Exploring Japanese University English Teachers' Professional Identity

This book examines the professional identities of Japanese university English teachers. It focuses on how relatively new teachers develop their professional identities, how gender impacts the professional identities of female professors, and how teaching practices and beliefs reflect personal and professional identity.

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This book contributes to the growing field of EFL teacher identity, which is now recognized to influence numerous aspects of classroom teaching and of student learning. It focuses on an under-researched, and yet highly influential group of teachers that shape English language education in Japan: Japanese university English teachers. In three interrelated narrative studies, it examines how four relatively new teachers develop professional identity as they become members of the community of practice of university English teachers; how gender impacts the professional identity of seven female professors ranging in age from their early 30s to their 60s; and how one teacher’s teaching practices and beliefs reflect her personal and professional identity.