Pursuing Teacher Development Through Perception Of Teacher Professional Identity

Language teacher identity is an emerging subject of interest in research on language teacher education and teacher development. The last few years have seen the appearance of a great number of applied linguistics researches devoted to the topic of language teacher identity. Language teacher identity, as an ongoing process, is complex and multifaceted. As one aspect of teacher identity, teacher professional identity has begun to gain interest in this area. This thesis concentrates on EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers' perceptions of teacher professional identity and its facilitation in teacher development through an exploratory study.This exploratory study dealt with teachers' perceptions of teacher professional identity from a personal knowledge perspective. In the study, a theoretical framework was used to operationalize what teacher professional identity should be taken to mean, including factors that may influence this identity. The study addressed the following questions: (1) how do experienced teachers perceive their professional identity?; (2) what have been, in view of this identity, their most important learning experiences throughout their careers?; and (3) can factors be identified that influence these perceptions of their professional identity?...