A Study on Possible Selves of Turkish Pre-Service EFL Teachers

Abstract

There is no doubt that teaching profession requires passing through a long and challenging path where student teachers/teacher candidates undergo a variety of processes, phases and transformations. Beauchamp and Thomas (2009) point out that examining new teacher identity can be considered as an important step to develop more effective teacher training programmes and identity development of a teacher is related to understanding the notion of ‘self’. This study investigates the possible selves of pre-service EFL teachers in relation to the concept of developing new teacher identity. Aim of the study is to measure possible selves of new teachers that they expect to become and/or fear becoming in the near feature. In order to achieve this goal, ‘New Teacher Possible Selves Questionnaire’ was used to measure EFL teacher candidates’ expected and feared teacher possible-selves. A six-point Likert type scale of questionnaire on possible selves was applied to 149 pre-service EFL teachers from two universities. Results indicate that EFL teacher candidates have positive expectations and no certain fears for their first year of teaching, especially female teacher candidates who have higher scores than males in terms of expected possible-selves.

Keywords: New teacher identity, Pre-service EFL teachers, Possible-selves theory