Professional Identity Under Reconstruction: Stories of Vietnamese ESOL Teachers’ Integration of Technology

Tran-Thanh, V.; Nguyen, H.T.; Le, H.T.

doi:10.1007/978-981-99-0514-0_20

Professional Identity Under Reconstruction: Stories of Vietnamese ESOL Teachers’ Integration of Technology

Tran-Thanh, V.; Nguyen, H.T.; Le, H.T.

Authors

Vu Tran Thanh vu.tran-thanh@durham.ac.uk
PGR Student Doctor of Philosophy

H.T. Nguyen

H.T. Le

Contributors

D. Tafazoli
Editor

M. Picard
Editor

Abstract

Teacher professional identity is an important notion in language education, especially when understood as a reaction against contextual changes, yet remains underexplored in the context of CALL teacher education. Particularly in Vietnam, such exploration has not received sufficient attention. Positioned within the recent technology emergence and the implementation of multiple technology-enhancement policies, Vietnamese ESOL teachers’ stories of struggling, learning, failing, succeeding, and transforming are unheard of. This qualitative study explored five Vietnamese ESOL teachers’ professional identities as they navigated through the technology integration since the late-2000s, and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their stories were depicted through the use of narrative inquiry and the hermeneutic circle. Governed by the complicated relationship between the physical and figured worlds, the participants constructed very distinct professional identities as learner, tech-assisted teacher, technophile, and technophobe. Discussions regarding the roles of personal beliefs, agency, pre-existing identities, and different contextual levels were generated while recommendations for future research were made.

Citation

Tran-Thanh, V., Nguyen, H., & Le, H. (2023). Professional Identity Under Reconstruction: Stories of Vietnamese ESOL Teachers’ Integration of Technology. In D. Tafazoli, & M. Picard (Eds.), Handbook of CALL Teacher Education and Professional Development: Voices from Under-Represented Contexts. Springer Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0514-0_20

Online Publication Date	Apr 27, 2023
Publication Date	2023
Deposit Date	Oct 24, 2022
Publisher	Springer Verlag
Book Title	Handbook of CALL Teacher Education and Professional Development: Voices from Under-Represented Contexts
ISBN	9789819905133
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-0514-0_20