Is a language teacher s professional identity affected by his her personal self

Abstract

It is a known fact that teachers’ professional identity is affected by a number of factors. Among these are their personal selves and how they view their environment. With this in mind, the purpose of the present case study is to find out the relationship between a teacher’s personal, educational and professional experiences and his/her professional teacher identity. In order to do this, a volunteer language teacher was given two guided journals and two interviews were carried out with him. After each interview, he was also observed in the class while teaching. The results of the qualitative data analysis showed that the teacher was influenced by his experiences as a student since he explicitly said that he seemed to be teaching like his teacher at the language school. He also tried to be a teacher he would like to have when he was a student. Moreover, the teacher was found to be quite affected by the significant male figure in his life. His handwriting, his success and his tidiness both as a student and teacher seemed to be influenced by this male figure. The general impression about him was that he paid attention to small details a lot. This attention was also seen in his classroom observations as he tried to make every detail clear for the students. In conclusion the professional identity of the teacher was found to be affected by his experiences as a student, by the role model he had for himself and by his personality.