Multiplicity for Survival: English Language Teachers’ Identity Performance in Iranian Private Language Institutes

This interpretivist multiple case study investigates how five teachers at Iranian private language institutes strategically perform their frontstage (classroom) and backstage (private) personas. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Findings reveal that teachers consistently perform frontstage personas that contrast with their backstage selves, adjusting their identities to students’ demographics, institutional expectations, and economic pressures. Identity performance emerged as both a common challenge and pedagogical necessity, sustained through surface and deep acting. By reframing teacher identity as a contextual performance through a poststructuralist-dramaturgical lens, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of the multiplicity of identities in English language teaching.