(Re)Constructing English as a Foreign Language ( EFL ) Tutor Identity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Insights from China's Shadow Education

ABSTRACT This study explores how English as a foreign language (EFL) tutors in China's competitive and challenging shadow education sector (re)construct their professional identities in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Drawing on semi‐structured interviews and reflective teaching journals, the study investigates Chinese EFL tutors' identity work in AI‐mediated tutoring contexts. The findings reveal three interrelated identity shifts. First, tutors reconstruct themselves from knowledge and skill providers to learning facilitators who guide students in analysing and refining AI‐generated materials for exam‐oriented tasks. Second, emotional and motivational support becomes a central dimension of tutor identity, as tutors respond to students' discouragement and uncertainty triggered by AI‐generated feedback. Third, tutors construct themselves as interpreters and evaluators of AI‐generated content, exercising pedagogical judgement to assess relevance, accuracy and alignment with assessment requirements. Across these dimensions, identity construction emerges as a key site of professional learning through which EFL tutors renegotiate expertise and sustain professional legitimacy amid technological disruption and market competition. The study contributes to research on language teacher identity and AI in education by highlighting how EFL tutors maintain epistemic authority in AI‐mediated shadow education.