Teacher emotions, identity, and speakerhood status in narratives of Filipino JET Assistant Language Teachers (ALT)

Abstract

This paper explores the accounts of four Filipino ALTs in teacher narratives as intertwined in their teacher emotions, identities, and practices to help understand modern changes in the understanding of the speakerhood status of traditionally perceived NNESTs in Japan and the globalized world using Norton’s (2013) concept of teacher identity. Primary data were collected from an initial survey questionnaire and semi-structured online interviews from four (4) ALTs. Guided by the narrative approach (Barkhuizen, 2008), we learned that Filipino ALTs’ identities are shifting and in flux as they navigate their emotions about their speakerhood status as ALTs in Japan. Participants responded with varying depictions of their imagined native (NES) and nonnative speakers (NNEST), specifying cultural, linguistic, and physical differences. Disappointment and frustration emerged as teacher emotions from external factors rather than speakerhood status. Moreover, feelings of happiness and inferiority, instead, were perceived to be associated with their speakerhood status. Data from the interviews show that their anxieties and inferiority related more to others' labeling of them as native speakers and the expectations of having to live up to the ideals of the NES. The data supports speakerhood status as a spectrum rather than a discrete category, with the participants’ teacher identities constantly shifting and in flux. The study shows that Filipino ALTs’ teacher emotions, as they relate to their communities, classroom policies, and shifting teacher identities, show and lead to their desire to invest and reinvest in their teaching practice and possibly signal shifts in teachers’ understanding of teacher ideologies.