In This Issue [of \u3ci\u3eTESOL Quarterly\u3c/i\u3e, on Language Teacher Identity]

Our decision to propose a special issue of TESOL Quarterly on language teacher identity (LTI) grew out of our growing recognition of the profound embeddedness of LTI within the research, teaching, and policy practices of (multi)lingual professionals and the immense interest generated by LTI work within the disciplines that engage with language education. We use (multi) in (multi)lingual to underscore our desire to move beyond a monolingual lens in TESOL and to highlight potential extensions to the notion of multilingualism, such as (pluri), (trans), (ethno), and (racio). This allows us to complicate the ever-changing, situated, and fluid nature of LTI beyond the essentialist categories often associated with the profession. These extensions, in particular, acknowledge language teachers (LTs) as denizens and creators of conversational borderlands (Anzaldúa, 1987). As such, each of us came to our individual understandings of this embeddedness in our personal and professional lives by different paths, as illustrated by the following narratives from each co-editor. ... Exploring our language teacher identities means understanding our lived and living history. It is to understand and unravel the complexities that are at the core of who we are on all levels—for instance, as multilinguals, scholars, children, teachers, parents, community members, language users, and activists and their intersectionality, all of which shape our classroom practices and pedagogy, which in turn fuel and circle back to shape our language teacher identities. After taking initial steps toward this end, this special issue and the articles herein are intended as an invitation for our readers to join us as we take further steps forth

Finding a Concrete Utopia in the Dystopia of a 'Sub-City'

This article examines a ten-year long series of annual short-term interventions with young people living in Dharavi (India) that has led to a number of public theatre events. The partnership offers a unique training experience to students from the UK in theatre facilitation, and a regular opportunity to participate in theatre for young people in Dharavi. It brings together students from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (University of London), working collaboratively with an Indian theatre practitioner, an NGO based in Mumbai, and young people who live in Dharavi. In the article, I explore the role theatre plays in the precarious lives of those who live in Dharavi, and the potential of this on-going partnership to develop a theatre of change in a community and site affected by extreme poverty. Focusing on the longevity of this applied theatre project and drawing on the writing of Paul Ricoeur on utopia, I argue that this on-going exchange can be understood both as a form of cultural invasion and, at the same time, a utopian community theatre practice. Whilst the project continues to raise troubling questions about cultural colonisation and power, the integrated investment of partners and participants over time has generated a resilient sense of optimism as well as, to a more limited degree, evidence of long-term positive change

Trapped in the Realm of the Body: Normative Bodily Practices in ESOL Pedagogy

This article examines processes of gender identity construction in the classrooms of two ESOL teachers living in their first year of teaching. Drawing from a year-long study of beginning teaching, the author explores the complex relationship among the physical body, language pedagogy, and socially constructed understandings of beauty, then goes on to problematize the pedagogical location of the body and ask how the gendered body can be mediated in classroom contexts. The article contrasts the two teachers' pedagogical approaches to the intricate work of locating the body in the ESOL classroom and discusses the range of possibilities available for the exploration, negotiation, and expression of gender identities in relation to the physical body

The Light Cast by Someone Else's Lamp: Beginning ESOL Teachers

This study was an in-depth exploration of the year-long journey of four first-year ESOL teachers who were women. The researcher asked about meanings of knowledge, pedagogy, and identity in the context of becoming a language teacher and sought to understand how beginning teachers' ideologies interact with their contexts. The teachers' naming and shaping of their own transformative pedagogies were complicated by the ways in which power and privilege manifested themselves in their schools and the ways in which ESOL students, language learning, and pedagogy came to be institutionally constructed. The teachers chose to neither adhere rigidly to their liberatory ideologies nor to submit to socializing influences. Rather, an ethic of caring towards students compelled them to find ways to integrate their commitments to social justice with sustainable pedagogies that supported students' long-term needs. This study was a critical feminist ethnography. Data sources included transcriptions of afternoon tea gatherings held every two or three weeks over the school year, classroom observations, interviews, and school and student artifacts. Part I explores the development of the teachers' meanings of English language teaching in a world in which English dominates politically. The ways in which Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has been interpreted are problematized, and the connections between grammar and social power are examined. Part II considers the teachers' negotiation of their roles in the shaping of their students' identities and positionalities, seeking to enrich understandings of how various dimensions of difference, particularly race, gender, and ethnicity, interact with a category that permeates all others in the realm of English language teaching, that is linguistic minority status. Part III examines the role the four teachers played in the discursive constructions of their professional identities and the ways in which they supported each others' critical consideration of socializing institutional forces. Two central constructs, becoming and belonging, underpinned the teachers' pedagogical processes and identity construction. These two constructs posed a challenge to traditionally accepted understandings of three intertwined themes: pedagogy, identity, and transformation. The theoretical implications of this dissertation include a need for a redefinition of the ways in which power, identity, and transformation are conceptualized

In This Issue [of \u3ci\u3eTESOL Quarterly\u3c/i\u3e, on Language Teacher Identity]

Our decision to propose a special issue of TESOL Quarterly on language teacher identity (LTI) grew out of our growing recognition of the profound embeddedness of LTI within the research, teaching, and policy practices of (multi)lingual professionals and the immense interest generated by LTI work within the disciplines that engage with language education. We use (multi) in (multi)lingual to underscore our desire to move beyond a monolingual lens in TESOL and to highlight potential extensions to the notion of multilingualism, such as (pluri), (trans), (ethno), and (racio). This allows us to complicate the ever-changing, situated, and fluid nature of LTI beyond the essentialist categories often associated with the profession. These extensions, in particular, acknowledge language teachers (LTs) as denizens and creators of conversational borderlands (Anzaldúa, 1987). As such, each of us came to our individual understandings of this embeddedness in our personal and professional lives by different paths, as illustrated by the following narratives from each co-editor. ... Exploring our language teacher identities means understanding our lived and living history. It is to understand and unravel the complexities that are at the core of who we are on all levels—for instance, as multilinguals, scholars, children, teachers, parents, community members, language users, and activists and their intersectionality, all of which shape our classroom practices and pedagogy, which in turn fuel and circle back to shape our language teacher identities. After taking initial steps toward this end, this special issue and the articles herein are intended as an invitation for our readers to join us as we take further steps forth

Pressed for Time: Strategies for Writing for Publication

TESOL professionals have many insights from teaching and research to share with domestic and international audiences but little time to write and publish. In this panel and subsequent audience discussion, presenters offer practical tips and strategies for integrating writing for publication into demanding schedules

Writing Groups and Collaborations: Strategies for Writing for Publication

TESOL professionals have many insights from their teaching and research to share with domestic and international audiences, but little time to write and publish. In this session, the presenters offer ways to incorporate collaborative writing for publication into demanding schedules to benefit themselves, the field, and future TESOL scholars

Pressed for Time: Strategies for Writing for Publication

TESOL professionals have many insights from teaching and research to share with domestic and international audiences but little time to write and publish. In this panel and subsequent audience discussion, presenters offer practical tips and strategies for integrating writing for publication into demanding schedules