Do not touch my Identity: Exploring Professional Identity Construction of Moroccan ESP Teachers

Abstract

Over their careers, teachers have been found to struggle with the construction and the reconstruction of their multiple identities, and ESP teachers are no exception. They tend to find it hard to build their sense of who they are and what they professionally do. ESP teachers’ construction of their identities is gauged with reference to social discourse on teachers and their profession as well as the school culture of the institutions they work in. These different levels of context are reported to have consequential effect on teachers’ self-image and professional role identity. This paper reports, based on a TESOL frame of perspectives, on 22 participants ESP teachers and how complex, painful or easy it was for them to transform their professional practices and construct their professional identities as ESP teachers after having been teachers of General English. The results of our study show the consistent and harmonious linkage between the five frames constituting the Moroccan ESP teachers’ professional identity construction.