ABSTRACT
Often described as the hidden side of teaching (Freeman, 2002), the influence of teachers’ learning and knowledge had often been overlooked when it came to second language learning. However, the last 30 years have seen a steady evolution in the understanding of how teacher learning and knowledge are conceptualized (Freeman, 2002). This understanding includes how prior learning experiences, teacher education, and classroom practices shape and are shaped by teacher cognition. Language teacher cognition is now a well-established domain of enquiry (Borg, 2003) that needs to broaden its scope on different aspects of language teaching. The beliefs teachers have are intricately tied to their identity and are woven together with the agency a teacher develops in a given situation, as well as the emotions tied to the experiences they have experienced as part of their own life journey. This chapter will start with a review of these different yet intertwined concepts, before exploring them in regards to the participants of this book.
