The role of negotiation about cultural issues on the ESP teachers’ cultural identity development: A narrative inquiry
Naser Rashidi – Hussein Meihami
DOI: 10.18355/XL.2019.12.02.10
Abstract
Developing teachers’ cultural identity is assumed to have remarkable roles in teachers’ professional development. Hence, the thrust of this study was to investigate the role of negotiation about cultural issues on the cultural identity development of the novice and experienced English for Specific Purposes (ESP) teachers. To that end, a narrative approach was employed to track down the cultural identity development of four novices and two experienced ESP teachers. The narratives authored by the ESP teachers were analyzed within Wenger’s (1998) theory of community of practice. The results of the narrative analysis showed that negotiation about cultural issues has a constructive role in the cultural identity development of the novice and experienced ESP teachers. However, the narrative analysis indicated that there were some differences in the cultural identity construction of the novice and experienced ESP teachers. These differences were about their perspectives toward the knowledge they obtained in negotiation and the approaches which they implemented to reflect on the cultural issues in ESP classes. Both novice and experienced ESP teachers, nevertheless, followed the same path of alignment regarding their cultural identity development. Thus, it can be concluded that the ESP teachers can consider negotiation about cultural issues as a way to conjoin in a community of practice to develop their cultural identity in the ESP classes.
Key words: cultural identity, negotiation, narrative inquiry, ESP teachers, teacher education
Pages: 111 - 129
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