Ivanova-Miloshevska, Biljana (2025) A Qualitative Study on the Professional Identity Transformation of ESOL Teachers in the Asia-Pacific Context. PhD thesis, Victoria University.

Abstract

Despite the growing research on the professional lives of teachers of English to speakers of other languages (ESOL) and the established link between social environment and individual professional identity development, a challenge remains in understanding how changing contexts in workplaces and teacher education shape who they are and why they do what they do. Using a qualitative interpretive research approach, this study investigated the lived experiences of 16 mid-to-late-career ESOL teachers working in pathways to university programmes across nine Asia-Pacific countries. This included interpreting the meanings of teachers’ beliefs about, roles in, and experiences of professional practice within the global discourse of the TESOL profession. The study aimed to gain a deeper understanding of how historical, sociocultural, and political contextual factors impact their professional identity development. The data, generated through a qualitative survey, individual semi-structured interviews, and artefacts, were analysed thematically using Braun and Clark’s (2006) six phases and articulated through the meta-theoretical framework ‘identity-in-activity’ (Cross, 2006; Cross & Gearon, 2007). The study’s findings show how the ESOL teachers’ professional identity is being challenged by the changing sociocultural and political-economic contexts in their social environment as mediating sources of professional practice, learning, and development. The findings demonstrate the dialectics between Being (a good teacher), Becoming (a reflective and reflexive, proactive practitioner), and Belonging (to a workplace culture). Drawing on Vygotsky’s legacy and his identification of language as a cultural and psychological tool of mediation, this research proposes a novel model for theorising professional identity transformation by using interrelated units of analysis. The transformation of professional identity, as a dialectical unity of Belonging and Being in a continuous process of Becoming, is expressed through perezhivanie as another key theoretical concept and its practical application in dialogic partnerships in learning for development. In addition, this study theorises the mediation of ESOL teachers’ professional identity in the intertwined and non-linear interactions across the microgenetic, ontogenetic, and cultural-historic domains. From a practical perspective, this study potentially establishes new ways for teachers and leaders to support their workplace social infrastructure for professional development, informs the knowledge base of ESOL teacher education, and enhances teachers’ practice.

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