A sociocultural View on Teacher Identity

The study of teacher identity has gained significant ground in recent years since it has been recognized that what happens in the classroom is, to a large extent, a reflection of each teacher’s own understanding of their profession in relation to their larger social, cultural, and political context (^{Miller, 2009}; ^{Varghese, Morgan, Johnston, & Johnson, 2005}). In the field of applied linguistics, it is now commonly accepted that the role of the teacher is not limited to that of a technician who must follow a given set of pre-established methodological principles to achieve certain learning goals. Instead, scholars interested in the study of teacher identity point out that teachers’ ideas of who they are and of what teaching should be directly impact daily practices in the classroom (^{Barkhuizen, 2016}; ^{Day, Kington, Stobart, & Sammons, 2006}; ^{Varghese, Motha, Trent, Park, & Reeves, 2016}).

This is how, in the field of language teaching, the growing body of research on teacher identity has come to be concerned with its intricate relationship with a variety of factors, such as teacher cognition (what teachers think, know, believe, and do) (^{Borg, 2009}; ^{Kubanyiova & Feryok, 2015}), experiences (both learning and teaching), practices ( ^{Flores & Day, 2006}; ^{Olsen, 2016}; ^{Sayer, 2012}; ^{Scholes Gillings de González, 2011}), emotions (^{Song, 2016}; ^{Wolff & De Costa, 2017}), as well as discourses and positioning (^{Kayi-Aydar, 2015}; ^{Morgan, 2004}; ^{Pavlenko, 2003}). In these cases, it has frequently been necessary to also relate identity formation to contextual conditions as well as to social, cultural, and political factors mediating education.

This multiplicity of factors has led to the emergence of various definitions for “identity.” Some of these definitions include the idea that it is determined by the ways in which a “person understands his or her relationship to the world, how that relationship is constructed across time and space, and how the person understands possibilities for the future” (^{Norton, 2000}, p. 5). Related definitions address identity as a dynamic process of “making sense and (re)interpretation of one’s own values and experiences” ( ^{Flores & Day, 2006}, p. 220), as being recognized as a certain “kind of person” in a given context at a given moment (^{Gee, 2000}, p. 99), or as the ways in which one participates in communities of practice (^{Wenger, 1998}).

The above definitions go beyond the idea that identity is pre-established and static, that it is a psychological or a biological characteristic. Instead, to different degrees these conceptions describe identities as arising from sociocultural factors. That is, in the case of teachers, the configuration of identities results from the influence of contextual factors and the negotiation that comes along with those factors. This influence, as ^{Norton (2000)} suggested, is constructed across time and space and is conflicting and changing. At the same time, as ^{Flores and Day (2006)} argued, the context leads us to negotiate our own values and experiences. ^{Gee (2000)} stressed the importance of interaction with others in developing a sense of who one is, as this sense-making process is necessarily mediated by how one is (or is not) recognized in a social context. ^{Wenger (1998)} insisted on this social dimension as a sense of identity developed according to how one affiliates with different communities of practice and takes part in them.

In resonance with these sociocultural views, ^{Olsen (2016)} offered a compelling definition of teacher identity. For him, it is

a term to describe both the active process of using personal and professional, past and present influences in order to enact one’s teaching and teacher learning, and the resulting product: that dynamic assemblage of influences-and-effects (and I connect the words “influences” and “effects” with hyphens to emphasize their interconnectedness) that is always guiding a teacher’s perspectives and practices. (p. 48)

Just like ^{Norton (2000)}, ^{Olsen (2016)} emphasized the idea that teacher identities are shaped by prior, current, and-as ^{Norton (2000)} also highlighted-upcoming personal experiences as well as experiences as learners and teachers that have taken or will take place in different contexts. Therefore, interpretations of the world, including what teaching is about, derive directly from the influences and effects of such experiences.

As an illustrative metaphor, ^{Olsen (2016)} compared teacher identity with a pair of unique glasses “constructed out of the materials of our own personal histories” (p. 44), through which the world of teaching and all its factors are interpreted. As a result of such interpretations, he argued, teachers make decisions that shape their practices and construct ideas of the extent to which these practices are successful. These glasses also influence the diverse terms in which teachers may develop relationships with their teaching contexts (e.g., colleagues, administrators, policies, and the community). It follows that, as more experiences are lived, the interpretive frame of the glasses is adjusted, allowing us to see different shades in the interpretations we can make at different points in time.

