EFL Teachers’ Professional Identity: Insights and Experiences in FYP in a Saudi Context

Abstract

There has been significant increase in research on exploring and understanding EFL teachers’ professional identities in various contexts. The EFL teachers play an important role in developing Saudi EFL learners’ English language skills to facilitate in their academic endeavors. The current study aimed to explore EFL teachers’ professional identity construction and negotiation process.  Also, it intended to investigate how contextual factors influence this process. To this end, five experienced EFL teachers were chosen through purposive sampling from English Language Institute (ELI) teaching at a public-university in Saudi Arabia. The data were collected through in depth standardized open-ended interviews. The data were analyzed thematically (Braun & Clarke, 2006) by reading and reading the interview transcripts, and developing codes, categories and themes. The findings revealed that the participants found a few factors quite motivating for them to sustain their professional identity. However, there were many contextual factors that caused conflict in their construction and negotiations process of their identities and resulted in significantly contributed to their weaker professional identities. The findings can have pedagogical implications for EFL teachers, and they can prepare themselves better to deal with contextual dilemmas to perform better in the current settings. For policy makers, it can be implied that they can provide conducive environment to teachers for developing their strong professional identities.