Puja and I saw all my native speaker friends and all the
repeated that graduating with a master’s degree friends who have a good educational background, I
thought like I would be lost somewhere in the ocean
from a U.S. university would provide her with the
but every time the way Professor Smith3 encouraged,
confidence and competence necessary “to con- even if we make mistakes and then the way she said
vince other people,” thereby suggesting that her that, “Okay you can do it. Oh you know this, oh you
sense of validation was closely tied to her receiving are very good.” This made me feel that I could do
an advanced degree from a foreign institution. something. The most important thing that I learned
Third, during her practicum, Puja repeatedly re- in that class is that I could do some things. I could be
ferred to having to leave her “comfort zone” when a good teacher.
teaching adult ESL students, whom she felt had
a generally high proficiency and were very inter- Accepting a New Teacher Status: From God to Friend
ested in idiomatic expressions closely related to and Helper
American culture. Being a recent transplant to
the United States, Puja was not entirely comfort- The encouragement from Professor Smith and
able teaching English semantics and pragmatics: other faculty in her MATESOL program helped
Puja overcome a drop in professional stature
EXCERPT 3. that she experienced after arriving in the United
States. In Bangladesh, teachers are treated like
When a student raises a question about some expres- deities. Not surprisingly, Puja encountered a form
sions, especially idioms, idiomatic expressions we’re of professional culture shock as described next:
going beyond language and giving them some cul-
tural aspects. I have to learn that myself. ( …) [T]hey
EXCERPT 5.
may [say], ‘Have you watched this movie? Have you
heard this song? Have you watched this TV pro- I would like to be called a teacher. The word teacher
gram?’ [ …] For me, I have to go beyond my comfort gives me some feeling. (Dominik: What kind of feel-
zone. ing?) A feeling of power and authority. Sometimes just
wearing a formal dress in your country, you’re sup-
In some ways, Puja’s assessment of herself in- posed to wear your national dress when you teach,
vites comparison to the negative accounts by adult and when you climb on a stage and address 150 stu-
immigrants in Miller (2014): dents together. When they call you ‘teacher’ and
then when they just celebrate Teachers’ Day. When
[I]n my analysis of their production of evaluative I celebrate my Teachers’ Day that’s the day when I
stance toward their capacity to learn English, I feel or approach all of my teachers who I respect a
showed that the majority of the interviewees consis- lot to express my gratitude for making me what I am
tently produced negative evaluations. Many of them today … [This] is one day in a year where students
disparaged their language proficiency as still limited worship their teachers, because teacher is taken as a form
and problematic. (p. 137) of God. My identity, now I no longer have that feeling
of authority in the sense that I had before. I learned
Being a NNEST himself and having worked that I could be teacher not in the form of authority only,
closely with Puja and also having observed her in but as a friend, as a helper.
various teaching contexts, Dominik empathized
with Puja and the anxiety she faced. Based on It is important to note, however, that the change
his own extensive observations of her, however, in teacher status was mentioned with little regret,
he was also certain that she was more than ca- resentment, or bitterness. Put differently, far from
pable of holding her own and thought that Puja making a simplistic good versus bad distinction
unfairly discounted herself. In fact, it was evi- between teaching cultures in Bangladesh and the
dent to him that Puja had previously acquired United States, Puja found value in both systems.
an abundance of theoretical knowledge about key She described the importance placed on teachers
84 The Modern Language Journal, 101, Supplement 2017
in her home country with a touch of nostalgia, as she knew much about the theory behind com-
illustrated in the preceding excerpt. Her experi- municative language teaching (CLT; Savignon,
ences in her first year in the United States had 2000), but she had never been able to actually use
enriched her teacher identity in that now she was it. By contrast, a banking method (Freire, 1970) was
more than an authoritative teaching figure; she used in Bangladesh:
could also be a friend and helper, which consti-
tuted new teacher identity aspects and prospects EXCERPT 8.
for her and increased the confidence she felt as a
We’re still following jug and mug theory where just the
teacher in the U.S. context. This development or
teacher prepares all the notes and then just uses the
extension of Puja’s teacher identity, which caused
lecture method, the students recite them, memorize
a rethinking of her pedagogical approaches, is dis- them and then [the students] [ …] write and pass
cussed next. examinations so we cannot assess their achievement
in reality. My students were happy with me [when
Designing Context-Specific Strategies: Democratic and they learned that I was coming to the U.S.] They told
Student-Centered Teaching me that they would be waiting for me to bring some
changes.