The following working definition of the term “language teacher identity” (LTI) can also be used to draw special attention to its sociocultural nature:

Language teacher identities (LTIs) are cognitive, social, emotional, ideological and historical-they are both inside the teacher and outside in the social, material and technological world. LTIs are being and doing, feeling and imagining and storying. They are struggle and harmony: they are contested and resisted, by self and others, and they are also accepted, acknowledged and valued, by self and others. They are core and peripheral, personal and professional, they are dynamic, multiple and hybrid, and they are foregrounded and backgrounded. And LTIs are short-term and overtime-discursively in social interaction with teacher educators, learners, teachers, administrators, and the wider community, and in material interaction with spaces, places and objects in the classroom, institutions and online. (^{Barkhuizen, 2017}, p. 4)

This definition underscores the idea that the identities of teachers should be seen as a complex phenomenon with multiple iterations, hence the use of the plural for the term “identities.” In agreement with ^{Norton (2000)} and ^{Olsen (2016)}, this definition highlights that identities are dynamic and may at times enter a state of struggle as they are developed at different points in time, under different social circumstances, and in interaction with different people in different locations. Thus, it follows that LTIs are not solely a cognitive process but also the result of socialization and interaction with others who may accept, resist, or assign such identities. In line with the discussion in the preceding sections, ^{Barkhuizen’s (2017)} definition considers the affective dimension, historicity, and future imaginings of teachers as key factors in how they shape images of themselves.

^{Barkhuizen’s (2017)} definition also recognizes teachers’ engagement with pedagogic materials as well as physical and online spaces as important players in their self-understanding as teachers. At the same time, in this definition, ^{Barkhuizen (2017)} stressed the idea that LTIs are both enacted and constructed discursively; that is, ideas of who teachers are shape their actions and the things they say. This point is complemented with the argument that the things teachers say and do also shape their ideas of who they are (^{Kanno & Stuart, 2011}; ^{Morgan, 2004}).

To sum up, in light of the above definitions, this analysis follows a sociocultural understanding of LTIs by considering identities as situated and thus highly influenced by contextual factors such as education policies, cultural values, and socioeconomic circumstances, as well as the social struggles of their students and the communities teachers may take part in. This paper will treat the sense of who teachers are as having been developed in negotiation with those factors across time and space, and it will consider them evident in their discursive recreation of both their histories and future imaginings as they narrate their experiences. As this understanding of who teachers are is dependent on the (non)recognition they could obtain from others in social interactions, the images teachers construct of themselves are likely to shift and enter into conflict.

This view of identity, as I argue in the next section, offers appropriate theoretical ground for analyzing different strands of belief around teacher professionalism.

Teacher professionalism and identity

As discussed, from a sociocultural view of teacher identity, teachers’ sense of who they are is the result of multiple factors. Identity is not seen as something biologically or cognitively predetermined but, on the contrary, as being constructed by means of the relationships we establish with the world at different points in time, under different circumstances (^{Norton, 2013}; ^{Olsen, 2016}). This multiplicity of factors, I argue, can also play an important role in shaping notions of teacher professionalism. Situated circumstances, teacher experiences, community problems and aspirations, as well as the demands of policy makers and the market are some of the factors that may come to shape different understandings of good teaching.

To illustrate this argument, I will draw on ^{Leung (2009)}, who defines a professional as “a trained and qualified specialist who displays a high standard of competent conduct in their practice” (p. 49). From this definition, he proposes two different ways in which professionalism can be viewed: sponsored professionalism and independent professionalism (^{Leung, 2009}). The former refers to institutionalized, top-down views on professionalism usually “promoted by regulatory bodies to introduce reform and/or by professional associations to advocate change” (Leung, 2009, p. 49). The latter, in contrast, highlights a bottom-up, socially and historically sensitive sense of professionalism.

According to ^{Leung (2009)}, sponsored professionalism is more likely to be the approach adopted by policy makers in the implementation of education policies that are aligned principally with market interests, as is the case of the ELT programs in Colombia. In this sense, professionalism in teachers is usually constructed upon technical principles of knowledge of the subject matter and delivery of curricular guidelines and teaching methodologies with the aim of attaining given goals. On the other hand, the independent understanding of professionalism considers professional success to be more locally grounded in specific contexts and gives more weight to the sense individual teachers have of how their work is perceived and appreciated and how appropriately they have tailored their professional actions in relation to the circumstances and social circumstances they are immersed in.

