ABSTRACT
This article answers the call for the need of more scholarly reflections on educators’ (co)construction and negotiation of pedagogical identities - the processes that are often perceived to be static and, thus, largely examined in existing applied linguistics research. The author’s aim was to unpack the ways certain pedagogic identities are constructed and negotiated by critically and discursively reflecting on her own experience as an English language educator for the past ten years in Malaysia and the United Kingdom. This was achieved mainly by drawing on insights from Bucholtz and Hall’s (2005) relationality and positionality sociocultural linguistic principles and Bernstein’s (2000) retrospective and prospective pedagogical identity positions within his notion of pedagogic identity. Overall, the author’s reflections reveal that the processes of pedagogic identity construction and negotiation are indeed complex, dynamic and context-dependent across multifarious settings. Most often, the identities are intertwined with various social factors such as gender, race, religion and socioeconomic backgrounds, leading to the construction of overlapping pedagogic identities. The resulting nuanced discussions show that such a critical reflection is necessary among educators to ensure meaningful second language teaching and learning are taking place in any academic settings.
