Language Teacher Identity, World Englishes, and ELF: A Duoethnography Between a “Native Speaker” Teacher and a “Non-Native Speaker” Teacher

ABSTRACTABSTRACTAs English has developed into a global language, comprehensive suggestions have been made for the integration of World Englishes (WE) and English as a lingua Franca (ELF) into language education. However, such suggestions have often encountered considerable resistance, in part due to the complexities in the formation of language teacher identity. In this paper, the authors employ a duoethnographic research method to explore how their encounters with WE and ELF have impacted their identities as a "native speaker" and a "non-native speaker" teacher of English. Through comparisons between their life histories, they demonstrate how their experience with WE and ELF have led to feelings of newfound legitimacy, and lingering incompleteness. The paper argues in order for the promotion of WE/ELF to be successful, more focus needs to be paid to the identity work required of teachers so that they can successfully and sensitively form a new conception of language teaching.KEYWORDS: DuoethnographyEnglish as a lingua francalanguage teacher identitynative speaker teachernon-native speaker teacherWorld Englishes AcknowledgmentWe would like to thank Dr. Stephen Voss and Luke Lawrence for their comments and suggestions on early drafts of this paper.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsElif Kemaloglu-ErElif Kemaloglu-Er is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Translation and Interpreting at Adana Alparslan Türkeş Science and Technology University. She received her PhD degree in English Language Education at Bogazici University with her dissertation on English as a lingua franca (ELF)-aware pre-service teacher education. Several of her publications focus on English as a lingua franca (ELF)- and World Englishes (WE)-awareness in language teaching and language teacher education and she has been an active participant and a leader in multifaceted ELF- and WE-related projects. Her research interests include English language teaching, English language teacher education, ELF and WE.Robert J. LoweRobert J. Lowe is an Associate Professor in the Department of Languages and Culture, Ochanomizu University. He is co-author of Teaching English as a Lingua Franca (DELTA Publishing, 2018), co-editor of Duoethnography in English Language Teaching (Multilingual Matters, 2020), and author of the monograph Uncovering Ideology in English Language Teaching (Springer, 2020). He has published papers in numerous journals, including Language Teaching, Applied Linguistics Review, and ELT Journal.