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Previous studies have explored the process of professional identity construction from multiple perspectives. According to Lasky (2005), teachers’ identity refers to “a construct of professional self that evolves over career stages” (p.901). Cooper and Olson(1996) described the development of teachers’ identity as being continually informed,formed and reformed. Knowles (1992) identified that teachers’ self-conception might be impacted by four sources: role models, prior teaching experience, remembered education classes, and informal, personal experiences of learning and activities. Franzak (2002) added that from childhood to their present state of adulthood, these multiple factors gradually shape a teacher’s identity until it manifests and becomes explicit. He pointed out two types of competences, namely, “foundational competence” (e.g., language-related identity, disciplinary identity, context-related identity, self-knowledge and awareness, and student-related identity) and “advanced competence” (e.g., practiced and responsive teaching skills, theorizing from practice, and membership in communities of practice and profession) as core competences that language teachers should possess in creating their professional identity.
In light of the previous research, the present study aims to examine the professional identity development of three rural secondary school language teachers and how their professional identity is af ected by personal, professional, and contextual factors. It sets the English teaching in secondary school as the research context and selects language teachers from the schools in rural and multiethnic regions as focal participants. This study is guided by an integrated theoretical framework including History-in-Person, Identity-in-Discourse, and Identity-in-Practice and Identity Formation Theory as a theoretical base, seeking to shed light on the professional identity formation of rural school EFL teachers in a specific sociocultural and institutional context. It sets out to explore how personal factors such as past language learning activities, teacher role models, significant events, language and disciplinary related knowledge affect teachers’ sense-making process. This study also seeks to elaborate on how external learning experiences, for instance, school-based peer-coaching and national teacher training programs like the NTTP help to reshape their professional identity. In addition, the study makes ef orts to reveal how school environment, multiethnic culture and parents’ investment might form teachers’ professional identity construction. It is also the researcher’s expectation that the exploration of teachers’ professional identity formation process would of er implications for teacher educators and front-line teachers, especially EFL teachers in rural and border regions with insu ficient resources in China, a novel perspective to teachers’ professional development.