This colloquium will be rescheduled at a later date.

The DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGES AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS presents:

Jason Martel (Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey) – “Stories to Not Begin By: A Spanish Teacher Candidate’s Identity Deconstruction”

Within the robust research literature on teacher identity, there is a growing interest in “stories to leave by”––that is, reasons for which language teachers experience weakenings in their role identities and ultimately exit the profession (Schaefer, Downey, & Clandinin, 2014). As it turns out, the majority of these studies involve in- service language teachers, meaning that we do not yet have a sufficient understanding as to why pre-service teachers may experience similar weakenings in their role identities and thus choose to not enter the profession. Using a positioning theory lens (Davies & Harré, 1999; Kayi-Adar, 2018), the present study examined the identity construction of a Spanish teacher candidate who began her program strongly identifying with Spanish teaching and left it not seeing herself entering the profession, citing several uncomfortable experiences. The study’s findings bring into focus important considerations for designers of language teacher preparation programs, such as incorporating language development courses, helping candidates cultivate identities as innovative change makers, and structuring curricula in ways that serve candidates’ needs in a timely fashion.