Evolution of Approaches to Teacher Cognition and Teacher Identity: A Conceptual Conversation

Abstract

In this paper, as two TESOL practitioners, our purpose is to capture our reflections on how conceptual approaches to teacher learning have evolved over the years to highlight the interplay between teacher cognition and teacher identity. We also seek to decrease the distance between ourselves and our academic writing, essentially emerging from behind the conventions of academic writing to discuss concepts in a conversational tone, hopefully making them more accessible to a larger audience of practitioners and scholars. In discussing our ongoing negotiation of theoretical orientations, we have been able to reflect on the influence of the language teacher cognition research base on the wider field of language teacher identity research. The main take-away is that we can better illustrate the complexity involved in the practice of language teaching and the process of becoming language teachers if we combine the two in complementary ways: teachers’ individual cognitive and metacognitive processes involved in their professional learning and their situatedness in social, cultural, political, and economic discourses.