Exploring English Language Teachers’ Critical Identities:

Abstract

This paper presents a literature review on critical Identities (CI), that implemented as methodology a profiling exercise, which according to Castañeda-Londoño (2019), is an exercise that allows the tracking of tendencies in research studies. An exploration was carried out in relation to what has been studied regarding the English language teachers’ critical identities (CI henceforth). Based on this, a conceptualization of CI will be briefly introduced, in order to frame this review within a critical perspective in education. Then, I will discuss how the review unveiled three trends: the first one is that some studies that relate to CI revolve around critical reflections and explore narratives as part of their methodology; the second one has to do with the fact that some studies explore the relations between criticality and English language teaching, as contents in courses or programs for in-service and pre-service teachers; the third one regards some studies that reveal how English language teachers (ELT) express our CI to confront power relations in our teaching practice. After that, I will comment the gaps that were identified in studies related to English language teachers’ identities, which consists on the opportunity to understand our CI as something that is built through our histories and stories, and that has an influence over our actions as well as teaching practices inside and outside the classroom. Finally, the conclusions of this profiling exercise will be exposed.