Unpacking the Perceived Personal and Contextual Conditions Shaping English Language Teachers' Professional Identity Formation in Secondary Schools

It is crucial for teachers to become aware of and understand their professional identity as this has implications for their day-to-day professional practices. Teachers who are more aware of their professional identities are more willing to endure thwarting contextual conditions by adjusting their identities. However, presently most teachers seem to overlook their professional identity while they often tend to associate the poor quality education with a lack of external resources alone. The aim of this study was thus to create this awareness in teachers by unveiling how the perceived personal and contextual conditions constitute the professional identities of experienced EFL teachers working in secondary schools. In this study, teacher professional identity is conceptualized and understood within the theory of symbolic interactionism. Data were generated through a one-on-one semi-structured in-depth interview with two EFL teachers (Fazi and Tare). Thematic analysis was used across participants within a qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological frame. The findings revealed that the participating teachers' professional identity is a multidimensional and dynamic reality shaped by personal agency and daunting contextual conditions that were represented through two pertinent themes: challenges and teacher emotions. Challenges and emotions that the participating teachers have experienced are found to be the constituents that come into play in the formation of their professional identity. The findings also revealed that the experienced teachers' professional identity is both a coconstructed and negotiated process, which unveils itself not only by compliance to external pressures (e.g., tolerating student misbehaviors) but also by repelling and adapting the external demands that are made available to them (e.g., politics-oriented assignment of school principals, inappropriate curriculum contents). This article thus suggests that more attention should be paid to the implicit messages (revealed through challenges) that all stakeholders convey to the teaching personnel.