Professional Identity and Imagined Student Identity of EIL Teachers in Islamic Schools

ABSTRACT

This paper contributes to the critical studies literature on English as an International Language (EIL) teacher professional identity. It examines the competing values associated with competencies in language teaching, national curriculum, and school contexts to determine how teachers’ beliefs on what it means to be a professional teacher are shaped. Literature related to language teachers’ professional identities is presented in order to analyse how EIL teachers determine which particular responsibilities constitute professional teachers. This study investigates reports from five teachers working in four privately-funded Islamic schools regarding their professional responsibilities as they recontextualise Indonesia’s competency-based curriculum and values education policies in their EIL classes. The findings suggest that the teachers consider their professional identity to be more focused on that of caregiver and moral guardian rather than as an English teacher. It also demonstrates that teachers’ professional identity informs teachers’ hopes/ambition for their students’ futures or teachers’ imagined student identity.

KEYWORDS:

• Competency-based curriculum
• EIL
• Indonesia
• Islamic school
• professional identity

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Endeavour Research Fellowship, Department of Education and Training Australian Government [6303_2018].

Notes on contributors

Uswatun Qoyyimah

Uswatun Qoyyimah works as a senior lecturer and researcher in the English Language Education Department, Faculty of Teacher Education, Universitas Pesantren Tinggi Darul Ulum (Unipdu), Indonesia. Her research areas are language teaching, English as an international language, teacher professionalism, Islamic schools, and curriculum development and implementation.

Parlo Singh

Parlo Singh is a Professor (Sociology of Education), School of Education and Professional Studies, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. She has been working in the area of educational policy, language education, cultural identity, and teacher professionalism for over 20 years and has led many large scale research projects in this field.

Beryl Exley

Beryl Exley is a professor of writing and literacy education and language teacher at the School of Education and Professional Studies, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. Her research work spans English curriculum and literacies in the primary and middle years curricula.

Catherine Doherty

Catherine Doherty is currently a professor of Pedagogy and Social Justice at the University of Glasgow. As a sociologist of education, her research has addressed different sectors and settings to pursue questions around curricular markets, language identity, pedagogic design, classroom morality and geographic mobility.

Yosi Agustiawan

Yosi Agustiawan works as a senior lecturer and researcher in the Faculty of Science and Engineering, Universitas Pesantren Tinggi Darul Ulum (Unipdu), Indonesia. His expertise includes qualitative data management and qualitative data analysis using NVivo software. His research areas are professionalism and school management systems.