A Narrative Inquiry of Identity Formation of EFL University Teachers

Abstract

Drawing on narrative inquiry, the present study aims to investigate the trajectory of identity formation of EFL university teachers. Two types of data are collected. One type comes from life histories of Hyland (2014), Nunan (2011) and Widdowson(2009), and the other type comes from semi-structured interviews with three excellent university teachers. With the first group of data, a thematic analysis of narratives is conducted. With the second group of data, a narrative analysis is done. The trajectory of identity formation for the first group is linear, revealing the three renowned applied linguists transforming from inexperienced EFL teachers to PhD researchers, and ultimately to applied linguists specializing in a specific field. Sharing similarities to the first group in the first two stages, the trajectory of identity formation for the second group is more like a loop, which is characterized as both an EFL learner and an EFL teacher through the entire career.