Under the sponsored sense of professionalism, then, negative identifications of teachers are likely to emerge if they do not meet the goals established by policy makers, which is, in turn, taken as a valid reason to question the content and pedagogical knowledge they are expected to possess. For example, when reporting on the low performance of Colombian students on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)¹ examinations or in a ranking of countries by English skills conducted by English First (EF)² (see Figures 1 to 4), media reports tended to portray teachers as the primary cause of the supposed or assumed failure.

The news report from El Universal (Figure 1) discussed how Colombia is struggling to get proficient in English, describing it as the language of economic development in times of globalization. It then explained that low English proficiency was caused by the fact that it is not taught effectively (^{Fortich Mesa, 2013}).

Figure 1 News headline from El Universal Note: The headline “Rajados en inglés” can be roughly translated to “Flunking English” (^{Fortich Mesa, 2013}, September 6). 

In response to the question asked in its headline, the article from El Tiempo (^{Gossaín, 2014}, February 27) in Figure 2 argued that poor quality of education in Colombia is a result of the poor quality of its teachers. It went on to explain the poor proficiency level in English by rhetorically asking how students can be expected to speak English if their teachers cannot (^{Gossaín, 2014}).

Figure 2 News headline from El Tiempo Note: The headline “Por qué es tan mala la educación en Colombia” can be roughly translated to “Why education is so poor in Colombia” (^{Gossaín, 2014}, February 27). 

Figure 3 depicts the headline of an article from El Espectador newspaper (^{2016, November 15}). As in the headline in Figure 1, this article used the verb rajar (a term used in regional Colombian Spanish to mean “to flunk”) when reporting that Colombia continues to perform poorly in English. It showed that, according to the results of an English proficiency test administered by EF, Colombia ranked among the countries with a very low level of English, taking 10^th place out of 14 countries in Latin America (^{El Espectador, 2016, November 15}).

Figure 3 News headline from El Espectador Note: The headline “Colombia sigue rajado en inglés” can be roughly translated to “Colombia still Flunking English” (^{El Espectador, 2016, November 15}). 

One year after the ^{El Espectador (2016, November 15)} story, ^{Portafolio (2017, November 16)}, whose headline can be found in Figure 4, hit a slightly more positive note when it reported that, although Colombia is still performing badly on the test administered by ef, it is now classified in the group of countries with a low level of proficiency, as opposed to the very low category it had fallen into previously. This indicates a slight improvement. However, in a more recent article published in November 2018, the same magazine reverted to reinforcing the idea that the country is not meeting the government’s expectations of improving proficiency in English (^{Portafolio, 2018, November 8}).

Figure 4 News headline from Portafolio Note: The headline “Los retos que tiene Colombia para mejorar el dominio del inglés” can be roughly translated to “The challenges of Colombia to improve proficiency in English.” The image is a screenshot taken from ^{Portafolio (2017, November 16)}. 

After examining these five media reports from different popular Colombian newspapers, it can be observed that teachers tend to be held responsible for the lack of success in international examinations. And the same stories follow up by suggesting that the solution is to improve the quantity and quality of English language teachers (^{Fortich Mesa, 2013}), establish more ways to monitor and evaluate teachers, or import more native English language teachers (^{Portafolio, 2017, November 16}). The general message from these five news pieces seems to be that Colombian English language teachers are ineffective from a sponsored view of professionalism.

After this brief review of how media seem to construct identifications of teachers in rather negative terms, a question that arises is, how do teachers identify themselves? Or, in other words, what would count as “a high standard of competent conduct” (^{Leung, 2009}, p. 49) from an independent sense of professionalism? These questions are especially relevant when analyzing rural contexts, where education policies are challenged by unique social issues such as extreme poverty, deprivation, under-resourced schools, child labor, and limited access to higher education (^{Lackin & Gasperini, 2004}; ^{López & Núñez, 2007}; ^{Perry, 2010}; ^{Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo, 2011}). From a sociocultural perspective, these issues come to bear in configuring teachers’ identities as professionals. Before I address these issues, though, it is important to discuss the analytical framework from which the notion of identity will be approached in this paper as well as some key aspects of the research methods followed.

