Bridging Worlds: A Collective Case Study of Novice English Language Teacher Agency in Hybrid Teaching

The increasing adoption of hybrid language instruction in the post-pandemic era has reshaped the ecology of language classrooms; however, little is known about how novice English language teachers negotiate their professional agency within these blended environments. Drawing on an ecological framework, the researchers investigated how these teachers steer pedagogical duality, role ambiguity, and shifting power dynamics as they adapt to the hybrid teaching environment. The experiences of four novice teachers in Iran were examined using in-depth interviews and weekly teaching journals. The findings revealed that novice teachers faced three key challenges in the hybrid setting: (1) negotiating the pedagogical duality of virtual and in-person instruction, (2) experiencing role epistemic uncertainty when adopting multiple teacher identities, and (3) managing contested power dynamics with students in the hybrid space. In response to these challenges, the novice teachers enacted their agency through iterative adaptations that strategically aligned task design with modal affordances, renegotiated their professional identities from knowledge authorities to distributed facilitators, and cultivated learner autonomy to address power asymmetries. The study contributes to the literature on teacher agency by highlighting the situated and temporal nature of agency enactment, especially for novice teachers facing disruptive educational changes.