The Role of Context in Language Teachers' Self Development and Motivation - (Psychology of Language Learning and Teaching) by Amy S Thompson

About the Book

This book unpacks data from conversations with bi-/multilingual EFL teachers to provide insights into the formation of ideal teacher selves. The author discusses the complexities surrounding the development of the teachers' selves and motivation, as well as their intertwinement with the sociopolitical realities of their individual contexts.

Book Synopsis

This book unpacks data from conversations with bi-/multilingual EFL teachers to provide insights into the formation of ideal teacher selves. The author discusses the complexities surrounding the development of the teachers' selves and motivation, as well as their intertwinement with the sociopolitical realities of their individual contexts.

Review Quotes

This book provides a detailed account of the development of a language teacher self and motivation in multilingual countries, which also informs us of the dynamic interaction, interconnection, and interdependence between teachers and contexts; and offers future research directions, such as the learning experience of the L2MSS and the interplay of dual identities (the learner and the teacher). Therefore, I would recommend the book to researchers and language teachers who endeavor to both decipher and explore the relationship between language teacher selves and contexts.

This monograph is thought-provoking in that it delves deeply into the professional and academic trajectories of
EFL teachers who come from diverse sociopolitical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral backgrounds. Furthermore, the qualitative data were collected from teachers from seven countries which were underappreciated in the literature, so the findings can be novel and insightful.

Amy S. Thompson takes us on a dialectical journey between self and context as it informs being and becoming a multilingual user/teacher and leaves us with a myriad of questions, future directions, and implications to ponder in a world plagued by institutional racism, systemic inequalities, and professional discrimination.

Focusing on EFL teachers who are not first language speakers of English and who work in diverse cultural settings, this book brings together richly illuminating insights into their motivations, experiences and professional development. As Thompson's analysis shows, teachers' lives, contexts and perspectives truly matter, and her account makes for compelling reading.

About the Author

Amy S. Thompson is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Department Chair of World Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics at West Virginia University, USA. Her primary research interests involve individual differences in SLA and their interaction with multilingualism. She is co-editor, with Ursula Lanvers and Martin East, of Language Learning in Anglophone Countries: Challenges, Practices, Ways Forward (2020, Palgrave MacMillan) and has published in a range of Applied Linguistics journals.