Analytical Framework of Identity

In their theorization of language teacher identity, ^{Varghese et al. (2005)} explained that the notion of identity is usually addressed as being multiple, shifting, and in conflict. Similarly, in a review of the definitions of teacher identity in the field of TESOL, ^{Miller (2009)} concluded that identity is usually regarded as being “relational, negotiated, constructed, enacted, transforming and transitional” (p. 174). These multiple traits assigned to the notion of identity seem to respond mainly to post-structural tendencies that emphasize a changing and unstable idea of this concept (^{Miller, 2009}). At the same time, however, the multiple connotations have loaded the scope of “identity” with such a high level of ambiguity that the term risks losing its value as a useful category of analysis (^{Brubaker & Cooper, 2000}).

In order to address the problem of ambiguity, and aligned with the sociocultural view of teacher identity discussed above, the present scrutiny benefits from ^{Brubaker and Cooper’s (2000)} nuanced analytical approach to the notion of identity. These authors argued that in order to add analytical precision to all the meanings usually associated with the term “identity,” an alternative intertwined set of terminology can be useful. They proposed three clusters of terms: (a) identification and categorization (how one self-identifies or is identified by others in specific situations); (b) self-understanding and social location (the sense of who one is in relation to the social context and how one acts accordingly); and (c) commonality, connectedness, and groupness (different ways one can feel a member of a given group and the degrees to which they do so). As ^{Brubaker and Cooper (2000)} argued, these terms are useful when examining multiple issues related to a sense of being with much more analytical precision than the “heavily burdened” (p. 8) term “identity” can offer. This is because this term has been used to mean many things, which in turn has made it highly vague and of little use for analytical purposes.

The use of this analytical toolkit makes it possible to approach identity formation as a process rather than a state, which at the same time permits exploration of tensions between identifications of teachers made by others and those made by themselves in different situations and points in time. It has also been useful in pinning down ways in which participants have understood the implications of being rural teachers as well as the ways in which they have established ties with both rural communities and communities of teachers of English. Due to space restrictions, this article will focus exclusively on how teachers are identified and self-identified as professionals. As we will see, this analysis sheds important light on how they develop situated understandings of what can be considered good teaching. In other papers the idea of how teachers self-understand and how they relate to the rural community will be examined.

Participants

Ten rural English language teachers from seven different regions of Colombia participated in this study. They were recruited on a voluntary basis and, as they were from different regions, they did not constitute a homogeneous group. As shown in Table 1 below, their level of proficiency in English, years of experience, contexts they have worked in, places of origin, and work statuses were some of the most striking variables among the group.

As presented in Table 1, some teachers believed their proficiency level ranged from B1 to B2, according to CEFR guidelines. This information was voluntarily disclosed, and four participants (Clara, Camilo, Lily, and Jairo) opted not to make specific allusions to their proficiency level. As we shall see later, nonetheless, teachers’ perceptions in this regard came to bear strongly in their sense of who they are as professionals. With respect to the number of years into the teaching profession, we can see that most participants (six) were highly experienced with over 15 years of teaching. The other four teachers’ experience ranged from 5 years (Arturo) to 10 years (Hilda). It can therefore be said that although none of the participants was a novice teacher, there may be a big difference in the richness of experiences between the most and least experienced.

Table 1 Heterogeneity across participants 

Referring now to the contexts in which the participants’ work experiences have taken place, the table shows that, except for Maria and Hilda, who have only worked in rural schools, most teachers had prior experience in urban contexts too. This is another salient factor in the heterogeneity of the participants, which connects with the origin variable of Table 1. While only three teachers came from rural families, the other seven appeared to have gained familiarity with rural life mainly through their professional practice. Finally, in terms of their work status, at the time of the study, three teachers had been unable to find a permanent position and were therefore not as stable as the others, as these three teachers might be removed from their workplaces or transferred at any time.

This heterogeneity necessarily makes every teacher unique, and thus, as ^{Olsen (2016)} states, talking about their identity is a way to celebrate that uniqueness. However, ^{Olsen (2016)} also suggests that uniqueness leaves room for some shared understandings, conflicts, contradictions, and positionings with other teachers. In this context, informed by the factors that make each participant different, this analysis aims to find points of convergence in an attempt to build the case for common understandings and undertakings among participants. It is in this spirit that the discussions on teachers’ identifications as professionals are developed in this paper.