In some ways, being able to see herself as a
One conspicuous way that Puja started to em-
friend and helper to her students was the result
brace a more student-centered approach was
of and contributed to a shift in Puja’s pedagogy.
through her adoption of implicit instruction, with
This shift was facilitated in part by how Puja came
a greater focus on meaning (Loewen, 2015).
to view and interact with her own professors. Be-
When Puja started teaching her practicum class,
fore coming to the United States, she conceived
she wanted to help the students with “every-
of teachers as authorities who were not supposed
thing they had problems with.” However, over the
to be questioned and who were expected to know
course of the practicum, she discovered the need
all the answers.
to have criteria for when to focus on form and
when to keep the focus on meaning rather than
EXCERPT 6.
“painting the whole black board writing every-
I talked to Professor Black once outside of the class- thing that I come across.” This altered style to
room and asked him, “When I ask questions, do I grammar instruction, that is, one of focus on form
… Is it something like bothering or do you get ir- (FonF; see Long, 2014), is exemplified next:
ritated?” Because the professors back home never al-
low us to ask questions, and here you can ask any type
EXCERPT 9.
of questions. [Here] they answer your questions.
What I did [in my first lesson] was, any type of inci-
That teachers in Bangladesh were expected to dental words or the grammatical structures or some
know all the answers was underscored by Puja, of those collocation of words, anything that I found
too: incorrect, I just picked it up and then wrote on the
board and spent much of my time on discussing
EXCERPT 7. them, but now I learned to be selective among those
incidentally occurring grammatical and vocabulary
In my country … every teacher is supposed to an- [items].
swer any type of question [ …]. They can’t say they
don’t know or they can’t say they don’t have good In other words, Puja became much more de-
answer for their students’ questions. They can’t say liberate in the way she dealt with student errors,
they will look for the answer tomorrow or the next showing that she had adapted to the new teach-
day, because they’re supposed to answer on the spot. ing context and her new role as a helper rather
[ …] but when I came here and when I saw even the than an all-knowing instructor. In her journal re-
big professors saying, ‘I don’t have a good answer for
flection she wrote: “I picked up students’ errors
you,’ I just changed my mind that even a teacher is a
human being.
and wrote them on the board to deal with. How-
ever, I did not pick up all the errors in forms that
Puja’s first-hand experience with a more demo- I had done in my last lesson. I only chose those
cratic style of teaching had led her to re-evaluate errors which were related to the topic and which
the usefulness of teaching strategies that were could affect intelligibility.”
prevalent in her home country. It further caused In the large classes in Bangladesh, which aver-
her to reflect on how vastly different teaching aged 150 students, any correction that was sup-
in Bangladesh was at every level when compared posed to be noticed by her students had to be
with instruction in U.S. classrooms. For example, clear and direct. Thus, on the one hand, favoring
Dominik Wolff and Peter I. De Costa 85
explicit feedback in large classrooms (and some- sequence gave her opportunities to try out new
times lecture halls) seemed intuitively appropri- teaching techniques.
ate. On the other hand, Puja also alluded to the
role institutional pressure played in her choos- EXCERPT 11.
ing a particular (i.e., explicit) feedback type in
Bangladesh. By contrast, in her smaller practicum I’ve been teaching my students about recasting the
class in the United States, she was able to choose students’ errors and then giving them implicit feed-
back, which we never did [in Bangladesh] because
a feedback type that would be most appropriate
there are no interactions in class at all. It’s always
and elected to correct more implicitly. She did the teacher who initiates, students’ role is just to re-
this in order to protect the students from embar- spond, and then teacher gives feedback, and that
rassment they might feel when being corrected in feedback is never incorporated by the students in
front of their classmates. their subsequent production, because there is always
one way delivery from the teachers, because teacher
EXCERPT 10. is all in all should be a taskmaster, should know ev-
erything that the students need.

