Abstract: Expatriate language teachers are often located at the nexus of two or more ideological systems with conflicting educational and linguistic values (Eusafzai, 2015; Hamdan Alghamdi, 2014; Scotland, 2014). These conflicts in values along with the more immediate pressure of working within a foreign education institution affect (i) how teachers construct their identities as educators and professionals (Bailey, 2015; Chestnut, 2016; Nielsen, 2011, 2014; Romanowski & Nasser, 2015) and (ii) their pedagogy (Scotland, 2014). In this study, using data from semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and university classroom observations and recordings, I examine: 1) the micro, meso, and macro level factors that influence the identities, classroom pedagogies, and classroom language practice of expatriate teachers in South Korea, and 2) how these teachers discursively navigate these conflicting forces in and across levels in the agentive construction of their language teacher identity and in their classroom language practices. Drawing from recent studies of the sociolinguistics of globalization (Blommaert, 2010; Pennycook, 2014), I combine the notion of polycentricity with the Douglas Fir Group’s (2016) framework for SLA to better understand teacher agency (Larsen-Freeman, 2019) in the construction of teacher identity and in classroom language practices. I argue that a polycentric framework offers a better understanding of teacher agency, how it intersects with their identity positionings, and their pedagogical practices in relation.
Speaker bio: Anita Greenfield's research interest is in the process through which English continues tospread globally and how ideologies about the English language are reproduced,contested, and transformed in local settings in the outer circle. Her current research focuses on the agency of “native English speaking teachers” in theseprocesses and examines the narratives and classroom practices of “NESTs”working in South Korean classrooms.