Teachers’ Identifications: Creating Alternative Narratives of Success

As noted, the notion of identification allows us to approach the idea of being as a process occurring in social life under different circumstances by different people (^{Brubaker & Cooper, 2000}). In this particular case, this analytical concept has been useful to pin down tensions and contradictions between identifications of teachers made by groups in power (e.g., policy makers) and those made by teachers themselves or people they interact with on a daily basis (e.g., colleagues, students, parents). For the purposes of this analysis, I call the former etic identification and the latter emic identification. This study shows how, for instance, these two types of identification seem to be in opposition to one another. As shown in previous sections, from an etic identification perspective, English teachers in Colombia tend to be positioned as ineffective because the country is not doing well on international standardized examinations and because the goals of the ELT policy are not being accomplished (^{MEN, 2014}).

Considering the challenges attached to teaching English in rural contexts such as under-resourced schools, precarious economic circumstances, and poverty (see ^{Cruz-Arcila, 2017}), it would not have been surprising that this study would corroborate these ideas of lack of success in teaching English among rural teachers. This would be expected, for instance, insofar as rural students are usually outperformed by their urban counterparts in all national standardized examinations (^{Delgado, 2014}). However, from an emic perspective of identification, data from this study show that teachers construct a quite positive image of who they are: they tend to portray themselves as successful professionals. As shown below, the notion of success for them, however, is built on alternative narratives not necessarily in line with policy compliance but rather with a recognition of their work from what the Canadian philosopher Charles ^{Taylor (see Taylor, 1994)} calls “significant others.”

In consonance with the sociocultural perspective of identity that this analysis follows, ^{Taylor (1994)} viewed the sense of who one is as construed based on interactions with others and on the ways in which one feels (mis)recognized by them. Thus, “significant others” serves to refer to the groups of people who play a significant role in one’s life. In the case of teachers of English, it can be argued that the group of significant others includes their students, fellow teachers, school administration, parents, and, in some cases, ELT specialists. One of the study’s participants, Arturo, serves as a case in point to illustrate this alternative identification as a successful professional. He felt with certainty that he did his work well not because his students reached high levels of proficiency but because they explicitly recognized his work.

I have really felt that I’ve done my job. We have not advanced much but my students already know the basic stuff, the elementary things. I wouldn’t say that they leave [high school] with a C1 or B2 level [in the CEFR] but my pupils like my lessons a lot. I use images a lot, flashcards. I prepare activities, games. I even treat eleventh graders as little kids …I bring them activities for primary school kids... they have even told me “Teacher, with the only teacher we feel there is a [learning] process is with you” Those are my students’ words. I do think that in the discipline, demand and good lesson planning is where success lies [...] This year a group of students approached me and said to me “Teacher, this is the first time we feel we learn English with a teacher, we are really learning, teacher.” (Arturo, interview 1)

In accordance with ^{Norton (2000)}, this excerpt clearly shows how Arturo’s positive identification is grounded in how he understands his relationship to his professional world. Arturo’s sense of professional success is that it is the result of hard work, creativity in the implementation of pedagogic strategies, and being demanding with students. This suggests he feels that not reaching high levels of proficiency is not due to lack of effort on the part of either himself as a teacher or his students. Thus, the fact that goals are not attained does not directly mean, for him at least, that he has failed as a teacher. On the contrary, the students’ recognition of his work counts as an important indicator for him to identify as a good teacher.

In other instances, ideas of success are also fueled by recognition from school administration of the teacher’s work based on student achievement, which was the case for Hilda. In the following excerpt, we can see how she was identified by her principal as a successful teacher through a recognition given to her for the work she did in her first year at that school. Compared to previous years with different teachers, Hilda’s students had obtained higher results in the English component of the national examination they take at the end of high school, which is called “Pruebas Saber 11”.

