Language teachers’ identity in teaching intercultural communicative competence

This paper reports on our inquiry into how language teachers’ identities relate to their efforts to teach intercultural communicative competence. In the study, we collected data through in-depth interviews with and observations of 16 Chinese language teachers in Hong Kong’s international schools. The analysis revealed that the participants simultaneously embraced multiple professional and sociocultural identities related to intercultural communicative competence teaching. Specifically, the professional identities included a Chinese language teacher identity and a school staff member identity, while the sociocultural identity comprised a Chinese culture bearer identity, a multicultural identity, a cultural transmitter identity, a culture learner identity, and a cultural bridge identity. These identities were found to compete with or reinforce each other in mediating the participants’ efforts in relation to teaching intercultural communicative competence; different identities were often associated with different understandings of and approaches to teaching intercultural communicative competence. The findings suggest that language teacher educators need to recognise teacher identities as an important pedagogical resource when preparing language teachers for teaching in cross-cultural contexts.