I believe in giving corrective feedback so one very The explicit approach she used to adopt in
important thing that I’ve changed now is I was used Bangladesh is consistent with the banking method
to giving explicit feedback, because that’s what we’re (Freire, 1970) mentioned earlier, and one that
supposed to do in my home country, because implicit is reminiscent of the Initiation-Response-Feedback
feedback is not, there are a lot of students and if you
(IRF) model described in Sinclair & Coulthard
give implicit feedback they do not even notice that
(1975). What is interesting, though, is how Puja
they had made a mistake and their mistake had been
corrected. We’re asked or we’re advised to give ex- had expanded her explicit “taskmaster” approach
plicit feedback so that the students know that they to include an implicit task-based learning one,
have made a mistake and their mistake has been cor- thereby illustrating how her broadened teaching
rected. Here I prefer to give implicit feedback, be- repertoire contributed to her overall professional
cause there are few students and I don’t want them to development.
feel embarrassed by giving explicit feedback.
Intersecting Identities: Moving Beyond Her Original
Teacher Identity
As seen, institutional pressure in Bangladesh
played a key role in determining the type of feed- In an ethnographic study on teacher develop-
back she provided. At the same time, Puja’s ability ment, Duff and Uchida (1997) examined how
to modify her instruction to suit her new teaching sociocultural identities and practices developed
context and to take into account her students’ and changed over time for four EFL teachers
emotions is indicative of how Puja was able to (two Japanese and two American) in Japan and
acquire the rules of the pedagogical game or sens what factors caused these changes. They found
pratique (Bourdieu, 2000). After all, as Morgan that the teachers’ professional, social, political,
and Clarke (2011) remind us, teaching is cultur- and cultural identities were clearly represented
ally situated, and what constitutes good teaching in their classroom behaviors and practices. Duff
in one educational setting may not be viewed in and Uchida noted that “language teachers and
the same light in a different setting. Crucially, students in any setting naturally represent a wide
in being able to change pedagogical approaches array of social and cultural roles and identities”
in accordance with her teaching context, Puja (p. 451). This observation was borne out in Puja’s
demonstrated that she did not need to trade in practicum case, as she had to reshape her teacher
her Bangladesh teacher identity for an American identity in response to a different sociopolitical
one. Rather, she showed that she could fluidly and and sociocultural milieu that placed a greater em-
strategically move between both teacher identi- phasis on democratic and implicit instruction.
ties in a contextually sensitive manner, thereby As explained in the previous two sections, Puja
illustrating the interconnection between teacher experienced a widening of her teaching reper-
identity, teacher emotions, and teacher strategies. toire. This pedagogical growth did not occur with-
Puja’s ability to actually employ implicit types out incident, however. As the data in this arti-
of corrective feedback and distance herself cle have demonstrated, Puja encountered much
from one-sided teacher-dominated types of com- emotional turmoil at the start of her gradu-
munication was made possible in part by the ate teacher education program. Instead of being
two-class sequence of EDUC: 790: ESL Methods impaired by this turmoil, Puja showed that she was
and EDUC 791: Practicum (see Table 1). This able not only to withstand the emotional demands
86 The Modern Language Journal, 101, Supplement 2017
placed on NNESTs like herself but also to thrive in to be deployed by teachers as they relate and re-
her new teaching environment. To some extent, spond to their students (see also Benesch, 2017).