The pupils I worked with last year, pupils who liked to investigate a lot. Any word they did not understand, anything that -I told them “Ok, it’s this word” or they look it up in the dictionary or they observed the word in a text and then asked me, thus they had the motivation, and those pupils did really well in English. They had a score that -higher than the previous years, then it is a satisfaction -it’s an acknowledgment that the principal made me. She said to me that it was an acknowledgement as my students had obtained a higher score. (Hilda, interview 2)

Again in this example, the recognition from a significant other in the professional field, in this case a school administrator, seems to play an important role in the ways teachers may create alternative narratives of success to the ones coming from policy makers. In this case, the idea of success is built from a bottom up view of achievement where what counts is not precisely to achieve policy goals as such but, as Hilda implied, to do better than before. However, in this excerpt, it is striking to see the conflicting nature of identity configuration (^{Norton, 2000}; ^{Tsui, 2007}; ^{Varghese et al., 2005}) as Pruebas Saber 11 is taken as a point of reference to “measure” Hilda’s success. This means that policy is not completely absent from this alternative positive construction of professional identification. The identity of a good teacher-grounded in the value given to teachers’ hard work and recognition from students and school administration, as shown above-comes to be mediated by the degree of policy compliance. Here is another similar example:

In Armenia was where I found a job [for the first time] in a private school which I liked so much that I even forgot that there were chances [to work in the state sector] … There I forgot about it because in that school at the end of the year I was evaluated by the principal, the board of parents and the students. They also decided whether we would have a job the following year or if we were sacked ... and I did so well that despite being Pastusa, and with my accent and all that, because when I started to work in Armenia, people said “Here comes the gringa pastusa” … Thus, despite that, my work was valued in that school and always every year I was given my job again. (Ana, interview 1)

In talking about her first job at a private school, Ana highlights how comfortable she felt there thanks to her work being valued by the entire academic community. Proof of the value given to her work is the job stability she had despite strict and regular evaluations. Interestingly, in this community, she was identified as a “gringa pastusa.” This categorization seems to also be a sign of the recognition of her as a valuable and thus successful teacher. To better understand this, it is necessary to spell out what the two terms mean. The term “pastusa/o” is used in Colombia to refer to people from the Southern department of Nariño, as people from this region are thought to have a strong accent in Spanish. The term “gringa/o” is used to refer to foreigners, especially from the United States, and thus, this also associates the term, in Ana’s case, with having high proficiency in English. Clustering the two terms seems to be a positive identification of her as a professional teacher because, despite the fact that she had a strong accent in Spanish, she was seen as having a good command of English.

Even though Ana’s experience took place before moving to work in a rural state school, referring back to it now suggests that this categorization has played an important role in her current positive professional self-identification. In this positive identification, we can also observe some tensions between the alternative view of professionalism built from the school community’s recognition and Ana as a teacher with a high level of English proficiency, which is one of the key expectations of policy makers. In fact, as shown in Table 1 above, Ana was one of three teachers who described themselves as holding a B2 level of proficiency, meeting policy expectations in this regard.

^{Leung (2009}) presents the two senses of professionalism (independent and sponsored) as being opposed to one another. However, the analysis carried out so far is beginning to suggest that these two senses of professionalism are intertwined in complex ways. From an independent sense of professionalism, rural teachers seem to be challenging the policy notions of what counts as a good teacher. However, in light of the previous excerpts, it could be argued that teachers are also negotiating their professionalism in multiple, not always dichotomous, ways. This point will be explored further in the discussion section of this paper. For now, let us continue exploring rural teachers’ independent professionalism.

The identifications discussed so far in the construction of teachers’ selves as successful professionals have included the school community. Beyond the local school context, their independent sense of professionalism also involves recognition from a third group of significant others. In particular, teachers refer to instances where people who are considered to hold some level of expertise in ELT have exalted their work. Included in this group, as the data suggests, are competent English language users (native speakers of English and local highly qualified teachers), local writers of ELT materials, and ELT researchers. Some teachers (Camilo, Maria, and Dora), for example, reported on situations where they have coached their students to participate in public performances in English at cultural celebrations in their schools or in regional school contests. The fact that native speakers of English or other local specialists were assessing the teachers’ work from a judging panel or even simply from the audience was an important factor in shaping their positive perceptions of the sort of professionals they are. This is especially the case when students have won competitions or been verbally complimented on their performance. Here is how Camilo put it:

