ABSTRACT
We (Andrea, a native Hungarian; Imelda, of Indonesian descent) are teaching English as a second language (ESL) while working on a doctoral degree at the same US university with limited institutional-research opportunities and scripted curricula. Andrea has lived in mostly European countries, such as Romania, Denmark, Hungary, and Germany, and the US. She studied and worked as a journalist in Romania and then taught teacher candidates and English language learners (ELLs) in academic, community-based, and workplace settings in Florida. She also taught English as a Foreign Language (EFL) for a year at a Romanian college. Imelda has lived mostly in Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. She taught EFL to elementary and college students in Indonesia for three years and ESL to adults in Iowa and Florida for six years. Even though we are positioned as “non-native speakers” (NNS), we employ a critical and social justice framework (Yazan, 2019; Yazan & Rudolph, 2018) to denounce this binary by recognizing our distinct linguistic, cultural, and professional identities, roles, and lived experiences as interconnected, fluid, and multiple and by employing asset-based practices that situate teaching and research as interrelated identity negotiations.
