“Passing the Torch” to Language Teachers: A Transformative, Action-Oriented Perspective on Language Teacher Identity Research

Language teacher identity (LTI) research has experienced exponential growth over the past decades, shedding light on language teachers' multiple identities as well as their construction processes in various educational contexts. However, despite the fruitful findings, the dominance of researchers' perspectives and the contextual constraints faced by language teachers have exacerbated the longstanding gap between LTI research and practice. This forum paper proposes a transformative, action-oriented approach, which emphasizes identity transformation as an integral part of language teacher practice and the urgency of empowering teachers to actively engage in their own identity (re)construction in their situated classroom and institutional contexts. Specifically, the paper presents an action research (AR) proposal with an aim to broaden the LTI research agenda and ultimately "pass the torch" to language teachers to take an inquiry stance in their own professional growth. Directions for future research and practice are also discussed in the paper.