REHEARSING THE TEACHER SELF: DRAMA AND TEACHER IDENTITY NEGOTIATION IN PRE-SERVICE ELT EDUCATION

📝 Özet

This study explored how pre-service English Language Teaching (ELT) teachers enact and experience different teacher selves through drama and how these experiences contribute to the negotiation and reimagining of their emerging teacher identities. Adopting a qualitative longitudinal interpretive design, the study involved 25 pre-service ELT teachers enrolled in a 14-week university-based drama course at a foundation university in Istanbul, Türkiye. Data were generated through written teacher-self reflections collected at three stages of the course and individual semi-structured interviews conducted after the course. Reflexive thematic analysis, combined with within-participant longitudinal analysis, identified three interconnected themes: trying on the teacher self, finding fit and misfit, and reimagining the future teacher self. The findings indicated that participants differed in how they related enacted teacher positions to their emerging professional selves. Some positions generated identification, whereas others prompted distance or resistance. Across the semester, participants showed varied trajectories of reconsideration, refinement, confirmation, and uncertainty rather than uniform identity change. The study conceptualises drama as a potential identity rehearsal space in which pre-service ELT teachers can temporarily enact, evaluate, and reconsider possible ways of being a teacher without being required to adopt them as part of their professional identities. The findings highlight the potential of drama for supporting exploratory and reflective identity work in pre-service ELT education.

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