ABSTRACT
Researchers in recent years have recognized that preservice teachers’ imagined teacher identities are not only formed through coursework and practicum teaching opportunities but also through moments of social negotiation outside of formal teacher learning settings. These interactions provide preservice teachers with the opportunity to engage in reflective and dialogic practices, explore their expectations and experiences, and wrestle with their emerging and ever-shifting imagined teacher identities. This chapter explores the social negotiation of teacher identity among three preservice English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers as they participated in weekly, small-group discussions throughout a six-week, intensive teacher preparation program in South Korea. One specific episode of teacher identity negotiation—the American sojourning EFL teachers’ discussion of teacher personas—is presented as a storied vignette and highlights the material, relational, and ideational resources available within their emerging micro community of practice.
