Abstract:

This reflective self-study captured a novice language teacher’s professional identity construction through early career experiences after leaving his teacher educator position at the university. The context of the study was an EFL high school in Ankara. Data collection procedures included reflective journals, student reflections, individual and focus group interviews, and video recording. The data was collected from September 2017 to January 2018. After the data collection, all the data were organized and analyzed with the utilization of MAXQDA software. The findings showed that constructing a professional identity was a complicated process, in which environmental issues, educational philosophy of the teacher, English language teaching practices, teacher role(s) and other critical issues were taken into consideration. Also, professional identity construction is not an end product, but instead it is a cyclic progress that requires constant and continuous (re)adaptations and (re)organizations in one’s professional language teacher identity.

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