ABSTRACT
Contradictions and tensions may emerge between these factors within various activity systems, thus driving or impeding teacher professional development and identity construction. The dimension is particularly relevant for understanding teacher identity construction, which occurs within different activity systems regulated by institutional or broader sociocultural contexts. This chapter investigates a Chinese English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teacher’s identity development, as mediated by the changes in his professional life and reforms in his institutional setting. Data analysis was conducted recursively and iteratively as we moved between the data, the theoretical framework, and the research question to gain a deep understanding of the EAP teacher’s identity construction. The latest wave of College English Teaching reform in Chinese universities has promoted EAP as prospective substitutes for conventional general English courses to enhance university students’ academic English literacy.
