Narrative Approaches to Exploring Language, Identity and Power in Language Teacher Education

This article presents a theoretical overview of the concept of teacher identity, particularly focusing on poststructuralist conceptions of what identity means, and shows how these ideas can be associated with ideas about narrative and narrative inquiry. It is argued that it is important for teachers, through reflective practice or teacher research, to become aware of and understand their professional identities because doing so has implications for their practice. Two ways of analysing teacher stories are illustrated: the first, a content or thematic analysis of a written teacher journal entry, and the second, a short story analysis of an extract of an interview. These methods are presented as examples of the type of narrative analysis teachers can do to become more aware of who they are in their professional lives.