the external support from her professors did play As a consequence, the emotional demands placed
a role in helping Puja adjust to her new environ- on teachers warrant investigation and, as we have
ment. An agentive and reflexive teacher through- argued throughout this article, can play a vital
out her time in the MATESOL program, Puja was role in expanding the teacher identity research
able to project her identity onto her new environ- landscape.
ment while also being affected by it. Reflecting on Within SLA, much of the emotion research has
her turbulent first year, she recalled: focused on negative emotions, with much em-
phasis being given to investigating how impedi-
EXCERPT 12. ments to linguistic and cultural proficiency can
be removed in order to enhance language learn-
When I started [the fall semester], I thought that
ing. That negative emotions deserve research at-
school was everything for me but slowly, as I told you,
in these 30 years I have not recognized who I was and
tention is acknowledged by Benesch (2012), who
I came to know that I’m a complete form. My iden- rightly observed that an examination of learners’
tity back home was [that] I’m not a human being. “unhappy feelings [is] … legitimate … [because]
I’m someone’s daughter, someone’s wife, someone’s this process invites them to explore their feelings
mother and [by myself] I’m nothing, but now I real- not as personal but political” (p. 128). Given that
ize that I’m something beautiful … School is just one Puja was both an English language learner and
aspect of my life … My culture, integrating, trying to a NNEST, an investigation of her insecurities in
integrate in the new culture without losing my origi- both using and teaching English in the United
nal one is another part of my life … I think school is States helped us better understand the role that
not everything.
emotions played in her teacher identity develop-
This revelation indicates Puja’s realization of ment. That said, and in line with recent calls to
the intersectional aspects of identity (Block & (a) focus on positive emotions (e.g., Dewaele &
Corona, 2016). While physical and social distance MacIntyre, 2014; MacIntyre & Gregersen, 2016;
from Bangladesh allowed Puja to rethink her Prior, 2016),4 and (b) reframe the experiences
professional identity, being away from home of NNEST teachers in affirming ways (e.g., Mah-
also afforded her the opportunity to come to boob, 2010; Park, 2012), we also focused on how
understand that her teacher identity was just Puja successfully managed her insecurities with
one facet of her complex multidimensional positive effects.
make-up. As she put it, she was also a mother, In emphasizing Puja’s positive emotions in this
wife, and daughter. This identity breakthrough article, it is not our intention to dismiss or ignore
on Puja’s part is pivotal because it underscores the inequalities surrounding language learning
how teacher identities do not exist in isolation of and language teacher education. However, like
other identities. Just as teachers make personal Prior (2016) and as illustrated in our data anal-
connections to teaching because who we are in yses, we are committed to helping “reduce stu-
our personal lives influences our professional dents’ negative emotions and augment positive
identities, and vice versa (Oprandy, 1999), Puja’s ones … [in order to] increase both the amount
insight serves as a vivid reminder that who prac- and quality of learning” (p. 24). One way to re-
titioners are in the classroom cannot be divorced alize this goal on a pedagogical level, as recom-
from other identity and emotional aspects of their mended by Benesch (2012), is “to study objects
lives. to which emotions adhere, those that are partic-
ularly sticky” (p. 57). An example of an object
DISCUSSION to which emotions stick, as noted by Benesch, is
teachers’ written commentary. In the context of
Commenting on the scale of change that has our study, we learned about Puja’s decision to pro-
gripped foreign language teacher education, vide implicit corrective feedback (see Excerpts 9
Kramsch (2014) pointed out how teachers today through 11). As you may recall, in Excerpt 10, her
can sometimes be at a loss as they attempt to keep rationale for providing implicit feedback was to
abreast of real world developments and demands save her students from the embarrassment of re-
outside their classroom. This need to stay relevant ceiving explicit feedback. Thus, one pedagogical
in the face of changing learner needs has become possibility of enhancing learning and addressing
a source of anxiety among many teachers, adding emotional labor associated with teaching would
to the emotional labor described by Hochschild be to trace how such feedback is taken up by stu-
(1983) and resulting in a greater need for care dents in both their spoken and written discourse.
