Critical approaches to English language teacher education: A narrative inquiry into trainee teachers’ experiences as speakers of English

• Published in: Heliyon Vol. 9; no. 12; p. e22882
• Main Authors: Gándara, Yiyi López, Rendón-Romero, Sara Isabel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2023; Elsevier
• Subjects: Critical teacher education; English language teacher education; Mixed-method design; Narrative inquiry; Teacher identity; Narrative inquiry; Critical teacher education; Mixed-method design; English language teacher education; Teacher identity
• ISSN: 2405-8440; 2405-8440
• DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e22882

Working within the framework of critical language teacher education, this article concerns itself with the disenfranchising experiences of a group of trainee English language teachers as speakers of English in the world. It presents the results of a mixed-method narrative inquiry carried out with 198 trainee teachers studying undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Teaching English as a Foreign Language in the South of Spain. Both a questionnaire and structured interviews were used to collect participants’ narratives of the disenfranchising experiences they have had as English speakers, their reflections on the factors that played a role in those experiences and their tools to manage them. The ATLAS.ti program was used to carry out the content analysis of the narratives, using both deductive and inductive categories. Results point to the need to address the interrelation of language, power and identity as part of teacher training programs and adopt a critical perspective in English language teacher education in order to equip future teachers to better understand communication and the factors that play a role in it, balance power inequalities in communicative interactions and deal with disenfranchising experiences as English speakers in the world. •Identity is a lived historical category.•Identity affects how trainee English language teachers approach social interactions.•Feeling disenfranchised as English speakers is common among trainee teachers.•A critical perspective must be adopted in English language teacher education.•Teacher education can become a site for liberation working against discrimination.