With the pupils made a presentation in English about Billy Wilkings, a story of two cowboys, short, I adapted the text, I wrote the adaptation, I made up a few lines… The kids participated and we signed for the municipal championship of bilingualism. In the competition with about 5 or 6 other schools, and on that occasion I won. I beat the others with that presentation in English… In the judging panel there was a teacher from London, so I heard… Some teachers who were experts in English but from Armenia, and they were the jurors. I won, I won, we won with the kids that prize, and the additional prize was a place to participate in the championship of Bilingualism but at the department level. (Camilo, interview 1)

Camilo made several points here to build an argument of professional success. First, he emphasized all the things that he did: he made a presentation, he adapted the script, he made up a few lines in the script, and thus he won the prize. At the same time, while he clearly stated the things he did, he then included the students. He said, “We won with the kids” and the people who awarded the prize and assessed their work were ELT specialists of some sort. The recognition of the work done allowed both teacher and students to participate in another contest at a wider regional level with many other contenders from other municipalities. Although they did not win again, having reached that point meant his work was acknowledged by people who held some authority in his field. An experience such as that one, at the same time, contributed to constructing an image of himself as a good teacher grounded in the same alternative narrative of success as the cases shown above (i.e., their work being acknowledged by significant others).

In connection with this previous point, most teachers also seem to interpret their being considered to participate in this study as another gesture of recognition from an expert. The fact that a researcher was interested in knowing about their work for some teachers represented a reason to be happy and feel important. For example, Hilda said that

This [the participation in this study] is a new experience, I had not had it and to be able to talk to a person that has more experience eh in English is -in the language, well, one is happy because one does not have a person who knows English well everyday here… the presence of another person gives you strength, to say well, wow I feel important because I was chosen as a teacher of English (laughs) as a teacher of English, that is. (Hilda, interview 2)

Hilda expressed her feelings of happiness and satisfaction for having been taken into account in this project as that positioned her as a professional with valuable experiences to share. In other words, her professional history mattered to a significant other, and that interest from me (the researcher), as Camilo stated, “motivates and makes oneself feel important” (Camilo, interview 2), especially because, as Dora explained, researchers are usually interested in urban locales and the rural contexts tend to be ignored.

Self-identifications

In addition to recognizing others as sources of identification as successful professionals, the participating teachers also used self-identifications to reinforce the same image. For example, they brought up the achievements with their students as well as their own achievements as arguments to shape their positive image. That was certainly the case with Maria and Clara, who found in their students’ scores on the national examinations evidence of their accomplishments as professionals. On this particular issue, Clara said:

Every year we improved a little, [the scores] were increasing a little since I arrived as fortunately the area of English has been improving. Sometimes a lot, on other occasions very little, but fortunately since I am here it has never lowered… It is precisely because of that, fear it may lower, that the percentage of the school decreases, because of that I have seen the need to focus on reading comprehension in English. (Clara, interview 1)

Clara referred to how her students had been progressively improving the results they obtained on the national examinations since she arrived at the school nine years ago. She clearly stated that the improvement was slight but steady, and although it is perhaps still very far from the policy goals, those scores serve the purpose of establishing her identity as an effective professional. Interestingly, as the study in its entirety shows, her achievement seems to be grounded in the decisions she made in negotiating the policy. For example, Clara decided to focus on grammar and reading comprehension in her lessons as an attempt to align her practices to the focus of Pruebas Saber 11. This illustrates what ^{Ball (2003)} argued when he said that education policy is likely to shape teachers’ sense of who they are and what they should do because, usually over the long term, teachers come to assimilate it as the right thing to do. That is, teachers’ alternative notions of professional success do not necessarily imply moving completely away from policy requirements. External pressures such as national examinations and school rankings do have an effect on teachers’ practices and thus on their sense of professional being (see ^{Cruz-Arcila, 2018a}).

Not all positive self-identifications, however, were constructed in relation to Pruebas Saber 11. Dora’s notion of success was built from the idea that, thanks to her work, her primary pupils now seem to be eager to use English at school. This is remarkable because, as she explained, when she arrived at that school, her students were very shy and would not even interact with her in Spanish. She said that, now, not only are they willing to greet and sing to her and other teachers at the school in English but they are also keen on taking part in a special annual event she organizes at the school that she calls The Bilingualism Project, a day where students perform different sorts of activities in English (e.g., plays, songs, poems, rhymes) for the rest of the school.