Dominik Wolff and Peter I. De Costa 87
Importantly, this suggestion to trace the effects professors who did not infantilize her but focused
of emotion-inflected feedback is consonant with instead on her strengths and rich teaching expe-
Pavlenko’s (2013) call to examine “what emotions rience in Bangladesh (Excerpt 4). As language
do” (p. 46). teacher educators, and in line with the ethical
To her credit, Puja adapted her pedagogy to turn in applied linguistics (De Costa, 2016b), we
her new teaching context and sought to customize need to work toward an ethical vision of lan-
her teaching strategies according to her new stu- guage teacher identity. One way to do this, as il-
dent audience in the United States. For example, lustrated by Norton and Early (2011), is to expli-
and in spite of her initial reservation, she actively cate the identities researchers inhabit as they work
sought to expand her own semantic and prag- with teacher counterparts. Admittedly, engaging
matic knowledge of American English in order in these acts of reflexivity may not entirely erase
to meet their desire to learn idiomatic English the inequalities that exist between researcher and
(Excerpt 3). In addition, she developed a cultur- researched; however, it at least represents an at-
ally relevant pedagogy—one that was face-saving tempt to bridge the power differentials that may
and implicit in manner of instruction—that was exist when carrying out teacher identity research.
developed for a class that was much smaller than
she was previously accustomed to. However, mov- CONCLUSION
ing forward, it is equally important that she main-
tain this ability to adopt different pedagogical ap- Over a decade ago, Morgan (2004) initiated a
proaches when working with different groups of call to view teacher identity as pedagogy. Kanno
learners. Some critical applied linguists, such as and Stuart (2011) extended this initiative and
Kumaravadivelu (2012), have called for a reform- posited that “the development of L2 teacher iden-
ing of teacher identities in this globalized world by tity should be at the center of research and de-
executing an epistemic break in the dependency bate on L2 teacher education because it is the cen-
on western knowledge of production and center- tral project novice teachers engage in” (p. 250).
based methods. In a similar vein, Kubanyiova and In subsequent years, recent edited volumes (e.g.,
Crookes (2016), envision language teachers as Cheung, Said, & Park, 2015) and special issues
‘moral agents’ who engage with students critically (e.g., Varghese et al., 2016) on teacher identity
in increasingly diverse contexts. Understandably, that focus on novice and experienced teachers in
there is much merit in calls to decenter and decol- multilingual settings have further emphasized the
onize teaching, especially in a neoliberal era that growing importance of teacher identity when re-
emphasizes accountability and adherence to com- designing language teacher education programs.
mon and often Western-based standards. How- Crucially, this fast growing body of work has also
ever, we also have to recognize, as did Puja, the been enriched by an emergent interest in teacher
need to balance such a pedagogical revolution emotions. While earlier scholarship on NNESTs
with the need to take into consideration the in- and their emotions investigated ways to reduce
stitutional forces that exist and the investment the presumed linguistic insecurity of nonnative
(Darvin & Norton, 2015; Norton, 2013) and de- teachers, our study, which traced the emotional
sires (Motha & Lin, 2014) of individual learn- and identity trajectory of an experienced NNEST
ers. In other words, second and foreign language revealed how a focus on positive emotions can
educators may want to build on findings from also serve as the basis for new pedagogical mod-
teacher identity studies such as ours in order to els to help teachers like Puja develop their re-
help NNESTs like Puja learn how to exercise ped- flexivity and negotiate emergent challenges. The
agogical fluidity while also meeting the desires of coursework and the reflexivity brought about
students in different contexts. by Puja’s participation in the study appeared to
As we have also shown, being a NNEST and positively impact her teacher identity develop-
a language learner is not without its challenges. ment. Constant reflexivity practices, such as the
MATESOL programs, such as the one in which ones in this study, should be considered a cru-
this study is situated, deal with future language cial element in language teacher education, no
teachers who come to graduate programs with es- matter the context. While this study focused on
tablished language proficiencies, behaviors, and an English teacher, we firmly believe that our
values. Put succinctly, they have their own identi- findings extend beyond English to teachers of
ties. Because of this reality, it is crucial that pro- other languages as well. By placing the relation-
grams recognize and build on the emotional and ship of teacher identity development and emo-
identity resources that NNESTs bring with them. tions front and center in our study, we hope that
In Puja’s case, she was fortunate to have had future research will continue this new path away
88 The Modern Language Journal, 101, Supplement 2017
from the deskilling of teachers and instead em- Benesch, S. (2012). Considering emotions in critical English
brace teacher identity, emotion, and strategy as language teaching: Theories and praxis. New York:
pedagogy. Routledge/Taylor & Francis.
