ABSTRACT
In the age of mobility—mobility of knowledge, languages, and cultures—transnational discourses have deeply penetrated English Language Teacher Education (ELTE) around the world. While the intersection of transnationalism and ELTE has been well-documented in recent Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) scholarships, little is known about how the assessment practices in these ELTE programs are impacted by transnationalism. This chapter aims to fill the gap by critically examining the use of one such assessment practice, e-portfolio, among teacher candidates (TCs) at a small ELTE program in Saudi Arabia. Through narrative inquiry, this chapter explores the lived experience of two TCs in completing their e-portfolio assessment as part of their practicum at a public school, where the curricula, students, and teachers were all local. Two main data sources were used to analyze the participants' lived experience: (a) the e-portfolio, which consisted of their teaching philosophies, weekly journals, and final reflection, and (b) semi-structured interviews in the form of narrative frames prior to, during, and after their practicum. The data reveals that due to the conflicting discourses between the transnational ELTE curriculum and the local English curriculum at the public school, the TCs were put at multiple crossroads, tensions, and ambivalent identity positions. Yet, the e-portfolio provided a space for them to discursively negotiate their pedagogical practices, and as a result reconstruct their identities and knowledge. The chapter closes with pedagogical implications for ELTE in the transnational world and some critical questions for the ELTE community.