Benesch, S. (2017). Emotions in English language teaching:
Exploring teachers’ emotion labor. New York: Rout-
ledge/Taylor & Francis.
NOTES Block, D., & Corona, V. (2016). Intersectionality in lan-
guage and identity research. In S. Preece (Ed.),
The Routledge handbook of language and identity
1 More recently, Creese, Blackledge, and Takhi
(pp. 507–522). New York: Routledge/Taylor &
(2014) claimed that the “legitimacy and authenticity of Francis.
the native speaker is an ideological construct that has Borg, S. (2013). Teacher research in language teaching: A
been discredited in scholarly research” (p. 947), but critical analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University
went on to illustrate how the construct was very much Press.
alive in the minds of the teachers and students at the Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. (G.
Punjabi complementary school where they conducted Raymond & M. Adamson, Trans.). Cambridge,
their research. If anything, their work strongly illus- MA: Harvard University Press.
trates how deeply entrenched such ideologies are within Bourdieu, P. (2000). Pascalian meditations. Palo Alto, CA:
school and society. Stanford University Press.
2 Language teacher emotions have been examined
Braine, G. (Ed.). (1999). Non-native educators in En-
through other lenses apart from an identity lens. glish language teaching. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erl-
Golombek (2015), for example, invoked Vygotskian baum.
sociocultural theory in her examination of the emo- Brutt–Griffler, J., & Samimy, K. K. (1999). Revisiting
tional dissonance that she experienced as a teacher the colonial in the postcolonial: Critical praxis for
educator working with a teacher learner. Specifically, nonnative-English speaking teachers in a TESOL
she drew on the concepts of perezhivanie (lived or program. TESOL Quarterly, 33, 413–431.
emotional experience), sense, and motivation. Other Burke, B. M. (2013). Looking into a crystal ball: Is re-
language teacher cognition researchers, such as Borg quiring high-stakes language proficiency tests re-
(2013), have extended their understanding of cogni- ally going to improve world language education?
tion to include emotion and identity (see Kubanyiova Modern Language Journal, 97, 531–534.
& Feryok, 2015, for a broad discussion of teacher Canagarajah, S. (2016). TESOL as a professional com-
cognition). munity: A half-century of pedagogy, research, and
3 Pseudonyms are used to depict the names of people
theory. TESOL Quarterly, 50, 7–41.
and places in this article. Cheung, Y. L., Said, S. B., & Park, K. (Eds.). (2015).
4 Earlier, Arnold and Brown (1999) had already
Advances and current trends in language teacher
pointed out that because “much more attention is given identity research. New York: Routledge/Taylor &
to the question of negative emotions … (one) should Francis.
not lose sight of the importance of developing the posi- Cohen, A. D., & Griffiths, C. (2015). Revisiting LLS re-
tive” (p. 2). search 40 years later. TESOL Quarterly, 49, 414–
429.
Corbin, J., & Strauss, A. (2014). Basics of qualitative
research: Techniques and procedures for developing
grounded theory (4th ed.). Oakwood, CA: SAGE.
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